Epiphany

I've decided to strengthen my bond with my kids by acting more like their real father. So I quit my job and am going back to bed.

Songs purchased on iTunes won't play on iPod

Yesterday I created an account for my son on iTunes. This was so I could give him an allowance to download his own songs. He purchased two songs and they downloaded fine to his iPod. The iPod showed the songs and artwork however the songs would not play. The iPod would just skip over them. He has an iPod video 30GB and my laptop is a Toshiba running Windows XP and iTunes 6.0.4.

I tried loading them onto my iPod nano with the same result.

I then searched the web and discovered many people were having the problem, but it seemed like nobody had found the solution.

I tried doing the 5 R's APPLE recommended to no avail. It was a very frustrating day.

Around midnight, I found an obscure statement on the Apple forum recommending deleting a file under the "All Users" setting. Here is the link and text:

"If that doesn't work, try this...
1) Delete the SC Info.sidb file as documented in http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302386.
2) If the issue persists, again try recrating the iTunes Music Library as described in http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313
If this works, please post back for some more info and what to do with the files you copied.
btabz "

I think the key was deleting the SC Info.sidb file. This is something Apple needs to acknowledge and post. It could have saved me several hours.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid - Yahoo! News

I wonder what our friends, the Liberals, will say about this huge milestone in the war on terror.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed in air raid - Yahoo! News

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and kidnappings, has been killed in an air strike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday, adding that his identity was confirmed by fingerprints and a look at his face. It was a major victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror.

I predict they will say such insightful things as:
* Violence never solves anything
* This doesn't mean the war is over
* What about the civilians our soldiers murdered in Haditha?
* Now we should bring the soldiers home!
* How many innocents were killed in the airstrike to get Zarqawi?

CSS Antennas

Well I finally left LCC. Bittersweet after so many years but I needed a change. I needed to be with a company with which I can achieve more success.

George Lucas Sighting

So I'm in Las Vegas for the annual CTIA show. We stayed at the Paris hotel, one of my favorites because it's not overwhelming and is clean and Disneyesque in its capture of stereotypical France.

Anyway, there was apparently a wine show going on at the hotel for the first couple of days. I happened across several open suites hosting various tastings. I didn't have the guts to walk in and try some but that isn't the point.

I was at the LV convention center attending the show when my friend Andy called from the hotel. Excited, he couldn't wait to tell me that he rode an elevator with George Lucas. The funny thing is that he is the most outgoing person I know but he was speechless around Lucas. We come from the Star Wars generation (I was ten when the movie premiered) so Lucas' work had a profound, major impact on our lives.

Because he knew nobody would believe him, for the rest of the night he kept pointing out men who resembled (or didn't) Lucas and saying "There he is!!!" Everybody got a big kick out of it.

The really funny thing happened the next morning. We were standing in line for a restaurant and chatting about seeing George Lucas when all of a sudden Andy exclaimed "There he is!" I turned to look where he was pointing and sure enough, there was the legend himself walking along the faux-cobblestone street chatting with an older, taller man. I was struck by how short GL was but of course camera angles can conceal much. He's also much thinner than he appears on TV but its true cameras add pounds to everyone.

Cats eating rubber bands

We have a cat that is not very smart. He eats things that he finds on the floor. One day he ate a bunch of rubber bands that he found on a dresser.

He stopped eating his food and hid in a corner. Obviously feeling very sick.

We took him to the vet who x-rayed him and found that his intestines were completely blocked. The only way to save him was for them to operate on his stomach and remove the blockages.

$800 later this is the result. 

Ericsson annually sponsors a party one night at CTIA. This year the party was held at the Rain nightclub inside the Palms hotel. Here are some photos of old friends.