But before I made a trip over to Fry's or the nearest Apple Store, the iPod came back to life. Needless to say, I'm happy I don't have to shell out any dough in the near term, but on the downside, I kind of wanted to move forward.
More details around how I managed to get the iPod back to life are covered in my latest post to The Apple Blog, titled iPod Death and Rebirth. Per agreement with them, I will not be cross-posting the piece, but instead, have provided a link. Enjoy.