Stratocruiser 'Revolutions'

I got some bad news the other day… The lovely days that I have been sharing with Gretchen II are over.

I’m not mourning, but I am a little angry.

Gretchen II has been my constant musical companion for the last 10 years. She has lived beyond her life expectancy. She has soldiered along side me to NASCAR races, an NFL football game, and countless activities where she provided background music. She was my portable compact disc collection. She was my rock.

Gretchen II was an MP3 player.

She came into my possession when a contest winner didn’t pick up the original Gretchen after 3 notifications and 6 months of waiting. Gretchen, like most new tech for me, didn’t work for me properly. I contacted the Microsoft folks, who said “Hmmm… That’s unusual… We haven’t seen that before” and they sent me a replacement. And that replacement became Gretchen II.

Yes, my Zune had a name. Microsoft encouraged naming them.

I resisted the MP3 player. But once I discovered the joy of having 450 albums out of my massive collection in the palm of my hand, I was hooked.

Then I discovered the joy of having a Zune Pass music subscription. For a monthly price of a brand new compact disc, I could download anything from the Zune Marketplace to borrow and enjoy. I could discover new music again. I could revisit old favorites that I have on vinyl. I could explore old titles that I’ve never listened to before. I felt that it was the bestest bang that I was getting for 10 bucks a month. I felt alive again checking out the latest and greatest releases from all kinds of genres!

I didn’t give things much thought when Zune was dropped and rebranded under the Xbox Music moniker. They just sort of rebranded on the fly with very little fanfare. Gretchen II was still doing her thing and nothing could stop us.

But a couple of months ago I got a strange and yet distressing email from Microsoft.

Unlike the previous rebranding, I was being informed about a change. Xbox Music is now Groove Music. The distressing part involved them giving me three months of my subscription for free.

Now that wouldn’t cause too much concern in most people, but I knew there was a catch. Getting three months of something you love free doesn’t happen often… And I’m always suspicious of free.

The catch was discovered over this past weekend.

I had a long round-trip drive to West Virginia on Sunday for my Grandfather’s funeral. Since I’d have six hours in my truck I packed Gretchen II with me.

I asked Jamie to “center punch” the dial to kick off the random play jukebox. But when a tune from Kasey Musgrave came up, Gretchen II had a message that the player didn’t have the song even though the album cover came up.

I knew something was wonky when I couldn’t even get my player to synch with the software on my laptop.

On Monday I did some digging around and found that Microsoft has completely ditched the Zune players. My beloved Gretchen II is now nothing more than a paperweight. I was hurt even though I knew that it was just a matter of time when she would be forced out into the pasture.

(Here's Gretchen II pictured with Jamie's old school mixer that she still uses. For some reason I thought it was cute.)

So since I had my 3 months of Groove Music, I did some digging on them. And it turns out that it no longer serves my needs. I don’t want to use an app. I want a player to download tunes onto. I don’t care for streaming and letting algorithms dictate what’s next. I want to know what’s on the player and set that joker on random. That’s what I want.

I don’t use my phone for music. I find it impractical and annoying. I don’t want to fill storage up with tunes to have my random play jukebox. There is simply not enough room for what I want on there and it changes every week. And besides, if I Bluetooth it with a device, notifications from all the apps and text messages will constantly ruin the flow.

I cancelled Groove Music right there on the spot even with a month to go on the subscription.

I had some more research to do for music sites and Rhapsody kept coming up as something that met my needs. But upon further inspection, their list of compatible players kept leading me to messages of “Discontinued by manufacturer”. There was a dead end at every turn with Rhapsody.

My only hope was to ask questions of my iHole friends about iTunes and their subscriptions. I got the answers that I truly wanted, but I am going to have to embrace the dark side. I will have to become an iHole because I’m on the lookout for a 16GB Nano.

iTunes will get me back on the player/subscription/download path again. I don’t care for it, but it is a necessary evil. It will keep me discovering new tunes. And I’ll still be able to rip my compact discs.

Sure it’s an operating system that has had me whipping my hands through my hair like a detoxing junkie sweating things out, but damn. It must be done. I must become an iHole.

John Mellencamp 'John Mellencamp'

Since Keith in France asked... The title of each blog entry is the musical choice for my day. It's the CD that I drag around with me to enjoy while driving. And I rip it and keep it on my MP3 player until the stock in the 30GB rotates it out. I chose a disc for each day. It's my OCD thing and yes, I know it's funny.

Why do I use my CD of the Day as the title?

Well quite frankly, I'm too lazy to find a catchy title and I'd like to give you a peek into my music collection. You know... For what it's worth.

Now on to my update...

I found myself walking through nearly a foot of dead leaves in the backyard the other day. I slipped and nearly fell as made my way down a small hill. Leaves can be slick even when they’re dry.

Sam has been too busy with extracurricular activities to dedicate time for leaf sweeping the yard, so I decided I would give it a shot. How hard can it be to drive a riding mower?

Well…

I got that joker started, but I couldn’t find reverse. There was no gear shift! The only thing that looked like a gear shift was the lever that controlled the height of the actual mower bladey thing. (I think they call it a deck) There was a bright yellow lever near the steering wheel, but I didn’t understand its purpose. So I sat on a running mower reading over the printed instructions that weren’t very clear to me. I saw no mention of using reverse so I uttered “Screw it” and turned it off.

The leaves were going to wait until a more capable person came along.

I felt a little defeated. I had a beer ready to roll with me. I had my Zune MP3 player and ear buds ready with random musical goodness. I was prepared for leaf duty.

And dammit, I can drive a straight-drive car or truck.

That’s all I ever heard during my life. All those years my father drove it into my head… “If you can drive a car with a manual transmission, you can drive anything.”

Well, it looks like my father never warned me about the John Deere riding mower and it’s elusive reverse.

Here’s the real kicker…

The next day Sam and Chigger hit the lawn with an all out assault on the leaves. Sam was riding around the yard sweeping up leaves on the riding mower. Chigger was armed with a rake and leaf blower. They fought Mother Nature’s confetti cannon for an hour until grass was visible.

Me? Where was I?

I supported them with KP duty. I prepared sandwiches and beverages for the hard yard workers. I even took them the food so they wouldn’t have to stop. I cleaned the kitchen. I did laundry. I even did a little sweeping and vacuuming. I was mother-fo’ing Hazel!

I was told by a jury of two that it was probably a good idea that I not learn how to drive and operate the riding mower. At first, I took offense to this ruling. But it only took a few minutes to get over it and pop open another beer.