A Most Unusual Saturday

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Oh, and my iPod? Want to marry it. A lot.

—Ethan Marcotte, What’s great about these PowerBooks, anyway?

I awake to Sarah’s voice, calling my name. We’re not at home–we’re at Running S Equine, in the little apartment on the second floor. Sarah had volunteered to take over for a coworker who had spent the last three nights at the clinic. A lack of foresight on our part meant staying the night for me, too. While I slept, Sarah alternated between sleeping and getting up to “reflux” (you don’t want to know) a particularly sick horse.

I woke up on my back on the tiny twin bed, Sarah standing over me. “We need to go, babe, or I’ll be late for my appointment.” Sarah had planned on taking her mom to Depasquale for the day to celebrate her birthday. She rushed out the door, leaving me to ponder the ceiling tiles and flourescent lights above me.

Can I get one that says ‘Will you marry me?’ and give it to D? Forget diamonds, an iPod is forever.

—Mark Pilgrim, iPods are forever

I stumbled out of the clinic into the gray morning–hair tousled, contacts sticky, and the smell of DMSO wafting through the air. Sarah expressed her gratitude for my staying over with her–it made getting to sleep a lot easier. We headed East to go home, where Sarah changed clothes and jumped back in the car to continue to the spa.

I took the dog for a walk and then for a ride over to Dunkin’ Donuts for my ritual coffee (medium decaf, cream and sugar) and occasional muffin (cranberry orange this time). Back at home, I settled into the couch with the laptop and coffee and started coding. It was 8:30 AM, and there was plenty of work to be done on my project for the day. Sasha resigned herself to another afternoon of napping on the couch with her impossibly boring owner.

But the iPod is not merely an engineering and usability success. It’s also a marketing success. Everyone knows what an iPod is, and what it does. And everyone knows that they’re cool.

—John Gruber, Dell’s Dud [PG]

The day crawled by–long bouts of wrestling with CSS layouts, typeface selection, color-picking, and Internet Explorer bug-fixing were interspersed with guitar practice, Ellio’s pizza, and playing with the dog. Later that night, Sarah and I would be heading over to the Posegates for dinner with the family and a massive birthday celebration–Irene’s birthday on the 27th, Russ’ on the 8th, and mine on the 13th.

Sarah came home from the spa at around 3:00 PM and immediately crashed. I was under orders to not disturb her for anything until 5:30 PM.

iTunes for Windows is probably the best Windows app ever written.

—Steve Jobs, ZDNet UK: ‘Hell froze over’

A frantic dash over to the Posegates’ at 6:30 PM (that’s 6:00 PM, Walker Time), dinner with the Posegate family, conversations with Sarah K. about her marathon tomorrow, and it’s gift opening time. Microwaves, digital cameras, and various kitchen implements of destruction were unwrapped with much rejoicing.

Then Sarah hands me a bag from some clothing store, filled with tissue paper. Brief discussion about the cool card, and I start to dig through the bag. The first item was in a thin and rectangluar cardboard box. I pulled the box apart to discover…a plier set. But, not just any plier set–a plier set that we already own. A few glances around the room, and I figure I should play along. Because this might be legit, and I don’t want anyone to feel bad.

Plunging back into the bag, I unwrap a long, flexible wad of tissue paper to find…an Oxo garlic press. We have one of those, too. Smile graciously, move on.

Bag. Tissue paper. Portable coffee cup. I have two of those. Wondering if I’m in the Twilight Zone. Smile graciously, move on.

Bag. Tissue paper. Stop. There, thinly veiled under a sheet of tissue paper is an all-too-familiar logo. “No…” I say, but quietly hope “YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!” in my heart. There, lovingly nestled at the bottom of the bag is a shrink-wrapped cube with the silhouette of an apple on the top. I pick up the box: my new 20GB iPod.

Speaking of Apple, they’ve managed to make the iPod even more desirable. I could look at this page (scroll down for full effect) and drool all day.

—Ken Walker, Days I Wish I Was a Workoholic

Spouses would do well to take note of this fair and wonderful creature I call the Schmoze. This isn’t the first time she has managed to bowl me over with a fantastic birthday gift. Two years ago, the day after we got engaged, she threw a surprise party for me to present me with a beautiful Seagull guitar. She had spent a month coordinating with good friends from our Bible study, seeking out people who were willing to kick in a few bucks.

Sarah has this intuitive ability to anticipate awesome gifts–she was arranging the guitar purchase weeks before she found out I was good enough at playing to serenade her. She picked up the iPod when I had only the slightest inclination to try to buy one after I was finished with school and finances were back on track.

