I think I might have been just a little too hasty when I put my last iPod to the hammer. I think I just assumed that when it refused to turn on that the battery had just died. It was an old iPod and had lived a very long and fulfilling life. Surely its time had just come.
Tonight, however, I am having second thoughts about that theory. When I plugged my brand new 60 GB video iPod into the computer, it suddenly locked, stuck on the "do not disconnect" screen. It wouldn't power down. It wouldn't power up. And the computer refused to recognize its existence.
I could just feel my anger rising. Had I just destroyed another brand new and very expensive iPod? Would I have to spend hours waiting for a spot at the genius bar to to convince them to replace the player? Or maybe I should just put the thing out of its misery. I starting trying to remember where I left the hammer. For a moment, I even considered going down to my storage unit to fetch the power drill.
Instead, I decided that I would simply go for a walk. I grabbed my coat and headed down to Pioneer Square. I haven't been to that part of town for almost a year now. I took some time to walk by some of the office buildings where I used to work. I returned nearly two hours later no less furious but at least too tired to do something I might regret.
I did a little Googling for iPod factory reset codes and after spinning around the Apple troubleshooting documents for a bit found the magic combination of buttons to press. And with that, my iPod returned back to life, good as new.
I'm sure my brother will be thrilled when I tell him that the iPod that I had promised to give him was probably still working just fine and that I smashed it to bits for no reason at all.
