I know that feeling, when I was like 10yro. I got my first model rocket, went to the park with my dad to launch it...ended up getting stuck in a tree the first launch. Never got it down.
But I know how you feel about losing your ipod. I had a creative zen microphoto that went bonkers on me firmware corrupted. I felt terrible after that, ended up buying a cheap sandisk sansa 2gb mp3 player. And I just bought an ipod touch today, can't wait for it to get here!!!