I hacked my ipod

I had an ipod for a very long time - since about 2004 - and I had taken great care of it and it had been working great! Then Adam and I went to work out at the YMCA and I was jogging on the treadmill. I usually have it inside a pouch on one of those water bottle fanny packs for protection, but I had it out on the treadmill in the cup holder.

Sadly, I ended up whacking the ear buds cord with my arm and my ear buds popped out of my ears and my ipod went tumbling. I tried grabbing for it, but instead gave it more momentum and it crashed onto the treadmill and then got spit out on the ground behind us. Adam was jogging beside me and he got a good laugh at me comically grabbing for it and actually making the situation worse. (I think at some point I even *kicked* the ipod on its way down.) I checked it out. It still turned on and was playing music, so I went back to jogging. It couldn't have been five minutes later when the exact same thing happened AGAIN! It was so frustrating because I had jogged like this the last few times, ipod in cupholder, with NO problems. So yet again, I checked the ipod for damage, but it was still turning on and playing music. No problem.

The next time we go to the gym, I turn it on. It plays music for a little while, then starts making a horrible clicking noise. Then it turns itself off. Hmm, this is NOT good. I take another look at my ipod and notice a dent. No doubt the fall caused that. It's not too bad, but I turn the ipod on again and it is clicking like the hard drive is on its last leg, and then a sad ipod face (literally) shows up on the ipod screen and gives me a web address that I can check out for ipod problems.



Now if that picture doesn't just break your heart... I feel like I will be arrested for ipod abuse and neglect.

I feel like I've lost a friend, and jogging without an ipod is even MORE boring and monotonous.

Adam also has an ipod but his battery croaked and it wouldn't hold its charge anymore. So after a few boring, ipod-less workouts, I decide to look up to see how much it will cost to fix an ipod, or at least get a new battery for Adam's. The battery prices aren't too bad. Actually the new hard-drive prices aren't too bad either. Of course, to pay the Apple people to fix it IS going to be quite expensive. Well, I have a little electronic know-how, and I've heard of other people replacing their batteries and fixing their ipods on the cheap.

I found a great website of another person who needed to replace his battery. He had great instructions for both replacing a battery, as well as a hard-drive, a little more involved.

It took me awhile to get the faceplate off because I was afriad of snapping the plastic and breaking it. Seriously, Adam watched me play with it for an hour or two. Good thing my school classes hadn't begun yet.



So the plan is that my ipod has probably kicked the bucket due to my negligence, but my ipod battery is still just fine. So I'm going to put my battery into Adam's old ipod. (Adam has an awesome Archos anyway, so he doesn't need an ipod anymore.)

It's a delicate operation.









With great results!! HUZZAH!!!



The BEST PART. A working ipod to jog with, zero dollars. Did not cost me a penny. I already had the little screw drivers to help pry open the case.

Oh yes, my warranty had also expired LONG ago, so I had nothing to lose. However, if you DO have a warranty, you might NOT want to hack your own ipod. Apple might help you out. Read the fine print.

Here's a good video about it. I didn't see it until now, but maybe it will entertain you or help you. I thought the statistic at the end was funny. 1 out of 5 college students would trade their presidential election vote for an touch ipod. Hmm, shooting high there, college kids!

A card from Robyn

Our good friends Robyn Rowley (and Tyler and little Lincoln) sent me and Adam the cutest card in the mail. It is so fancy. I wanted to post it so interested people could take a look. (I know my mom had an interest.) It has a beachy theme and the silver thread and the raffia go through little slits to the back side of the front fold of the card.



We miss Robyn and Tyler Rowley, but maybe we'll get to go back and visit them in Riverside one of these days. We <3 You!

Our Apartment

Well hello friends!

It has been almost three months since Adam and I have been living in St. Louis. I've been taking pictures here and there but it has taken some gumption to finally get them up on the blog. Here's some photos of our fun apartment. It is in a pretty good spot by Washington University campus and Forest Park. The buildings nearby, like on Skinker and Lindell Boulevard, are just beautiful and I've taken some walks around them and taken pictures of them too. But first things first...

Here is the outside of our building. Ours is the one on the left.



We have just gotten back from church and Adam is entering the building.



I like the cool tile on the floor in the entry way to our building. Oh yeah, we have an intercom system in the front and people can buzz us and we can talk to them and then buzz them in, just like on Seinfeld. It's a good thing too, because we live on the third floor and it can be a lot of steps when you go up and down repeatedly, like when we are taking up a lot of groceries.



Our mailboxes.



You can see our car parked on the street outside the stairwell window.



Our door is on the right. Our friend Mark lives on the left. He's very cool and friendly, he's a second year law student, and we had him over for dinner.



And here we go inside!

We have a big pillar in our living room/dining area. It's kinda silly, but I'll bet it's load-bearing and very important.



Some different views of our main entry/living room/kitchen/dining area. :) I like it. One day I will finish that painting.