I think that’s what I love about her most. It’s that gentle nature in her that picks up on the subtleties and transforms them into tremendous expressions of love.

16 thoughts on “A Most Unusual Saturday”

  1. Dude… Your wife RULES. Welcome to the wonderful world of the iPod. It really is the best little gizmo/gadget thing I have ever owned. It’s awesome. You’re one lucky dude, dude. :)

  2. I assume from that post that its your bday, or it has been or will be near by … Happy B-Day :-D .

    And portable music rocks. I really didn’t think much of it till i got my neuros, now i couldn’t imagine being without it. Congrats on the iPod … Are you using it with windows right now? How well does it work with the windows iTunes (assuming thats what your using ;-) )?

    And i’m gonna hafta second ryan’s thoughts on your wife … thats a pretty amazing.

  4. I have no idea what all the fuss is about (being a pc guy), but be sure to bring it over next Sunday and educate me.

    See you then.

    Scott

  6. K,

    Congrats on the most exquisite gift! Your wife seems to get this strange joy out of going to great lenghts to bring happiness to you. I think she likes you :) .

  7. Ken,

    I agree with Darin – you seem to have married a Christian Hedonist!

    “The biblical mandate to husbands and wives is to seek your own joy in the joy of your spouse. Make marriage a matrix for Christian Hedonism.” John Piper, “Desiring God”

    Also, I clicked on that link you posted which sent me to an iPod TV ad. Yes, I have seen those print ads in the subway. And I knew they were for some MPEG player, but I didn’t know it was iPod (I try not to look too intently at ads in general… it might tempt me to be a rotten steward of God’s provision…)

    But the scarier thing is how old I felt while watching that commercial! And is that what happens to YOU when you put those headphones on?!?!

    Scott

  8. If jumping around and going wild and crazy dance style to a hip rock song is what happens what you put on iPod headphones, count me in.

    I am on my third iPod at this point. I had the original 5gig which I fell in love with on sight (i think Ken was actually there, and saw me geek out) – my second was a 20 gig. I ebayed the 5 gig and upgraded to fit more music. Just last month I upgraded to a 40 gig when they announced them, and now I can fit all of my music onto my iPod – it changes the dynamic completely. (gonna ebay my 20gig one of these days too – I am sure someone out there would get much more enjoyment out of it than me)

    I have to say, the rockin ipod ad is pretty much the closest thing I can find to expressing the fun of the ipod. It is the most upbeat happy vibrant thing I’ve seen in advertising in a long time. It isn’t about how the iPod will make you cool, or how you are less of a person without one, or any of the subtle underlying negativity of most advertising that drives people to consume in order to exist. It is simply about the joy of music. The iPod part of it is seemingly tacked on as an afterthought – a suggested method of enjoyment.

  9. Ken,

    Glad you like the iPod. I think Sarah’s ok, too-we lived together for a while in the 90′s, you know…not to make you jealous or anything.

    Just so you know-I think that my sis scored a jackpot in the marriage game as well.

    Russell

  10. Scott–well, I put the headphones on today…and I walked to class. I didn’t even, like, jump or anything, so there may be false advertising afoot. ;-)

    Mike–I am using iTunes for Windows, that wicked-cool jukebox software (there was no /way/ I was going to install MusicMatch on my PC). It was like two long-lost friends getting together when I first plugged the iPod in. iTunes downloaded all my tracks without complaint. I haven’t tried synching since because I’ve been trying to get some other stuff done–like set up a Linux box as a file server for MP3s…

    Do any of you guys know what happens when you try to add a network share to iTunes? Will those MP3s import into the iPod?

  11. if you don’t turn off the copy to your library option, it will copy all the music from the file server down to your local machine … Turning it off fixes that problem though. You can still add them to your library but it won’t copy them.

    No idea if that affects the ipod or not though.

  12. iTunes has two different things going on. Organize, which references your music in it’s library AND moves it to the library folder, and the iPod, which copies all the songs referenced in the library into the iPod.

    If you disable organize, your music will remain scattered around your system/shares/whatever, but will still be referenced from iTunes. This will do what you want, unless you move the music later, in which case it will break your itunes library (file not found type stuff)

    Either situation will work fine with the iPod. It doesn’t care where the music is located on the hard drive, as long as it’s accessible and can be copied.

  13. Sara’s the man! I mean, well… you know what I mean.

    I am about to download iTunes as I type Kenny my man. It’s gotta be better than the Music Match software.

  14. Sarah’s the man! I mean, well… you know what I mean.

    I am about to download iTunes as I type Kenny my man. It’s gotta be better than the Music Match software.