Christmas Presents

It's odd for me to be talking about Christmas presents. I don't usually make a big deal about what I want for Christmas. I will just point my family to my Amazon wish list--to no avail. This year I was a little anxious, however.

I listen to a number of podcasts on my computer: Catholic Answers Live (a re-broadcast of their daily two-hour call-in radio shows, focusing on apologetics), EWTN Openline (ditto, only one hour though), Heart Mind & Strength Radio online (by Dr. and Mrs Popcak, call-in show with psychology and counselling the focus), Daily Breakfast (a true Monday to Friday Podcast by Father Roderick: geek issues, tv, movies, whatever), Catholic Exchange Today and Rock Solid (weekly and every few days podcasts respectively: news, interviews, thoughts of the day), the Rosary Army Catholic Podcast (a catholic couple from Conyers, Georgia twice weekly podcast: motto--Make Them, Pray Them, Give Them Away) and the multiple intermittent feeds from SQPN: Catholic Insider (Father Roderick's initial foray into podcasting: travelogues), The Secrets of Harry Potter, Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars (each movie series examined from a Catholic perspective).

And how do I listen to all this while chained to my computer? Simple: I don't. I miss quite a number of the podcasts week by week. So I decided to buy an iPod so I could take these on the walk to work and elsewhere. But Momma (my wife to those not in the know) expressly forbade me to buy one. The strong implication was that it was coming to me under the Christmas tree. So I suffered through podcast loss for several months waiting anxiously for Christmas morning.

All I really wanted (besides my two front teeth) was a Shuffle, the smallest and newest of the iPod line. What I got, however, was a full-size iPod (30 G). It seemed like overkill, but I have been very happy anyway.

Now I discover that SQPN is venturing into video podcasting, starting with Catholic Minute. Wow, I can actually watch Father Roderick while he's walking around Amersfoort looking for a copy of Zelda for his Wii. Neat!

And then I find out that a cable is available that will directly download photos from a digital camera into my iPod. So let's say you were going on a long cruise and had wife who was camera crazy. She could take as many photos as she wanted. We could simply download them onto my capacious iPod and never run out of room for more photos. Well, well.

So, well I got a number of lovely gifts this Christmas (also unusual for me) this gift stands out. May my family (my daughters in particular, who did the actual purchase) be blessed many times over.