Happy New Year

The holiday week is passing quickly. We coasted around the house for a few days before Christmas then headed off to Chicago for a while. While there, the weather was perfect so we walked around everywhere and had a great time. Between the eating, movie watching, shopping and eating, we were ready to come home after four days. I posted some pictures of our trip on my Flickr page.

When we returned, Pam became ill so we’ve stationed ourselves around the house for the past couple of days. It’s fine with me because now I’m getting a chance to catch up on old movies, some computer projects and other around-the-house activities. If she’s feeling better later, maybe we’ll go out and watch ANOTHER MOVIE. Let’s see, that will make about fifteen I’ve watched over the past 10 days.

The Christmas Gift from the people at work continues to astound me. It is a great feeling to know my co-workers care enough to show their appreciation. And man did they show it - a Best Buy gift card, loaded up so I could get a video iPod. Initially I wanted a Creative Zen Vision unit but they weren’t available there. After fidgeting with Michael C’s Zen and doing some online research I thought it was a good choice. But Best Buy doesn’t carry them yet even though I saw a demo a few weeks ago. Actually they were showing several Creative products and the Vision was on the guys belt. It must have been his personal unit. So I opted for the iPod video instead and I’m very happy with my choice. The Zen has a bigger screen and great features but it only has 30 GB of storage. My new iPod has 60 GB and some cool features of its own, especially the smaller size.

My time off has been consumed with loading it up with music, podcasts and yes, videos. I ‘ve found several nifty programs that convert any type of video into an iPod-ready format. My new friend has been keeping me busy for hours during our travels for the holidays.

There were others who gave me gifts for the computer assistance I’ve rendered. It’s a nice show of their gratitude and I respectfully appreciate their gifts as well. I help out because I enjoy sharing and collaborating with my friends and never expect anything in return. But thank you all for the unexpected surpises and I promise not to do any re-gifting.