I am going to be using Vegas to import about 145 MP3's on a single audio timeline and render as MP3. What I want to do is transfer the finished HUGE mp3 file onto my iPod nano, so that I can hit play, and let it run for the whole day (I am doing sound for an outdoor charity event). I need the songs to fade into one another, and iTunes does not let you do this (on the iPod anyway)....anyway, my question is, how do I get Vegas to apply the same 8 second overlap from the end of the previous song and the beggining of the next song, so that I don't have to do it 144 times?

I am going to be using Vegas to import about 145 MP3's on a single audio timeline and render as MP3. What I want to do is transfer the finished HUGE mp3 file onto my iPod nano, so that I can hit play, and let it run for the whole day (I am doing sound for an outdoor charity event). I need the songs to fade into one another, and iTunes does not let you do this (on the iPod anyway)....anyway, my question is, how do I get Vegas to apply the same 8 second overlap from the end of the previous song and the beggining of the next song, so that I don't have to do it 144 times?

pretty sure what you're looking for is in the Editing tab ( called "Automatically overlap multiple selected media when added"), it's a check box with settings to adjust it's settings underneath it.

Dave

Load all the tunes into Project Media/Media Pool.
Options - Prefs - Editing.
Click the "Automatically overlap multiple selected media when added option" to enable it and change the "cut to overlap conversion" time to 8 sec.
Select all songs and add them to the timeline.
Every tune will now have the desired 8 sec. overlap.

That worked great!...my next question is with the volume...each MP3 has different volume levels. Is there a way to have vegas apply some kind of effect like the "volume check" on the iPod nano...a sound limiter to even out all tracks volume....right now, I can only apply volume control over the entire lenght of the audio track as a single file.

I'm not an audio expert (by any stretch of the imagination!!) but give Wave Hammer with the "Smooth Compression" preset a try.
Do this at the Track level so that it affects everything.