Declared obsolete - left in the dust by Apple.

I have an iPod, a very generous gift from my wife and children last year (shortly after my illness took a turn for the worse and I was spending a lot of time in bed.) At the time it was the top-of-the-line model, a 5th generation video model with 30 gig of storage. Totally awesome - it still is. I use it all the time.

But now Apple has the iPod touch and the iPhone. Which is all well and good, I'm all for new technology and bigger better brighter toys. I have no intention of trading in my iPod for one, but they are cool.

The problem is the software. Both old iPods and new ones, including the iPhone, depend on Apple's proprietary program known as iTunes. iTunes is what puts all the goodies on your iThingy, movies, music, games, podcasts, etc. The latest and greatest version of iTunes (which updates automatically and you really have no control over it) was built with the iPod Touch and iPhone in mind. Older iPods just kind of have to deal. They still work, but functions that older iPod adoptors found useful suddenly don't work.

The best example I've seen is regarding podcasts. I love podcasts, news, funny videos, lectures, sermons, all kinds of good stuff. Some podcasts I have subscribed to I can't keep up with and there are many back episodes. The issue is that I used to be able to tell iTunes to only put the 5 or 10 oldest episodes on my iPod so it doesn't fill up with stuff I won't get to right away. That worked great. However, the newest verion of iTunes, without warning, disabled that function and suddenly all the space on my iPod was taken up - to the point that it crashed the poor little thing and I had to restore it- manually picking and choosing which episodes of which podcasts to put back on it.

Frustrating.

Mr. Jobs. You suck. Quit building your technology for the fanboy base and remember that those who can't or don't want to upgrade still use your toys and deserve your attention too.

Peace.

She's getting big!

Had to share this one. She's cut three of her front teeth and is "almost" walking!

An Update

So, as I mentioned yesterday, we were finally able to convice the hospital to go ahead and schedule the tests I need. Apparently there is a fund we can appeal to that will help us with the bill. Once we promised to do that then they scheduled them. My neurologist has been wanting these done "immediately" for quite some time, so she got them in as soon as possible, which is tomorrow. Apparently they are doing three different types of MRIs and theres some test on my auditory nerves, but that one is way out in October. Those of you who are of the praying persuasion please pray that this will be the thing that finally gets us some kind of diagnosis.

I listen to the radio a lot. I heard a replay of an interview that Dr. Dobson did with Tony Snow a while back. At the time of the interview, Mr. Snow had just started his chemotherapy. (For any who may not know, Mr. Snow was White House Press Secratary for many years for George W. Bush. He was diagnosed with colon cancer about 5 years ago. Just this past week he lost his battle and passed away.) During the interview Mr. Snow said the worst part of any disease is not the symptoms, not the tests, not the treatment, it's the "not knowing". It's the time between when you discover something is wrong and the time you find out what that is and can go forward with treatment. I couldn't agree more. However, instead of hours or days or a few weeks, I have been in this waiting period for about a year and a half now. It's not the pain, it's not the difficulty walking, it's not the really bad days where I can barely move - it's the not knowing. It's the unable-to-start-treatment-because-we-don't-know-what-to-treat. How much longer do I have to live in this limbo?

Ok, enough whining. On to other news. As I write this, my mom and step-dad are on their way here with Cheni and Derek and our new van. I hope they behaved themselves, I didn't realize how much of a drain on my energy they were until they were gone. The yelling, the fighting. I didn't miss that. But that's how teenagers are. When my brother and I were Cheni and Derek's ages we nearly killed each other - literally. Boxing matches, knife fights, broken windows - we took most of the house with us.

Not sure what else to report right now. Tasha's only a few days away from being ready for her driver's test - yay! She's dying, ready to have that freedom. I envy her. There's nothing like that first moment when you realize you can go anywhere and do anything on your own. However, now that gas is heading toward $5 a gallon or more, not sure how free anyone really is anymore. When the average minimum wage earner has to work two hours a day just for the gas to get back and forther to work - not sure how much it's worth it.... but that's a discussion for another post.

So, that's the news for a while. Post again soon.

A quick update

Just thought I'd let everyone know - this may come back to bite us in the butt, but we found a way to get my tests scheduled without having to come up with all the money up front. I have three different MRIs scheduled for Wednesday morning. Please be in prayer that this will be the thing that finally gets this figured out.

Only the good....

Dearly Beloved; we are gathered here today to say goodbye to a faithful companion. Dude, or as he was known to his counterparts "192.168.1.123". Was only 5 years old, but like a shooting star burned the brightest (literally) at the end of his short life.
	Purchased in 2003 as a management workmate, Dude began his life running spreadsheets. After several hundred thousand computations, he also spent some time traveling, making approximately 6 or 7 trips to the Denver area for meetings.
The computations and miles took a toll on Dude. During his last year in management, he took a fall, resulting in severely broken hinges. His warranty expired and replacement parts unavailable, Dude was declared obsolete by his makers and his hinges were replaced with brightly colored duct tape and a bungee cord. As you can see his back was also cracked and was held together with bumper stickers. (Never losing his sense of humor, however, he also allowed himself to wear an Apple logo.)
	Later, he began to suffer energy problems. His lifeline, or power cord as some call it, shorted out. Many attempts were made to splice it, but in the end it was splinted and had to be kept immoble - forcing dude to end his life of mobility and submit himself to the same lifestyle as a desktop.
When his management partner became ill, Dude was a constant bed side companion, often sharing games and movies. However, the load on Dude's memory became too great and soon he could only provide email and basic Internet services. (With the help of a USB network connector which eventually also had to be splinted and immobilized to maintain contact.)
	In one final brave attempt to be useful, Dude's hard drive was cleaned and his registry database restored to a new-like condition. For a time he could again share movies and games. But in the end it proved too much and as his friend was attempting to watch Arnold Scharzenegger's "Eraser", Dude's hard drive crashed for the last time and the blue screen of death proved fatal.
Yes, Dude was loved. His memory will live on, (probably sold on eBay with any other salvagable parts), and his loyalty will never be forgotten (because of the burn mark on the night stand where the flames shot out when the hard drive blew.) Good-bye, Dude, you'll be missed. (At least until Dell's next sale and I can afford to replace you.)

