The Penny

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

[Monday, March 8, 2010]

My Side of the Story


I was reading Laynie's blog post, describing her experiences with music in the car. Just for fun, this is my perspective of the same thing, a la Lion King 1 1/2.

Laynie wanted to listen to audiobooks and music in the car, and obviously the SLP in me had to encourage that. I let her use my CDs and burned her some, with a variety of musical genres. The reason I went with CDs is because they would provide her with the best possible sound quality (because unfortunately her car does not have an AUX jack) and because they're pretty much fool-proof. Pop them in and go. In my car, I connect my iPod using an FM transmitter, which is basically the worst possible sound quality you can get. Seems silly to use something that has the worst possible sound, doesn't it? I'm stuck, because my car is a 2002 and definitely does not have an AUX jack, and I haven't gotten around to switching out the stereo. What am I going to do, use CDs? This isn't 1998. Kidding, it's just that most of my music is in the form of bits and bytes--I've bought maybe one CD in the past two years.

Anyway, the FM transmitter sometimes needs to be switched to another frequency band when interference causes static or when other channels break through. It doesn't happen often for me, but it does happen, especially when I drive on I-695. That's the way Laynie drives to go to Towson. I considered setting up an FM transmitter in Laynie's car but decided against it, because she couldn't reliably tell the difference between music and static. But recently she has made some improvements in her listening skills (got a better map), saying that things were sounding clearer.

A few weeks ago, I began showing Laynie what static sounds like. I pointed it out to her when I heard it while using my iPod setup. I showed her what happened when the button accidentally got pushed on the transmitter and the channel wasn't in sync with the car, how to make it right again. So when she said she was bored with the CDs she had in the car and hinted strongly that she would like to get a wire like the one I had, I took her straight to Best Buy.

A few days ago, she said she got in the car and the signal was all static. She checked the transmitter and sure enough, the channel had been changed (the buttons are easy to press if you lean on them). Laynie was proud of herself for changing it back and having a nice drive with music. I guess she was ready.

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