I can so vividly remember it. The summer of 2004, I had just graduated middle school, and was embarking onto a new adventure, high school. As I came to learn, I wasn't the only one, technology was getting a real quick boost too. Setting: Summer Travel Camp, Destination: 3 days to Conneticuit and 5 to Boston. With the long bus ride everyone needed something to keep them occupied. Whether it was a walkman, magazine, gameboy, book, or cell phone, all of my friends were finiding anyway possible to keep themselves relaxed for the 8 hour ride ahead. I even recall the counselors telling us to bring video tapes, and yes by tapes I mean 'VHS' for the bus to watch. DVDs were first being introduced, having a DVD player was a real luxury. I brought 'Grease', on VHS of course and with all the singing it made the ride so much more pleasant. In every seat, on every passengers lap was a CD player walkman with the headband-like earphones to blast out the sound. Accompanying them was a case holding their wide and vast collection of these compact discs. The actual player and set of CDs was a hassle for the average teenage to be lugging around, especially over state lines. Fast forward: boys and girls yielding toward the back of the bus to check out this new fascinating piece of technology. What was it? What was causing all this hype? I followed along having to see what this mass hysteria was all about. When I had moved about 7 seats back to see what everybody was looking at, I was amused just as well. I had never seen anything like it before. One of my fellow campers was holding in her hand what I believe changed both the music and technology industries forever. It was a small about 5 inch by 3 inch rectangle with a long white separated wire emerging from the top corner. The two buds at the end of the wire were stuck one in the girl's ear one the other in the girl sitting next to her's. They sat there singing along to what was coming out of those earbud speakers. She said that she had put about 200 songs on already. I thought to myself, is this even mathmatically possible. How can this 5 x 3 inch little device hold that many songs, as even the teens there couldn't even manually carry that many in CD form. It was amusing and eyecatching for all. What was this new technology that was so fascinating you ask? Well of course, it was Apple's lastest and greatest innovation, the iPod. From that day on, I knew I just had to have one.

I feel like it was that summer day that started it all. The launch of the iPod. I couldn't wait to tell my parents what needed to be my birthday gift. Commercials started popping up all over the tv. It was, in my opinion the launch of the technological boom. The colors first introduced were pink, silver, green, gold, and blue. A color for all personalities was available. The color that fit me best: yep, green, spunky and bright.

Apple had done something like noneother. They had created a this device that would change America. During that time they introduced the iPod, the iPod mini, and the iPod Shuffle. The iPod was a new way of life. Instead of having to carry around that collection of CD's or that heavy walkman, there was a new light weight, portable, can hook onto almost anything gadget, and it really was a must have. Plus the best part was the amount of memory and the amount of songs that had the capacity of being stored. The advertisements said the iPod was capable of holding 500 songs. I thought to myself, who listens to, better yet, who even knows of 500 songs, and how it was at all possible to fit them all into this small handheld device.

I was just an average American teenager. Would buy the latest pop, boy band CD, put it into by CD player stereo system at home and jam along. When it was time to leave the house, I'd pack up my collection and bring it along. That all changed on my 15th birthday. Eating dinner with my family and opening up what was my connection to the new world of technology, what is even affecting me now. There it was, my bright, spunky green iPod mini, with my name engraved on the back.

I still use it to this day, and even have surpassed the 500 song limit that was first said, now with a grand total of 747 songs, and I'm still uploading! The iPod completely changed both me and America as a whole.