Creative Family Memories

09/06/2026

The Glen Ellyn 4th of July Foundation is pleased to announce the schedule of Independence Day events for Stars & Stripes Over Glen Ellyn: 250 Years of American Spirit.

Parade
12:00 p.m. start through Downtown Glen Ellyn

Skydiving Demonstration
Shortly before dusk

250th Celebration Drone Show
At dusk

250th Fireworks Display
Immediately following the drone show

More information at:
https://www.glenellyn4thofjuly.org/parade-fireworks

Photo: Javier Guevara Photography

08/06/2026

A vice president at Google said the photos we take today may not survive us.

Vint Cerf, co-designer of the TCP/IP protocol that built the internet and Google's chief internet evangelist, used the phrase "digital dark age" in a February 2015 talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. His point was simple. File formats become unreadable. Hardware dies. Cloud companies fold. The photos remain only as long as the chain holds.

A 19th century daguerreotype made in 1850 is still viewable on a kitchen table today. A 2005 photo on a forgotten Flickr account, a defunct Picasa album, or a corrupted hard drive in a closet often is not. The Library of Congress maintains a public list of hundreds of "endangered" digital file formats, including early image formats like Kodak PhotoCD that modern phones can no longer open without specialty conversion tools.

Real losses have already happened. Picasa shut down in 2016 and forced 50 million users to migrate or lose photos. Flickr's 2019 ownership change deleted free accounts holding more than 1,000 photos. MySpace lost 12 years of user-uploaded media during a 2019 server migration, including roughly 50 million songs and millions of photos, with zero recovery.

Cerf's proposed fix was a concept called digital vellum, an attempt to preserve not just the photo file but the software needed to open it. More than a decade later, no consumer version exists. Your family photos are still your problem to solve.

The practical version of digital vellum is simpler. Print the 50 photos that matter most every year. Export originals from cloud services using their built-in download tool. Apple has Apple Privacy Portal, Google has Google Takeout, both free and both create a complete one-time download of every photo you have uploaded.

Convert old proprietary formats like HEIC, RAW, and PSD into a plain JPEG or TIFF copy that any future viewer will still open without specialty software. Both JPEG and TIFF are documented international standards (ISO 10918 and ISO 12639) that any operating system can read 30 years from now.

Cerf's warning was not about losing files. It was about losing the ability to read them. That gap widens every year you do nothing. [71HH5]

06/06/2026

04/06/2026

The College of DuPage is celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary with a towering artistic tribute done by local artists Judith Mayer and Rich Lo, who were tasked with designing and painting 10 larger-than-life figures for a walkable exhibition.

02/06/2026

Few children relish turning off their personal tech devices. But for some otherwise happy-go-lucky kids, the mere suggestion of ending screen time sparks a response so intense it changes the texture of the family’s daily life and feels genuinely alarming to the adults on the receiving end.

Nora, a technical writer in New Jersey, knows it well. Recently, she asked her 13-year-old to hand over his phone so she could check the settings, and he told her she was ruining his life. When she calmly persisted, he escalated: “You make me want to kill myself.” He’s often emotive, but the words were still frightening — the kind that leave a parent frozen and unsure of whether they’re suddenly facing an emergency.

Last month, a study found that 22 percent of screen-time transitions evoked a negative reaction from children under age 5, while another study found that of children ages 2 to 3 using screens, 93 percent of parents reported their toddler at least sometimes throws tantrums or whines when transitioning away from media. Catherine Pearlman, a licensed clinical social worker, has watched this same pattern play out across her practice.

“Even the most conscientious parents will give in partially or completely just to get the behavior to stop,” she says. “I have seen this so many times and it is heartbreaking — because parents know what needs to happen, but they are out of tools.”

Kreiger explores why kids react so extremely when their screens are taken away — and to find out whether parents can manage this device-induced rage: https://nymag.visitlink.me/HwqRnO

02/06/2026

31/05/2026

30/05/2026

The youth center refresh at the Glen Ellyn public library! They continue to make strides to be way more than a place to check out books.. from their community closet, makers center & place to check out helpful & useful household items, they’re doing amazing work!!

✂️ And we're live! Today the library celebrated the recent updates to the Youth department, including the new Family Passport Office, play area, and interactive sensory light wall that was gratefully funded by the Glen Ellyn Library Foundation.