My new car betrayed me.

My previous crossover, “Reveille,” had a hard drive where I could store music from my CDs. So when the time came to replace Reveille, I got the new version of the Very Same Car. Oh goody, I’d have fun playing/copying my CDs to the new hard drive.

Only, Reveille II doesn’t have a hard drive.
Because “everybody” has their music on their phones or iPods.

Seven months later I was pretty well done with juggling CDs, or re-listening to the same one four times in a row on longer drives. Also I’ve been planning a road trip to Missouri, and am not about to juggle CDs all the way up and down the Indian Nation Turnpike.

I finally reached the only possible conclusion. “I need an iPod.”

After a due amount of hemming and hawing, I got an iPod Nano. Nano is a smallish version, but not the screenless, overly simple one that looks like an eye shadow compact. When we got it home, I grabbed some CDs and went upstairs to add the music.

I looked over the “quick-start” guide, which didn’t say much, and plugged the Nano into my desktop computer. Having already saved a couple of CDs to the computer, I decided to start with those.

I’ve copied many a file to an external drive. How hard can it be?

So I opened the Nano drive and the music folder, and dragged a CD folder to the Nano.
“File copied to (G:) iPod_ control”

Bingo.

Then I unplugged the iPod and tapped the “Music” button to see how the file looked in there.

“No Music.”

What? Where did it go??

I had to go online, download the user manual, and rummage through multiple pages of text to find out where to start.

Apparently, “iTunes” and “iPod” are two different things.

Within half an hour, I figured out how to save music to my Music Library. Then, and only then, could I sync the iPod to the Music Library, wherever it may actually be, thus making the music available to play through the iPod.

As it turns out, all this is fairly simple compared to playing the music in the car. My media screen and I don’t seem to speak the same language. Pushing the “Menu” button may or may not lead to a screen with options I can use.

Still, nothing can squelch the victorious feeling I got when I plugged in, selected an album I haven’t heard in years, and got to listen to it while driving to the grocery store.

Yeah, I’m tech challenged and in waaaay over my head, but I’m trying.

Thanks for reading!
Jan