Hi everybody –\u00a0My name is Joseph Albanese.<\/p>\n
The 6 months that it took me to design and develop this completely unexpected,\u00a0yet highly\u00a0rewarding\u00a0project\u00a0was\u00a0interesting, to say the least.<\/p>\n
I had the privilege of\u00a0attending TFHS in 1969 and 1970 until I was unceremoniously given the ‘boot’\u00a0after the school closed in 1970.<\/p>\n
It was at TFHS that I met Ron Ostrosser. When I was in Grade 9, Ron was in Grade 12. When I was in Grade 10, Ron and I were in the same class. Hey… now that I\u00a0think\u00a0about it Ron,\u00a0how did that happen anyway?\u00a0Did I unknowingly achieve such a high level of academic excellence that\u00a0I was\u00a0able to\u00a0catch up to you?\u00a0We’re going to have to talk about this\u00a0later Ron!<\/p>\n
I crossed paths with Ron again in 2000 when I got a part-time job with The Beer Store in Stoney Creek, Ontario. Hardly a day would go by when we didn’t talk about the old days in Fonthill. On one occasion I brought my TFHS yearbooks\u00a0(Nova 69 and Nova 70)\u00a0to work\u00a0so that Ron could borrow them. Ron didn’t have\u00a0any of his yearbooks and we were both excited about browsing them together. When Ron retired in March of 2010, I\u00a0started knocking around the idea,\u00a0to\u00a0scan my\u00a02 yearbooks and to give them to him on a DVD disk as a small retirement gift. Since I’m involved in Web Design and Development anyway, I then thought that it might be a better idea just to create a Web site with the books on it so that anybody who was interested could\u00a0have online access to\u00a0them.\u00a0After a\u00a0little research\u00a0I discovered that the school was open for 12 years and\u00a0in total, there were\u00a011 yearbooks published. Well, my fledgling Web site wasn’t going to be complete without all 11 yearbooks on it! That’s\u00a0when my current problems in life started (just kidding… well sorta)!<\/p>\n
I’ve managed large Web projects\u00a0that haven’t\u00a0consumed as much of\u00a0my\u00a0resources as this project did. However, it’s been worth every minute and dollar that I’ve invested in it! It was a\u00a0‘blast’ to take this little trip back in time and in particular it has been a\u00a0thrill to regain contact with friends, some of whom I haven’t talked to in 40 years. It has also been a\u00a0pleasure to make some new online friends, people who went to the school, and I knew who they were\u00a0but I never got to meet them in person at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though I only had the privilege of attending the school for 2 years, my time there and the friends that I made while there still mean a great deal to me. Every time I\u00a0try to\u00a0summarize\u00a0my feelings about the school I realize that I can’t do a better\u00a0job than the words\u00a0that were written by Trish Rybski, which are printed on page 70 of Nova 70.<\/p>\n
Several people have asked me why\u00a0I embarked on this project in the first place. Well,\u00a0I felt that 11 yearbooks would be just challenging enough to find (it was!) and that the work load would be manageable (it wasn’t!). If the school\u00a0had been\u00a0open for 50 years,\u00a0this project\u00a0would\u00a0never\u00a0have\u00a0happened.\u00a0Further, I simply\u00a0became interested in\u00a0the content\u00a0and I felt that there were probably others out there who\u00a0would be as well.<\/p>\n
I’ve received numerous e-mail messages\u00a0from people commenting on the Web site, all positive.\u00a0It seems that for some, I have \u00a0managed to recreate a bit of their past, and in many cases it was a part of their past that had been lost until now. Some have even gone so far as to\u00a0offer me money in exchange for providing them with\u00a0a DVD disk with all the yearbooks on it.\u00a0The disks are not going to be a problem\u00a0and I appreciated the financial\u00a0offer but this project was never about money and it\u00a0never will be.\u00a0The numerous positive\u00a0messages that I have received\u00a0is all the compensation that I will ever need in order to justify any amount of time or money\u00a0that I have invested in\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
Finally, I would\u00a0like to say a few words about\u00a0the\u00a0design of this\u00a0site.\u00a0Thorold-Fonthill High School existed in a simpler time.\u00a0Therefore, I decided\u00a0that\u00a0the look and feel of the site\u00a0should reflect this fact. As a result, I\u00a0did not incorporate any complex elements such as Flash animation into the design. The only animation that does exist,\u00a0can be seen when a user ‘mouses over’ a yearbook cover and they are presented with a page-flip\u00a0effect. The image of the school is an actual photograph which I took with my Canon Rebel\u00a0camera in March of 2010.\u00a0Thanks to\u00a0Photoshop I was able to remove the existing signage on the wall and\u00a0replace it with\u00a0‘Thorold-Fonthill High School’. Thanks again to Photoshop the grey sky\u00a0became blue\u00a0(it was a cloudy day when I took the picture) and by applying\u00a0several\u00a0filters to the image I was able\u00a0to create an ‘old painting’ effect. As I\u00a0flipped through the yearbooks I noticed that group pictures were commonly taken along the wall facing Pelham Street.\u00a0Students in the front row would sit\u00a0on gym stacking chairs, the second row would stand\u00a0behind and the third row would stand on more\u00a0chairs in order to elevate themselves\u00a0above the others in front. It came to me that\u00a0the wall\u00a0was still there and\u00a0an image of a\u00a0stacking chair\u00a0could either be downloaded or created digitally. The only thing missing was the students\u00a0which I\u00a0replaced symbolically\u00a0by the yearbooks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That’s my story. I hope that you\u00a0enjoy\u00a0this little trip back in time as much as I have.<\/p>\n
Best regards,<\/p>\n
Joseph Michael Albanese<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hi everybody –\u00a0My name is Joseph Albanese. The 6 months that it took me to design and develop this completely unexpected,\u00a0yet highly\u00a0rewarding\u00a0project\u00a0was\u00a0interesting, to say the least. I had the privilege of\u00a0attending TFHS in 1969 and 1970 until I was unceremoniously given the ‘boot’\u00a0after the school closed in 1970. It was at TFHS that I met […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":67,"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tfhsyearbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}