’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
