The very sad (and thorough) death and autopsy of my iPod.

As I said in my last (rather long) entry, at the peak of my bad day last month my iPod went for a swim in our washing machine. I tried to save it. It looked like a scene out of (insert favorite TV medical drama here)...except on the floor of my bathroom. And the patient didn't live.

But it was quite an experience. I estimate it was underwater for about 20 to 25 seconds. It was wearing an ipod "skin"...but it wasn't waterproof. And the headphone jack was unplugged after it fell...so I think that's how most of the water got in. After hosing it down with a hair dryer and getting the exterior dry, I cracked it open. I had to change a battery in a friend's iPod a couple years ago, so I learned how to get into one back then. Luckily, mine was the same.

In the first picture you can see the iPod with the face off. I had my hair dryer in hand...there were water beads all over it...the screen...the hard drive...all of it. The yellow thing you see in the bottom right is the battery...a good bit of water around it too (since it's right next to the earphone jack)

In the second picture you can see the hard drive a little better. They actually put a little rubber shock absorber around the drive. Kinda neat.

I got it dry and pushed the button...

and got nothing. No power...no spinning...no nothing.

So I let it sit overnight and thought about it.

The next morning I was looking over it and i realized that there was a small cable running from the battery to one of the circuit boards that looked loose. I unplugged it and plugged it back in...and it started to spin up!!

Then the screen lit up! ...though...I couldn't really read anything. And it was just lines. But it did light up. I found that as I clicked through stuff, I could see the lines on the screen change, meaning it was still responding to my input. Very hopeful.

So I decided to get brave and plug it into my computer, just to see what would happen. ...Nothing. It just sat. I was sad. Some seconds passed, and I got bored and decided to go check my mail or do something else.

Then from nowhere...the iPod started spinning again! It was like Frankenstein waking up for the first time. My computer actually recognized it, started iTunes...and low and behold:

It synced! I couldn't believe it! It was like nothing ever happened. So then I got really excited...I decided "I'm gonna save this thing! I just gotta put it back together and..."

So I began putting it back together and I went to move the hard drive and *SNAP*

...I broke a ribbon cable. I don't know if you can see it in the picture or not, but that little brown tape looking thing should be all one piece. I'm not 100% sure what that does, but I think it puts the audio out to the headphones.

So now I have a 30 gigabyte sweet looking portable hard drive...that just took a swim so I'm way too scared to actually put important data on it, thus completely eliminating any need to actually own it.

I haven't brought myself to throw it away yet. I have a pretty hard time throwing away broken electronics any time...so this one will probably stick around and clutter my desk long after I've replaced it.

I had to drive around today for the first time without it. It was very...quiet. I tried the radio. It was terrible. I tried CD's. They were all pretty old, because I haven't had too many CD's in my car in the last year.

So I'm not too sure what I'm going to do. But I don't think I'll be able to make it too long without it. It's funny how much I feel like I miss the thing.

I immediately react to the thought of "needing" electronics and try to talk myself out of it. "You only listen to it in your car, Scott. Not when you're out and about and you could be enjoying life and interacting with others." True. I guess I like the idea of having my entire music collection, along with several different sermons and other podcasts, available for me to listen to as I make the 100 mile trek from home to work to school to home.