I own a Cowon J3 MP3 player. I love it. The music it produces, heard through a higher end set of cans (I own a set of Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 and a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones, both of which re-produce beautiful music) is dreamy. Any other MP3 player simply pales in comparison. This is mostly due to Cowon’s advanced JetEffect audio enhancement technology. As long as the player works, it is a charm.

Cowon J3

photo credit: NFS-974

While setting it up, I had read about nightmares with Mac OS X and this player and how it should not be plugged into a Mac. Well, me being a technology jerk, decided to do it anyways and ended up with a player that constantly rebooted itself. It would get to the bootup screen, perform a “checking albumart” function and then throw garbage on the screen. The J3 does not have a hard reset built in and I tried every other trick I knew of. I knew that I would have to do something drastic.

I found a post on iaudiophile.net that explained how to use tcctool to unbrick the Cowon J3. From what I understood, most of the people that ran into this issue were able to mount their players on a Windows machine and fix the bad file that was causing the issue. In my case, the device would not boot far enough for me to use any such trick. So I ended up using tcctool to upload the latest firmware as explained in the post above. However, I still could not boot it up. It would still cycle through endless restarts.

So instead of uploading the latest firmware, I decided to upload the oldest firmware I could find on the Internet. That did the trick. I installed Cowon J3 Firmware Version 2.10 on the device and it restarted just fine! I then proceeded to fix the bad file by formatting the drive and re-uploading my music. It worked like a charm.

So if your Cowon J3 is stuck in a never ending loop and you are brave enough to try the tcctool method, it might be worth a shot. Of course, no warranties are implied or offered with this advice. Please make any changes or fix your device at your own risk. Leave a comment if this helped or if you need more information.

I just love having my little player back!

Still there was some rejoicing. I had the pleasure of editing and finally sending out a company wide email of the accomplishments of my team and the folks that I run with every day. I loved knowing that not only are we doing well, we are being recognized for the good work we do and are being called upon to do better work every day.

Crazy!

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photo credit: State Library of New South Wales collection

So here is to a crazy week, with lots of good things happening and some more scheduled to happen as soon as we let them.

It could have been a lot worse of course, but it turns out that I had forgotten to show some mutual fund earnings in our 2009 returns and the IRS added other items to it and asked us to respond. Well, as my astute MIL pointed out, we actually lost money on those funds, and now the government owes us some money.

IRS Tax Shelter

photo credit: JD Hancock

So something good came out of the bad. Not a lot of money mind you, but some to spend on a nice dinner and a toy for Lucien.

Even as I type this, I have to pinch myself. I have never been the type of person that likes to work out. However, somehow I enjoy biking and I even crave it at times. Like right now.

Specialized Sirrus

photo credit: sweens308

I have been working out on my hybrid sirrus and my recumbent stationary since July. I have pedaled well over 500 miles since then and try to get in at least five hours a week on the bikes. All I can say is that the results on my well being have been amazing. I will have to take some time some day to document all the good things about it but for now, I will say that it is a great way to burn off steam and it makes me happy.

Every time I climb on the bike and pedal past my threshold, I feel great.

One of my co-workers just came back from a three week vacation. It was nice to see him again and have him around to share in the load. But aside from that, I watched today as the rest of our team rallied around him to listen to him talk about his wonderful trip across the pond. It was so much fun to hear his tales and even more fun to watch the morale of the team lift up. The meetups were impromptu and always accompanies laughter and wide eyed participation. In between the short bursts of social interaction, the team took on new challenges and found quite unique and effective solutions to complex projects. All without knowing how well they were doing.

Iceland

photo credit: randystoreyphotography

He enjoyed his vacation and came back refreshed and ready to face the world. His experiences livened up our day and the group accomplished a whole bunch of goals without even knowing how productive they had been. A boon in so many ways.

My dad has been ill as of late. He had an infection, which led to persistent fever at night and general malaise. We first eliminated any serious illness through the ER and now he is taking some heavy antibiotics, courtesy of an emergency clinic and a fine doctor, to get rid of whatever has been plaguing him.

Get Well Soon

photo credit: Genista

Just the fact that he is taking good medication and he is slowly on his way to getting better makes me feel somewhat light hearted and happy about the day. I hope he gets better very soon but I want him to continue to feel full and energy and vigor.

I love you Baba and I hate to see you unhappy.

