Two slices of toast, lightly covered with cashew butter. This has been my breakfast for years. Except on weekends; then it is three slices of toast.

And when I'm in a situation where I can't get my normal breakfast, like today, I panic. Not, "run around naked screaming at the sky" panic, but dread what I might have to eat that isn't what I'm used to.

And, face it, most restaurants don't serve cashew butter toast. I get that. It is a kinda unusual breakfast, probably.

So, today I'm at Cosi, eating a omelet bagel with swiss and spinach. It is a touch heavy, but it will be a while before I get to eat again, so I'm content with it.

I rate it as an acceptable replacement to my standard breakfast.

I also rate myself as a stubborn old coot for caring so much about a disruption to my breakfast routine. Not sure when this happened...

Drone fly, that is:

Lots of very unflattering text on this creature, the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects & Spiders states it begins life in the larvae stage as the "rat-tailed maggot" and excelling in "foul-smelling stagnant water" such as open latrines. It becomes a lot less repulsive as it grows into an adult that looks more like a honey bee than a fly and pretty much blends into the scenery, causing no particular harm.

After taking what I thought was my best picture of a trip to Meadowlark Gardens yesterday, I got very defensive when I started reading the nasty things associated with the bug. I figure, if you get an intestinal problem due to fly larvae, you are probably doing something wrong and shouldn't necessarily hold it against the creature. I mean, look at those wings! How bad can this little guy be?

For the past eight-nine months, my ipod has been in Apple's version of death's door. It has been clinging to life, and just when I thought it was officially dead, it would gasp in a deep breath and live another week before starting the process all over again. I've dubbed the machine "Captain Jack" after the lead character on Torchwood who can't die (well, can't stay dead, let's say), a source of much amusement in the house.

That said, it has been far from a fun experience. And while the ipod is, in my opinion, probably the best value for mp3 players on the market, the whole experience makes me remember why I generally despise Apple so much.

Nonetheless, after much research and some really, really seemingly stupid actions, I have fixed the machine. I wanted to document this fix here if, for no other reason, to ensure the text will be online as long as I can pay my ISP bill. But more on that later.

The Machine
ipod, generation 4, 40GB. Now it is nearly 3.5 years old (in usage); at the time of the problems it was about 2.75 years old.

The Problem
Simply put: songs skipping, not playing, or stopping mid song and skipping to the next song. My first mp3 player was an Archos 6GB (back when the ipod would only connect to the Mac computers) and after a massive "cleaning" of the hard drive, I encountered so many disk errors that the machine was rendered pretty much useless, although running Disk Repair software did help it out somewhat. I thought the same thing was occurring with the ipod.

First Fix Attempt
I followed the Apple recommended steps for troubleshooting starting with the hard reset and ultimately the complete "reformatting" which involves (I believe) wiping the machine and re-syncing all the songs (using itunes as the interface). For many problems, I would encourage attempting these steps; before I had "real" problems, my HD would hang at times and the hard reset worked just fine to restore the machine to a fully functioning music player. You'll know pretty quickly if these steps don't work.

Like, for instance, when the ipod refuses to sync songs, as mine did. I could hear the machine chug and chug, spin and decline. Something wasn't connecting. I figured it was a bad hard drive, which led to my next fix attempt.

Second Fix Attempt
Like I did with the Archos, I thought I would run the windows disk repair admin tools on the ipod. This was difficult as, when the ipod "chugged and chugged," the PC would not recognize it. Consequently, identifying the machine as an external disk, complete with drive mapping, was a painful experience of trial and error. I was about to give up, give in, and buy a new machine, when finally the PC found the ipod and I could begin the disk repair.

I learned a lesson here - if you want to keep attempting to resolve HD problems on the ipod, don't ever disconnect once you have a connection established with the PC. I won't elaborate; just use your imagination.

Long story short: I tried Disk Repair, Defrag, and even Formatting using a dos line. Formatting seemed to do the trick (sort of); the formatting took about 72 hours, and at the end of it all I could listen to was about 4 albums worth of songs that *should* have been removed when I performed the disk reformatting in step one (or, for that matter, logically should have been removed when I performed the format from the PC.

Syncing no longer even pretended to work. Chug, chug...nothing.

So, I went a few weeks listening to four albums. Nothing against the Archers of Loaf; I really enjoy their music, but sometimes I just need a little more.

Intermission
Of course, I made many web searches throughout this process. I was disheartened to find many, many folks with similar problems posting on the Apple boards. Moreso, I found tons of error messages on the (at the time) newly released "ipod classic" where folks couldn't sync more than 10GB of music without failing. It was at this time that I started giving up on the ipod and decided to start investigating other brands. Odd, reviews really aren't pretty for many brands, and while the ipods are expensive, they still typically have the best value...that is, if they work.

I started dusting off the old cassette walkmans buried in my basement.

But then, I found one very interesting solution. I can't find the URL, but the bright person took a different approach than I did: he didn't related the "chugging" problem to a HD error, but rather a mechanical problem where it sounded like the HD was just "loose" and not connecting properly. He took his machine apart, put a folded business card between the HD and the shell, put it back together, and it worked just fine.

Third Fix Attempt
I plugged in my ipod to sync. And I squeezed the machine. Hard. Feeding off the "mechanical" thought process, I squeezed the ipod when it was trying to sync, as if I were keeping everything in place while shooting a horrid pain through my wrist.

And hey, it worked.

If playback started giving me headaches, I would squeeze the machine, and it would work.

Weird.