Too funny not to be shared.

A few pics from the 4th

I tried to take a few pictures of our fireworks fun. Fireworks are notoriously hard to capture, especially if you don't have a professional grade camera. However, I did learn a little bit about it when I was working in a photo lab a few years back, so I thought I'd give it a try. Our little digital point and shoot had really slow reaction time, but I did get a few shots. Check 'em out:

This was one of them shells. These photograph best if you can set your camera to a really short exposure time and use a high quality film (or, in the digital age, a chip that does color really well.) Also, setting the white balance is tricky. Our little point and shoot didn't have very sensitive settings, so this is about as good as it got.

Here's another attempt. This one was red. I thought this one turned out interesting because you can see how the shell started to burn before it exploded, generating this electrified palm tree image.

Here's one of the kids watching the blasts. The interesting thing about this is I tried to capture them in the light of the fireworks (no flash), but the neighbors behind us were shooting off some REALLY big ones and the light looks like I used a flash but it's really a boom from one of their big shells.

What's the 4th without some sparklers? I hate these things because every year someone ends up burning their hand or foot or something. But... well, here we are. These turn out some really interesting images if you set for a longer exposure. The only problem is that the people end up looking all fuzzy, but you can see the patterns the kids are making. Here Derek has an interesting figure 8 thing going.

Here's probably the best one I got of the night. Destiny is standing really still and making a big circle with her arm. She kind of creates this frame of light that lets you see her really clearly.

So, anyway, that was our fun. We also had Bob's famous barbequed chicken. I must have eaten like 43 pieces. Thanks Bob for making me fatter than I already am! (Just kidding, love ya big guy!)

Happy 4th.

It's official - the pipes have played...

(Please ignore the links at the end of the video - some aren't family friendly.)



You can no longer haz cheezburger!


I hate cats.

A Picture

Can you think of a title for this one?

Yes, we're still out here.

Yá'át'ééh. (That means 'Howdy'). Sorry we haven't posted in a while, things have really been insane. Really. Badly. Totally. Insane.

This month we've had just about everyone off to church camp at one point or another. The babies, obviously, didn't go, the "fist timers" camp for Grace was cancelled also, but everyone else got to go. Even Tasha, who went as a "dorm mom" for Destiny and Ian's camp, got to go.

Right after camp was VBS. Anna was the director and all of us were involved in some way or another. We did "Power Lab" - basically everything had a "science-y" theme to it. We even got to do the "Diet Coke and Mentos" thing. Here's the video, watch it to the end, Tasha lands on her keister!






I even got in on the fun, as much as possible. I played photographer and "Mr. Wizard" on the computer with the projection system. It was fun, but we're all exhausted. Here's some pictures of our kids:












Anyhoo, just to add to our fun, our van broke down again. We're not sure what exactly is going on with it, but it's tearing through serpentine belts (the belt that actually makes the thing run). It's gone through two already and we're going to have to put on a third just to get through. Fortunately, our preacher let us borrow his van for the week of VBS.



The good news on that front is my mom and step dad have generously helped us obtain a new van. A GREAT BIG one! I'm sure it's not the most fuel efficient thing to be driving these days, but it's the only way to safely get the herd where they need to go. Here's a picture of what it kind of looks like (I couldn't scan the real pictures, so I found this online.):

We do have a little Subaru that Anna can drive to work, when we get the clutch fixed. Right now it's being held hostage by the repair guy. He retired, but locked our car on his lot. We keep trying to call him to so we can go move it, but he lives in Albuquerque now and we can only reach him on weekends. Sigh.

AND THEN!!! as if we weren't having enough fun, our washer blew up. Literally. Smoke, flames, flying parts. It was glorious. Both the washer and dryer were about done, but we were hoping to squeeze another 6 months or so out of them, but then our wonderful son had the brilliant time saving idea of trying to wash 10 pairs of jeans and 7 big fully bath towels in one load. They were packed in so tight that I literally had rip one of the jeans to get them out of the tub (which was also full of water, not like after the spin cycle when they are normally packed together!) So we had to dip into our savings (which we were trying to save to build ourselves a storage shed to keep our 20 years worth of crap in) and go buy a new washer. And since sets are normally cheaper, we went and go a new dryer too. (The old one was taking close to three hours to dry stuff anyway.)

So that brings us to today. The new washer and dryer will be delivered in the morning, we're trying to clear a path by moving furniture and stuff so the delivery guys can get the old ones out and the new ones in. The van is still busted and it's youth group night. I ache all over and can barely move.

But, hey. I got a roof over my head and a belly full of hot dogs, so life is good.