I had always hated carrying my Treo 650 in my shirt pocket. It falls out much too easily any time I would bend over for anything. This time, I just happened to be leaning over a piece of cast iron. I just ordered a belt holster despite my wife basically forbidding me to do so because it "looks terrible on your belt". Maybe it does, but it doesn't look as terrible as a screen that is cracked into 5 pieces with a space bar that doesn't function. I have no option other than returning it to PalmOne and having it repaired for a fee of $204. Needless to say, I hope that belt holster arrives soon (obviously, not soon enough). I'm still not sure how I'm going to get by without a phone for the 1-2 weeks it takes to repair it.

I thought my wife Nicole was dead. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. It was late on a Saturday night and she was taking a bath before going to bed. I walked into the bathroom and found her motionless with her head tilted forward, with both her mouth and nose under water. I ran over to her, lifted her head, and shouted her name very loudly several times and she did not respond. My mind started flying through the scenario. I knew she could not have been in the tub for more than 5 minutes and that I needed to start CPR as soon as possible. I would also need to call 911, but not until after I started CPR. I should use the home phone because it would link to our address more easily than my cell phone and the cordless on the kitchen counter would be the closest. I reached in the tub and started to pull her onto the bathroom floor to start CPR. I didn't realize how limp her shoulders would be and they slipped out of my hands and she slipped back into the tub. I was being too delicate because I didn't want to hurt her, which doesn't make any sense in retrospect. I tried again with more resolve and pulled her up onto the side of the tub. I shouted her name again and she still did not respond so I tilted her head backwards to check her pulse. My hands were shaking so much that I couldn't diagnose anything, so I decided to just pull her on the floor and perform both breathing and chest compressions. Just when I started to move her, she took in a huge gasp of air and looked at me with a partially scared but mostly confused look. She had no idea what had just happened.

She was obviously fine because she was quickly on her feet and completely coherent. She thought I had woken her from a nap, and I guess that may have been the case. However, if it had been just a couple of minutes later, the result would have been completely different. We talked about what had just happened for the next hour or so. By the fear in my eyes, she could tell something major had just happened, but her reaction wasn't as dramatic as mine and felt it was important to make sure she understood what happened. Needless to say, we both promised to never take a bath when we're sleepy ever again.

I was glad that I didn't panic during the situation and that I reacted calmly and quickly. I was a little disappointed that it took me as long as it did to get her out of the tub and that I was overcome with adrenaline and unable to check her pulse. Even though I didn't actually perform CPR, my training came back to me clearly. I'm confident I could have performed it properly despite having seen it demonstrated incorrectly so many times on television.

This wasn't a "I didn't realize what I had until she was almost gone" experience. We'd had a great day, spending pretty much every minute together. However, it has made me reflect on traumatic it would be if I did lose Nicole. It's made me much more protective and perhaps more appreciative. Because this was such a dramatic event, I felt it was necessary to write it down. So remember, don't fall asleep in the tub.

I've been buying music online from Musicmatch for the past year and a half. I like the fact that they have fairly high bit rates (168K) and that Musicmatch Jukebox is so easy to use. Now that However, now that I've started listening to music on multiple PC around the house, I've become very frustrated with the DRM and the fact that I requires that I jump through so many hoops. I have to play every single song in Musicmatch Jukebox on every PC so it can first download the decryption keys. As I download more music, I have to repeat the process. It's my music, just let me freakin play it!

I've recently decided not to buy any more DRM-protected music. When I buy a CD, it's not protected and I shouldn't expect any less when I purchase music online. Huge hard drives are extremely cheap and I've realized that there is no reason to compress my music. I pretend to be an audiophile and I have plenty of drive space, so I'm only going to use lossless compression from now on. FLAC is free an open-source and is my format of choice, so any customer-focused company should have no problem implementing it.

Given these stipulations, I figured I'd just stop buying and downloading music and go back to ripping CDs. Then I found AllOfMP3.com. They sell unencrypted, DRM-free, lossless music in a variety of formats. Then I found out that AllOfMP3.com basically sell pirated music; they don't pay the owners of the must. But it does give me music in the format I want (FLAC.) So until other companies start to put the customer first and offer these same features and legitimate music, I'm not going to give them money. I'll stick to CDs.

I was momentarily interested in PyMusique, an app that allows unencrypted purchases from the iTunes music store. However, the files are still compressed and AAC is not supported as widely as is WMA. I want the flexibility to choose between device manufacturers. For example, I'm looking at both the Roku Soundbridge and the Sonos multi-room music players for distributed audio throughout my house. When companies compete, music lovers win. When Apples unilaterally controls your music, consumers loose.

It figures, just a couple of weeks after I convert a Sprint Treo 650 to Verizon, Verizon announces that they are going to carry it. Oh well, at least I've been able to get a few extra (early) months of enjoyment. I've tried to get by with not using a case or belt clip because my wife thinks phones look terrible when worn on your belt. However, it's now fallen out of my pocket about six times and three of those were on tile or concrete, so I order a belt case from TreoCentral.com. I also ordered the Treo Wireless Bluetooth headset and the PalmOne pen/stylus.

The most useful software I've installed is SplashID. It allows me to store and encrypt all of my passwords and has a great PC interface in addition to the Palm app. Minutes Plus is a nice free app that tracks and estimates my total minutes usage for the month. It works well but since I upgraded to more minutes each month, it isn't as useful. My wife uses most of our shared minutes anyway. Butler allows for some nice customizations of the Treo, such as turning-off the blinking LED, but I don't use it as much as I thought I would. I like using Versamail to automatically download my personal e-mail from my IMAP server but has had some unexplainable crashes and often forgets account settings; guess I need to try Snapper mail. I would purchase a Verizon Express Network plan, but it is way too expensive. I've just been using minutes only with the slow (14.4 kbps) Verizon QNC network. It works fine for checking e-mail and infrequent web browsing.

Most of the team was back together again last night at a gathering at the house of Dr. Lyles. Li was the only one unable to attend and I wished she were there. All of the previous China Trip participants were invited because Faye was making her first trip to the US after being unable to get a passport after so many attempts in the past. Because there were some many people there, some of whom may be going on the trip this next summer, our group wasn't able to talk with one another all that much and it just make me miss them even more. We definitely need to get together as a small group soon, especially before Li moves to Delaware.