After years of lagging behind, I have finally entered the digital age.
Last week I broke down and made a purchase that was a great deal of money for such a small piece of equipment. That's the direction technology is going, though, the smaller devices get, the emptier the pockets become.
My iPod came in a package to the house one afternoon, and I couldn't wait to throw open the box and try it out. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way.
For those of you confused about what new gadget I've recently shelled out a huge wad of dough for, the iPod is Apple Computer's digital music player. It's the cutting edge version of the walkman.
The iPod is made for the up-to-date music lover who no longer wants to lug around a bulky case full of CDs as well as a CD player.
I have already begun the process of uploading all my music to the huge hard drive in the device that is the size of a pack of cards.
It has more than enough space to store all of my CDs as well as my wife's and still have room for another 15 years worth of music. And I can carry it in my pocket.
Everyone will have to overlook me being so excited over this. I promise I'm not a salesperson for Apple. I'm just a music lover who felt caught up with the times once the package came in. It was like Christmas morning, and I was an eight-year-old again.
But as I alluded to, obviously there's no way to just pull it out and immediately begin listening to some great tunes. The first thing that had to be done was charging the battery -- for four hours. Then I had to hook it up to the computer and format the thing, whatever that means.
After two hours of "formatting" I figured out that the computer was just messing with me. It had really been sitting there only looking like it was busy. So I started over again.
Next, I had to download the program that allows me to transfer CDs to the device. I don't think I did that right the first time because once it was finished installing itself, it said there was a newer version available to download.
What? I just installed the program from the disk that came with it. Did the company revise their program during the two days it took to be shipped to my house? That's just like computer companies; there's a new version of something put out every 1.2 seconds, I think.
Once I got that taken care of, I tried to sort through the stack of wires that came in the box. Never mind the directions, those just complicate things. As my wife says, "Men don't do directions."
All in all, I guess I'm happy with my iPod. I may have portable music, but I somehow feel a little dumber now. Maybe I should rethink this whole digital age thing.
