If I wrote for a newspaper, that would have been my front-page headline… but all I’ve got is this little blog, so no Pulitzer Prizes for me.

But seriously, yesterday was an important day for anybody that likes Apple products and/or mobile phones. Pictured here is the iPhone, Apple’s long rumored entry into the mobile handset market, and it brings with it some pretty unique innovations. I can’t possibly go over all the features packed into this device, but I can tell you it’ll be the thinnest phone with this many features. There’s only one button on the front of the device; a “home” button. All other “buttons” are on the huge touch-screen that covers the front of the device. The touch-screen isn’t quite normal either; it employs a new multi-touch technology that allows you to use two fingers to navigate the display; try doing that with any other touch-screen on the market. But, this isn’t just a phone, it’s also an iPod, with your choice of either 4 or 8GB of storage for your music, photos, and movies (and yes, this thing will play them all). It’s not just a phone/iPod though, it’s also an “internet device,” meaning you can browse the internet through a web browser, or check weather or stock quotes through widgets.

All these features and more make this device a true revolution in the mobile handset market, but it’s the little innovations that make it shine. For instance, a sensor detects when you put the phone to your face to take a call, and turns off the touch-screen and backlight to conserve battery life, and to keep you from pushing any buttons while taking a call. Another sensor detects how you’re holding the device, and rotates the screen accordingly. If you’re listening to music when a call comes in, the music will fade out so you can answer the call, and when you hang up the music will start right where you left it.

Cingular will have the exclusive contract with Apple for the iPhone; it uses a few advanced network capabilities that Cingular and Apple are still hashing out. It will release in June for the somewhat hefty price of $499 for the 4GB version, and $599 for the 8GB version. These prices sound pretty steep, but consider the cost of buying a phone with that feature-set, an iPod with that feature-set, and an internet tablet with that feature-set (I should point out that none of these products currently exist with these kinds of features)… you’d be paying a lot more.

Yesterday wasn’t all about the iPhone though, Apple released another product: the Apple TV (which is the small white box in the picture above; the television pictured is not part of the Apple TV). They previewed this piece of hardware last fall (under the code-name “iTV”), but they’re taking orders now and it will ship in February. The Apple TV allows you to watch, listen, and view all the movies, music, and photos you have on up to 5 Macs or PCs on your television. It connects to the computers wirelessly, using WiFi 802.11b/g or the new (but not quite finished - but almost) 802.11n wireless standard, which promises 5x the speed and 2x the distance of current wireless networks (Apple also quietly released a new Airport Express (a router) that makes use of 802.11n).

Apple also decided to change their name; Apple Computer Inc. is being replaced with Apple Inc., a logical move since Apple is definitely not just about computers anymore.

In other news, surgery recovery is slow; thus, I’m not really looking forward to school starting next week… not that I would be otherwise.

I’ve been extremely blessed when it comes to my medical history; I’ve never broken a bone, I’ve never been really sick unless you count chicken pox, and I’ve never really had a surgical procedure, unless you count wisdom teeth removal as a surgery. Mine was probably closer to one than not, just for the fact that they knocked me out with anesthesia (which is one of my qualifiers for “real” surgery).

However, today I will lose part of my track record in surgery. At about 11am, I’m having a cyst removed. Some cysts are easy to remove, and others are not… mine’s one of the latter. It’s under the skin, and requires surgical removal. It is an outpatient surgery; the procedure will take about an hour, I’ll wait in a “recovery room” for about an hour, and then they’ll send me home. Then I get to enjoy 4-6 weeks of recovery… I’m thrilled, really. At this point though (less than 3 hours before surgery), I think if you could just pray for my nerves, that I’d be ok.

It’s time to go.

UPDATE: The surgery went fine (as far as I know; I don’t remember anything), and I’m resting at home - as I will be doing for the next several days.

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 (Flickr). 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 (Flickr). 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.

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.

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… 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.