My wife and I for years have been talking about wanting to move out to the West Coast someday. While that might seem like purely a writer’s paradise, with every passing winter it seems desirable for more reasons than milder winters alone.

Sure, winter seems all cozy and romantic with visions of cuddling before a wood fire together dancing in one’s head; but the reality is that winter’s a lot of colds, congestion, sleepless nights, annoying weather and discomfort. Who needs it?

People have always told me, “If you don’t like winter, why are you living in Minnesota?” My response has always been that everyone who means something to me is here.

However, much as I care about my friends, it may not take too many more long, cold winters to make me start reconsidering how those scales balance out. Something like Seattle, Portland or even San Diego rentals sounds increasingly more attractive.

No, I don’t mean a dance. But I do want to rave about my new mp3 player, since it is no longer and off-brand but one of Apple’s iPods: namely, a fifth-generation 16GB nano!

Sure, there’s not a lot that an iPod can do to improve my writing directly, but I can listen to audio books on it, not just music, and they’ve never sounded better. I used to think there wasn’t much difference among MP3 players, but now that I have a real iPod with iTunes, I can’t imagine how I ever got along with that Insignia for so long…