Putting new gadget to good use

When it comes to having the latest gadget on the marketplace, I’m usually a few years behind.

For instance, cell phones have been around for a good 15 or so years now, though it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I finally got mine.

And it wasn’t until last year that my wife and I finally got a DVR in our home, though the technology has been available since 1999.

My latest foray into the world of technical gadgetry has been the acquisition of an iPod. My friends and others around me have been downloading and uploading music to MP3 players of all sorts for years, but I was always the guy standing to the side, looking slightly confused by it all. But no more. Now I’m part of the club.

I like my iPod because it’s a virtually bottomless pit where I can store all the music I like. This way, when I listen to my music — whether it’s while I’m working out, folding laundry or just sitting on the patio — every song I hear is one of my favorites.

At present, I have 112 songs on my iPod, a number that has been rapidly growing. It’s an eclectic collection of my diverse tastes in music. In many ways, it’s almost a soundtrack of my life, as many songs represent different phases of my life.

For instance, there a couple of songs by Green Day: “Basket Case” and “When I Come Around.” These songs remind me of days hanging out in the college dorm.

There’s music from Phil Collins. “Do You Remember” always evokes memories of the final days of my junior year of high school, as I prepared to bid farewell to some of my closest friends who were about to begin a new phase of life.

There’s various Disney songs, such as “The Bare Necessities” and “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” — songs that take me back to our family’s trip to Disney World last year.

There’s songs that were icons of my youth, like “Come on Eileen,” “Every Rose has its Thorn” and “Sweet Child of Mine.” I wasn’t even that big of a fan of bands like Poison or Guns N’ Roses back in the day, but now their music always takes me back to a different place in time.

Other songs are simply samplings of my favorite artists. There’s a whole slew of Billy Joel songs, ranging from big hits like “Piano Man” and “Allentown,” to lesser known tracks like “Summer, Highland Falls” and “Captain Jack.”

The same goes for REM, another all-time favorite for me. There’s mainstream hits like “Man on the Moon,” and more-obscure selections, like “Nightswimming.”

Of course, there’s also a handful of Hootie and the Blowfish selections. After all, Hootie’s hit album “Cracked Rear View” was pretty much standard issue for anyone who went to college in the early '90s.

My iPod collection also pays homage to the classics. I have songs from The Beach Boys, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Johnny Cash. And I also have songs from artists with niche followings, like John Denver, Willie Nelson, James Taylor and Jimmy Buffet. I have songs from mainstream artists like John Mellencamp and The Dixie Chicks, and songs from obscure performers like Israel Kamakawiwo’ole and the Shaffer Brothers.

And just to be completely off the wall, my iPod also has music from Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond and The Jackson 5, not to mention the college fight songs from several Big 10 universities.

So I guess you could say I’m putting my new gadget to good use. I’ve got to say — it’s pretty cool to be able to carry around what would otherwise be several dozen CDs on something just slightly thicker than a credit card.

And if nothing else, I figure anything that can bring Frank Sinatra and Guns N’ Roses together is something that ought to be treasured.