We love our kitchen! It is an improvement over our last one. It is much bigger, we have more storage and countertop space, and we have a dishwasher! Very importante!





Hey Hina, do you recognize the Yucca plant you got us?? ;-)





Wow, I wish it was ALWAYS this clean.

There are some noisy birds nesting on the outside of our bedroom window. I hear their scratching and tweeting in the early morning.



I guess it's a Missouri thing or something, but there is a "sunroom" on the back of our bedroom and it gets a lot of light. I guess some people use it as an extra closet or storage room, but I wanted to start a garden so I got some planters and seeds and the plants are doing pretty good. I just recently bought some basil. Can't wait to start cooking with fresh basil all the time. :) This sunroom also houses my piano and piano books and painting stuff quite nicely. It's like a nice bonus room.





I thought it might be fun to paint an orchid.



Some fun pictures of us and our parents. :) I had fun making a mosiac of beach shells on the frames.



There is a beautiful church and a school just a block away from our apartment. We hear the churchbells ringing every hour or so, and they really let 'em ring at noon. It's wacky. But it's kind of cool. I love the church's architecture.



Big wooden doors.



There is a fancy relief over the entrance of the school, I really like it. There is so much detail in lots of St. Louis' architecture. They like to use a lot of stone and brick.



P.S. Thanks to everyone who helped move us in up those three crazy floors! Thanks Matt and Sarah and Anne and Nathan and Gwendolyn and Campion. :)

Moving to Missouri

What an adventure. I had never driven anything so big. We did drive a moving van from Anaheim to Riverside when we moved in 2007, but this was definitely a big change. We drove a big diesel beast and it was the height of a semi. We had to climb two steps to get in. I took some pictures of the crazy move.

The dash on the passenger side.



Making our way through Arizona. Some big bugs met an untimely end on our windshield.



Checking out the traffic behind us in the gargantuan side-view mirrors.







Such a good driver!





Watching a beautiful sunset ... in the side-view mirrors.



I love the reflected light off the side of the van.







Night-driving and cool squiggly lines.



We were soo hungry when we got to Albuquerque, NM, but it was past eleven p.m. and everything was closed. Fortunately we found a Sonic that was close enough to walk to. It was delicious for a late dinner, and delicious for breakfast. Mmmm Mmmm. There were some lovely white bushes there too.











Views of the enormous truck in Oklahoma.







More night driving. The way the truck was rhythmically bouncing, the dash lights look like spirographs.









A truck passing us in the dark.



I like these pics of the cars and the street lamps blurring.





Just so you know, Oklahoma has some of the crappiest roads EVER! We were bouncing all over the place. We thought something might be wrong with the truck or trailer and had to pull over to check it out. Nope! Nothing wrong, just crappy roads with seams everywhere creating bouncing over 40 mph. Oklahoma! Fix your roads!

The next day ... Near the OK and MO border, there is a McDonald's that is built on a bridge that covers both sides of the freeway. We made a pit stop there and Adam got us some Bluebell ice cream that many people rave about. It was good, but nothing to write home about. Adam says, and I quote, "Overrated." (The bridge McDonald's that semis were zooming under was REALLY cool, though.)

Inside the McDonalds looking down.



It was hard to get a picture of, but there were cars and semis zooming 'through' this building.





ARGH! We had finally crossed into Missouri, and then a driver going by gave us some big signals that we were in big trouble. I nodded and pulled the moving van and trailer over onto the shoulder right by a freeway on-ramp and got out to find the problem. One of the tires on the trailer had blown and was shredded. It's a good thing that there was a tire right next to that one on the same side, or else we might have been worse off. We called for assistance and we were told it would take about 90 minutes for help to arrive. Unfortunately, it took longer than that, but he found out that a tire on the other side of the trailer was going bald and replaced that too! I love problem prevention!







The annoyance of inconvenience. And waiting for help to come. And waiting... and waiting...



Adam's Archos is great! We listened to Michael Medved and then watched some Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law.



Pulling off at the first available spot.



Lovely fields nearby.



Being bored and playing with the Sepia feature on my camera.



We went back in time!



We could make old-timey Pioneer Village pictures, for a lot less! (Guess we'd just have to rent some costumes. haha, Adam would LOVE that... not really.)













Hooray! Help is here! And we don't even need to take the car off of the trailer!



So later on as we were nearing St. Louis, I found a place to fill up and then I saw this compatriot. Moving with a big van with a car attached. Except this guy put all of his house plants into his car. This just made me laugh. That's a lot of houseplants. He must be a collector ... of house plants.





We had been making excellent time before our flat... but then we still weren't doing too bad and we had almost reached St. Louis ... and then we hit TONS of traffic. Traffic that wasn't moving. It was VERY frustrating. Darn St. Louis freeway construction and stand-still traffic.



We finally got off the freeway and took an alternate route that Adam's mom gave us. :-) Finally safe and sound in St. Louis!