My iPod mini has been a good companion on my daily commuter train rides from Baltimore to DC and back. It's so small and lightweight that I clip it to my shirt instead of using the wired remote. The smaller storage space hasn't been an issue at all--1000 songs is an insanely huge selection for four hours of listening time a day. I just sync it a couple times a week to my wife's monster collection.

Yesterday was my last day of commuting by train for a while. Today we started driving from Baltimore to DC so that we could drop the baby at my mom's while my wife and I continue on to work. So I'm not going to be using my iPod as much now. When I'm in the car, I genrally ride in back and entertain the baby.

Though the iPod's doing OK, my Sidekick camera capability is dying. I've switched to a new camera, but the camera app only rarely recognizes the camera, and when it does, my Sidekick often reboots and loses all data. It takes hours to restore from the server, draining my battery to near empty.

I've basically worn out my Sidekick from a year's heavy use, and now I'm no so sure that I want to replace this one or wait for the upcoming third generation Sidekick. Quite frankly, the build quality of the Sidekick was mediocre, and I feel lucky that I got so much use out of mine.

Also, after 17 months on the market, the promise of usable productivity apps via the catalog is still unfulfilled. I just don't care about games and ringtones.

Blogging to hiptop Nation has been a great experience. The communal posting along with the unique image layout are what keep me coming back. But as I approach 600 posts, I can safely say that I've made the most of being here.

This isn't a goodbye, but I'll be posting much less here and more to my main blog while I think about what I will do next with moblogging.

- mike lee - baltimore