Do you ever have those days when time flies so fast that you do not have time to think? Today was one such day. Actually yesterday was one such day and I finally had the chance to start thinking again today. Well it felt good. Kind of like when I feel after a grueling two hour bike ride or after taking a long and relaxing shower. I am not sure what it is about being busy doing things you like, but it makes me happy and content. As if life stops around you.

This is the beginning of a long weekend. I like long weekends but they get boring without too much activity and I get antsy when I am not up and about. I hope to spend some time playing with Lucien, enjoying a couple of really long rides along the back roads (working my way up to 20 miles per ride) and spending some time with Jennifer and my parents. Here is to the end of this summer and a quick jump over to the next one.

Summers!

photo credit: ?ick Harris

Speaking of summers, I think this has been one of the best summers I have ever had. I cannot stop thinking about how much fun I have had with Lucien, of finally being able to take up bike riding and spending some time with family. Sounds like a broken record? Those three things just happen to be my “life fuel”. I enjoy those more than anything else in the world at this point in my life. So I try to do them as much as I can, while I can. Self serving and recharging as they may be, I am collecting all my wits about me, learning how to keep them about me while I forge ahead with as much steam as I can.

“Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.) Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!”
- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

I had a small heart to heart with a co-worker today. It was not a review, not a criticism, not an admonition, but just a little feedback from what I had observed of him. I was not chastising him for anything and I made sure that my tone was even and I took the time to explain exactly what I had observed and what it should mean to him. I also took the time to explain that it had absolutely nothing to do with the conversation that led us to the more private conversation and that I was willing to listen to any feedback he would have for me.

It was such a pleasure to just have a nice give and take of what made me feel good about the person and his behavior. To provide what I consider to be valid feedback and re-enforcement of core values that are successful for the individual in a non threatening and usable format, is not something I can practice all the time. Strangely, it also led to a quite private yet quite enriching conversation about our strengths and weaknesses and how we can use them to our advantage. I made the mistake of talking more than listening and I have made a mental note to reverse that trend in our next conversation.

It was a real nice feeling to see a plan come together today and produce excitement and happiness. We had a project, that was put together by my team, come together beautifully. A lot of hard work, planning, cajoling, restructuring and refactoring had gone into this project and to see the launch be a non-event was very heartening. To make things even better, when I logged into the website and started using it, it felt right. The look is modern, the data is interesting and the concept comes together and holds its own.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Well, not really. The reference is to a Lonely Island song that has become a mantra at work for the past few weeks. You see, a co-worker is off tonight on a 20 or so day cruise across the Baltic Sea. He is going to fly to Iceland and then take a boat across the sea, visiting St. Petersburg, Germany, Iceland and a few other countries surrounding the sea. My parents and I had traveled across “the continent” when I was very young and I have always had pleasant memories of the trip.

Sunset Cruise

photo credit: ecstaticist

I have been looking forward to taking the trip vicariously through the eyes of my co-worker. Today we spent quite a bit of time going over what he was the most excited about. He talked about a Spanish Galion he wants to visit, a few museums, some fun places to eat that we have all heard about and go for excursions on every port that the ships docks into. What a fun time it should be! I hope he takes a lot of pictures for all of us.

So, Happy Travels Amigo!

As a ritual at work, we go out to lunch with a bunch of friends from work. Many weeks are too full of meetings and minutiae to actually make the lunch possible but it is a time of the week that I look forward to. Today was no exception.

Just being able to sit and talk with like minded people, facing similar happenstance at work and at home, makes for a very enjoyable time. We went to the Star Diner on Glendale today. I like to order their fish sandwich. It is a large meal with a lot of fish, nice serving of tartar sauce and thin cut fries. I cannot speak for the rest of the crew, but I hope we never stop doing this as long as we work for this company.

We bitch about our co-workers, about taxes, cost of living, political snafus, current events in the world and at work and talk about a host of other things at these lunches and but they are almost always jovial and leave a sense of satisfaction. The food and the service are mildly important, but I think the company makes it all worthwhile.

So yesterday my coworker, who has a girlfriend who loves to cook for her beau, brought in a large tub of bean dip for us to share. Boy did it hit the spot. I remember thinking that the bean dip tasted very mild and fresh but also thinking that the garlic taste and the slightly gritty texture was very attractive. He told me that there was no hummus in this bean dip but the more I think about it, the more I think it would taste very nice. The sour cream taste along with the taco seasoning and the mild garlic and onion taste really made the morning.

We did run out of chips but what a great way to start a day!