So the family came down this past weekend for round 1 of Christmas.  That’s right, I have 3 rounds of Christmas this year: first is with my family, second is with the wife’s family and third is with the wife.  I do believe that my wife was questioning allowing my family into the house though as every morning she remembered that we are an early rising family.  So everyone but the wife and the brother in law were up around 6 every morning.  We enjoyed a ton of cookies that were brought by all, 2 great dinners prepared by the wife, which she was heavily complimented on, and quality family time overall.   Christmas itself was “staged” on Sunday morning and was complete with my mom and her “Santa told me that…” speeches as we rifled through our stockings.  I got a big Sudoku puzzle book, some beef jerky, a can of spam(?!), a can of tennis balls, digital air gauge and two nice sets of pliers (one standard size and one smaller set).  For the big gifts I received a nice 12 gallon shop vac that my dad claims will peel the paint off the walls if needed, some clothes, a book, and the big gift: A 30 gig iPod Video.  Yeah my mom did not follow the set rules of spending this year as she found loopholes in the proposed limits my sister and I set by spending on couples and individuals on different budgets instead of as one.  I originially asked for a 6 GB Mini, but Apple has discontinued the manufacturing of that in favor for the Nano.  As I have heard and orated on the potential downfalls of the Nano design my mom went for the big time.  I received the black model with chrome backside, a carrying sleeve and a compatible iTrip FM transmitter.  I was extremely pleased with this gift and have since been tweaking my computer to accommodate said iPod to its fullest.  In the music category, it holds a ridiculous amount and, in iTunes, will tell you how many DAYS of music you have loaded.  Along with the music you can load the album art to be displayed on the color screen.  So, being the techy that I am, I hunted down the programs that would make this possible and now have album art accompanying every song that is played.  That was a sweet discovery, as my brother in law who had the 20Gb model did not know it was possible (he and I were entranced with all the programs I was finding).  It adds some flare to the bare white screen that is usually there when a song is playing.  In video you have to have mp4 format, which is basically cornered by Apple and Quicktime. You could buy a full Quicktime license for 25 bucks or you could be resourceful and find the open source programs that convert anything to mp4.  And you all know what I did, and have already converted an episode of Lost and some Scrubs to mp4 and loaded them onto the iPod for test viewing.  I am having some audio synching issues but it is pretty darn cool none the less.  The screen isn’t the largest to view things on but when you are taking an extended trip, it’s better than nothing.  I look forward to using it on the nest long drive with the wife.  Other features are audio books, photos, podcasts, and simple games (solitaire etc…).  I look forward to exploring these as time goes on, but for now I am perfecting my music library!  I feel a bit guilty about getting such an expensive gift but, hey we got my parents a top of the line laptop for Christmas so it was expensive all around!!
Merry Christmas!
Now on to round 2 after I work 6A-6P on Saturday, drive to Charleston and drive back on Sunday Evening to work 6A-6P on Monday.  MY JOB IS SOOOOOO FUN.