JLGoolsbee.com

I used to count down to the end of school in days… now it’s more like weeks or weekends, especially in the fall, because I’ve got some event pretty much every weekend, and it’s just easier to keep track how many weeks are left by how many events-on-weekends I have left.

Ok, I need to write about the weekend before I forget about it.

It started off Friday night, with Cowboy Band and the Ranger Christmas Parade (/). It’s the shortest parade we do, and one of the more fun parades we do because of that.

Saturday was the big event – the Neiman Marcus Children’s Christmas Parade (/). Hundreds of thousands attend, millions watch the syndicated broadcast; in short, we get tons of exposure, and the energy you draw off the massive crowds offsets the length of the parade. Also, I was on TV; you should check your local listings to watch the parade.

By the way, a big thanks to Carrie and Melissa (my sister) for letting me get the pictures they took at the these events, and thanks to David Coffield for letting Carrie borrow his camera.

I guess the only other blog-worthy thing that happened was Saturday night, I took my brother and sister downtown and we had dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse. I parked in the lot right next to the SW, and it was one of those where you park and then go pay a machine to get a stub to put on your dash. So there we are, standing in line for the parking-stub-machine, and this guy starts walking up behind me; I see him in the corner of my eye. He says, “Hey kid, come here.” Last thing I want to hear in downtown Dallas, right? I turn my head to look at him; he is a middle aged caucasian male (sounds better than white man), about my height, dressed semi-nice. He motions to me, and says “come here” again, this time a little more emphatically. So, I take a couple steps towards him, and wait for him to come the rest of the distance. He holds out his hand, and in it is a white slip of paper. “Here, take it. My wife and I just had pizza over there, so here.” Now, not knowing what the paper was, or why he wanted me to have it, I timidly asked “What’re you doing?” And that’s when things got interesting; he responded in a somewhat agitated tone, “Look, don’t be stupid, I’m trying to save you a few bucks here! Save your money, kid!” Totally not the response I was expecting, and it was only then that I realized that the white slip was a parking stub that had been paid for already and was good for the rest of the night. So, I took the stub and said “thank you” as he walked hurriedly back to his car. Strange, no? My brother was convinced it was illegal or something, and that we’d get in trouble for using it. I appreciated the random act of kindness, but his attitude towards me when I didn’t understand was way off base; his attitude alone made me wonder if there was something illegitimate about the stub (though as far as I could tell, there wasn’t). But, dinner was fantastic, and my brother and sister had a good time.

By the way, from now on I’m going to use this -> (/) to denote a new flickr set. For instance, above where I spoke about the Ranger parade, there’s one there, and there’s another where I talked about the Neiman Marcus parade. The will link to the set at flickr.com, so you can go through them and leave comments if you want. Clicking on will open a smaller new window with a flickr slideshow in it; these slideshows are an easy way to look at the pictures, and if you click on the picture, it will show a link to view that picture on flickr.com. As always, you can also browse my pictures right here on my website by clicking “Photos” on the navbar up there.

I am thankful for Thanksgiving break, and for being home on Thanksgiving break.

Last weekend, the Cowboy Band came to Dallas and we played for the Neiman Marcus Christmas tree lighting. I’m sure it has some other special name, but basically they lit-up 100,000 lights around their store in downtown, and revealed the “Neiman Marcus Christmas Tree” – this year, it was made out of money… $1,000,000 in retired/shredded $1 bills, to be exact. I didn’t get a picture of the tree, but some of the pictures I did take are posted at flickr (slideshow ).

I stayed home that weekend, and Saturday morning me and dad went to the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show at the Ft. Worth Convention Center; again, pictures on flickr (slideshow )… I sat on some really nice bikes, and it really made me want to start riding again. The only real problem is where in Abilene to store it when it rains…

That afternoon, we headed to another one of those events where car manufacturers let you drive their new models around a test course… and if I get a new car anytime soon, it’ll be a Dodge Charger SRT-8.

Yeah, it’s got a Hemi.

Then came 2 more days of school, and now it’s Thanksgiving break. The Chuy’s Christmas Parade is in a few days; watch flickr for pictures.

Oh yeah, almost forgot… uploaded some updates to the site/theme today:

• added some icons here and there
• fixed the Photos page (it looked weird for bit there)
• added an Archives page

Anyways, as usual let me know if you see anything you think doesn’t look right.

Well, you made it – you found my new website. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I’d be moving my hosting to my new DreamHost account, and the transition is complete. So far, all that’s changed (as far as you’ll be able to tell) is my website’s address – www.jlgoolsbee.com. Other design changes may follow; it really just depends on what I feel like doing combined with finding the time to do what I want to do.

As usual, poke around and let me know if you find any bugs in the system (except for the photos page – I know it’s been looking weird lately; not sure why yet).

Those of you on email subscriptions; all of you should be automatically switched to the new site, so don’t worry about re-subscribing. If you’re not subscribed or have no clue what I’m talking about, click the “Subscribe” link above.

That is all.

“… it’s been a tough couple of weeks, and I’m glad it’s over.”

I should have checked with my life before I wrote that, because apparently, life had other plans. The tests and projects are still coming; all of them spaced just so – I’m living project to project, test to test… and this doesn’t include planning next semester’s schedule and registering for classes, or PDBC’s musical, or CBB performances.

Speaking of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church’s musical – Pioneer is doing a musical. It’s this Sunday evening (Nov 12th) at 6pm, and you are invited. I’ve been doing a lot of media for this thing, and I think it’s going to look and sound great.

The other night while writing my American Lit research paper, I ate 2/3′s of a large bag of baby carrots… lesson: don’t do that. Apparently, if you eat too many carrots, your body builds up a toxin, and you get sick.

Also, just thought I’d post a couple things I’m following on the web that are Mac-centric; if you’re a Mac user, you might just find these interesting.

• MacHeist – an online “game” of sorts that for the next few weeks is sending users on “heists” for stuff, and in return, they’re giving out tons of free software, and who doesn’t like free software? If you want an invite, just let me know.
• Spanning Sync – If you use iCal and Google Calendar, and wish you could keep your calendars in both, with changes to either one showing up in the other – these guys are about to make it happen. The private beta started Wednesday (Nov 8th), and the public beta isn’t too far away.

That’s all for now I suppose.