The Problem Returns
This worked for a few months, but ultimately the syncing became more difficult and the playback more erratic. For some reason, it seemed that after each sync, the machine would become ill and give me a hard time for a few days before it "Captain Jack'ed" back to life. Sometimes I had to do a hard reset, but typically it would return to life.

Until, a few months later, it just didn't. I received the frown-face of death upon a hard boot, and that was the end of the ipod.

So, I decided to go back to the URL of the "business card" solution to read exactly what this person had done, figuring I would try it as well.

The Apple Annoyance
Funny thing about Apple forums, I learned. It seems many messages don't withstand the test of time. One could make the observation that any post complaining about the ipod not working might not last more than a few weeks. I don't know if this is true or not. But it sure as hell seems to be true.

And to think I almost plunked $500 down for an iphone. Bastards. I'll use a tin can tied to a string first.

Fourth Fix Attempt
With nothing to lose, I used a small screwdriver to snap the machine apart. I really hate "closed" systems, and while nothing is ever really "closed" if you know enough about opening things, I'll say that Apple really didn't make it easy to open the ipod.

And once I had it open, I could see why. The HD was positioned to bounce around inside the casing like, well, think of your best "no underwear" reference. This was just poor design; no other way of saying it.

Looking on my desk, I found a small piece of bubblewrap. I trimmed it into a small rectangle, placed it between the HD and main circuitry, and snapped the machine back shut.
It has worked perfectly ever since, going on over two months now.

Conclusion
In general, I really hate fixing things when they work but I really don't know what I did to resolve the problem. I don't know if I really fixed a mechanical problem or if I am in the middle of an extended Captain Jack moment.

I should also admit that there are probably millions of ipods in the world that I'm sure are working just fine. It can't just be dumb luck that keeps them all motoring. Perhaps it is witchcraft.

Mostly, I get annoyed by closed systems, censored message forums, and poorly design products that aren't supported when identified as errors. I don't think Apple used to always be this way; somewhere innovation took a backseat to market share. Perhaps they have finally sold too much sugar water.

But the ipod is working, so I'm happy.

Here's a fact: we are bad neighbors.

If you live next door to us, we'll say hello and look pleasant, but don't think we'll engage in any type of lengthy conversation. If you knock on our door, chances are we won't answer it. If you expect us to become part of some community event, think again; it just isn't going to happen.

If you need any proof, let me insert Exhibit A:

Our last next door neighbor had a little girl who was maybe three-four years old. She would play on the deck of her townhouse almost all the time as long as the weather was remotely nice. Once she dropped a toy off her deck and into our yard; they knocked and knocked on our door until we finally relented and answered to receive their request to fetch the object.

Apparently they gave up trying after that first toy, or perhaps we just never bothered to answer (or even look to see who was knocking) after that. Today, months after they moved, I was cleaning the mosquito breeding ground (see previous posts) and I found these two friends along with a couple balls and a few things that I really couldn't identify.

I suppose it is a good spook story for your children. Drop your toys into the neighbors yard and you can kiss them goodbye.

For those who guessed mosquito larvae to the question posed in the last post, you win a gold star. This site explains it all.

There is some good news to all this. First, examine this picture I took tonight of a mosquito pupae.

Now, consider I pulled this specimen from a glass jar I was incubating in my basement thinking that, instead of mosquitoes, I was harvesting something neat like gold-bearing leprechauns that start life as water-born squirming creepy things. At about 3:00 this afternoon, when I learned that my jar of happiness was teaming with soon-to-be mosquitoes, all I could really think to do was get home and get that jar outside as quickly as possible. Of course, I knew the larvae wasn't going to transform into mosquitoes in one day, but I suspected there were a number of pupae in that jar that could have.

I've done a lot of stupid things in this house over the years. I'm glad I can go at least one more day of my life saying that infecting it with a swarm of mosquitoes is not one of them.

Here's the deal; I have always really enjoyed science. I am fascinated by animals, rocks, astronomical events, physics, mechanics, mathematics, whatever. There are probably hundreds of books in our house that cover topics from evolution after the ice ages to mathematical theory to electronic engineering.

And the funny thing is, I have a brain that accepts none of it. I always did horribly in science classes in school, and even now I probably only capture 25% of what I read. It isn't frustrating because I enjoy the challenge; mostly, it is just kinda sad.

That said, I have recently made the attempt to combine my photography skills into a scientific hobby by purchasing a microscope adapter for my camera. Using a 40+ year-old microscope that was discarded from a high school (no, I didn't steal it), I have captured the following shots of some weird creatures I found living in a puddle in our backyard.

Now my question is: what is this thing?

They are very tiny, squiggly worm-like creatures that manically swim in no matter how little water they are surrounded by. The pictures, which admittedly aren't very great but enjoyable as a first attempt using the adapter, are 100x so the actual creature is only about 1/8 inch long. It appears that they like water, mud, dark places, and grime. I think the resemblance to the Eraserhead baby is a coincidence. After some research, I'm leaning towards thinking they are a type of Arthropod, but I really just don't know enough to be sure that is true.

This baby rabbit has been visiting our back yard for a week or so now. Whenever SashaCat sees it, she gets exceptionally mad and starts whining and scratching at the glass door as if she can dig her way out.

The bunny obviously knows she can't get out as it will walk right up to the glass to torment her.

Also, if you look closely at the picture, you'll see the last moments in the very short lives of my sunflower plants.

For a brief period of time, I was excited that perhaps I had found an alien life form who, when the weird, circular dot behind its eye was pushed, would open up into a mechanical being that would attack the world.

Further investigation revealed the round dot is a natural ear covering for frogs. Sorry.

This is what happens when you bring a laser pointer into our house.