’Tis another beautiful day on the beach…

Recently, I hit a technichal roadblock.  Well, perhaps I’ll call it a milestone instead.  

My computer’s hard drive reached full capacity.  Now some people, my old self included, would have either deleted lots of files OR even started shopping for a new computer.    I thought about it for a bit, but instead chose to perservere and try something new.   So I picked up a 500 Gigabyte portable hard drive from WD (Western Digital). If you enjoy movies, music, or ebooks, you can have the capacity to expand your libraries and playlists a hundredfold for about $100.

For home PC users, you can purschase digital storage space in the Terabytes.  Multiple users in a home or office?  Go wireless.  The picture below shows the “My Passport” hard drive from WD, and lo and behold, it’s actually smaller than a passport.

That’s one hurdle cleared.

Since I’m a mobile guy, I purchased an iPod shuffle because it is lightweight.  It’s about as big as a piece of Trident gum.  

That’s fine, but for some reason I was born from an alien race of  people for which earbud earphones DO NOT FIT IN MY EAR.  Even if I stand PERFECTLY STILL, somehow, the earbud makes tiny jumps at every beat, working it’s way out of my ear to bungee jump off the edge of my lobe. 

I was relieved to replace my old iPod which was recently stolen.   (Boy they’re gonna get an unexpected dose of education from Kevin Hogan, Brian Tracy, Earl Nightingale, etc.!)   I plugged in my Nike over the top loop earphones, and guess what- you can’t even use the iPod.  There’s NO buttons on the Shuffle  (because it’s so small), and there’s no clicker on the Nike earphone wires.  (The clicker is a thin module built onto the wire that adjusts volume and changes songs.)  It allows you to operate “eyes-free”.   

“Wait, Greg…think…”

I knew there had to be a way to make it work, but even the first 3 Best Buy employees could not solve my problem.  It took quite a bit of poise to remain hopeful…and to refrain from compromising what I originally wanted.

Alas!   They found an adapter made by Belkin (thank you, Matt with the tattoos)…but it’s out of stock, of course. 

Best Buy had one at a different store, with reportedly 3 “in stock”, and I arrived just before they closed and got the LAST ONE.  Victory! 

So I learned three lessons: 

1. If something is filled to capacity, don’t let that limit you.  You can probably find a way to expand.

2. If something is lost, it can probably be replaced.

3. If something doesn’t fit your needs, invent a product that will, and then sell it to others!

The Nike hook earphones are $30, and the Belkin adapter was almost $20.  Whoever combines the TWO into ONE for a LOWER price will sell a LOT of earphones, make ME happy, and make some MONEY.   Happy listening!  I need to go for a jog on the beach.

~Greg