I heard someone on the radio quoting this speeching. It was given by Ronald Reagan on December 23, 1981. It is sad to note that none of our leaders would dare use this kind of language today.

President Reagan:
At Christmas time, every home takes on a special beauty, a special warmth, and that’s certainly true of the White House, where so many famous Americans have spent their Christmases over the years. This fine old home, the people’s house, has seen so much, been so much a part of all our lives and history. It’s been humbling and inspiring for Nancy and me to be spending our first Christmas in this place.

We’ve lived here as your tenants for almost a year now, and what a year it’s been. As a people we’ve been through quite a lot—moments of joy, of tragedy, and of real achievement—moments that I believe have brought us all closer together. G. K. Chesterton once said that the world would never starve for wonders, but only for the want of wonder.

At this special time of year, we all renew our sense of wonder in recalling the story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem, nearly 2,000 year ago.

Some celebrate Christmas as the birthday of a great and good philosopher and teacher. Others of us believe in the divinity of the child born in Bethlehem, that he was and is the promised Prince of Peace. Yes, we’ve questioned why he who could perform miracles chose to come among us as a helpless babe, but maybe that was his first miracle, his first great lesson that we should learn to care for one another.

Tonight, in millions of American homes, the glow of the Christmas tree is a reflection of the love Jesus taught us. Like the shepherds and wise men of that first Christmas, we Americans have always tried to follow a higher light, a star, if you will. At lonely campfire vigils along the frontier, in the darkest days of the Great Depression, through war and peace, the twin beacons of faith and freedom have brightened the American sky. At times our footsteps may have faltered, but trusting in God’s help, we’ve never lost our way.

Just across the way from the White House stand the two great emblems of the holiday season: a Menorah, symbolizing the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, and the National Christmas Tree, a beautiful towering blue spruce from Pennsylvania. Like the National Christmas Tree, our country is a living, growing thing planted in rich American soil. Only our devoted care can bring it to full flower. So, let this holiday season be for us a time of rededication.

I was listening to NPR on the way home yesterday. Sometimes they play the most interesting pieces. I found out how hush puppies were invented and got their name. That was on Thursday morning. The piece that I heard yesterday was an interview with teachers about what they do during the summer. I found it funny if not interesting. It was actually done by some students in a Chicago school.

Wow. What a change. Yes, I know what you are thinking right now… “Is this Paul’s blog? It looks different. The only way I can tell it is his is the large photo of him on the left of the page. Well I certainly am glad I know that handsome guy.”

This change was on the back burner for a while. Susan even said after we moved, “Are you going to change the name of you blog?” My original answer was NO way, Jose. But I decided to change because I wanted something new on my blog. And as you can tell I didn’t move the name very far either. I guess I didn’t learn not to localize my blog. Ah well, I don’t plan on moving from Texas for a very long time.

New flash

I have some new to share but I am too tired to think and type. But here is a hint:

 

A phenomenon is taking place right now and will continue to occur for the next two and a half weeks (or 18 days). The hype about the Apple iPhone is at a fever pitch from my perspective. I am now having dreams about it. There is more news covering Apple than ever before. Maybe the marketing guys from microsoft are now at Apple… nah. The pre-announcement has been a big factor. Then the slow leaking of information. First, spring, then June, then June 29th, then 6PM on June 29th. Thanks Steve, now is that local or eastern or pacific time?
I went to my AT&T store last night to ask a few questions. I wanted to know what might I be up against in trying to get one on the first day and how it might work into my current contract. We redid our contract in October. The news shared was not all that great but Jose (Ask for him by name) did say that nothing is really known yet. AT&T has make some large concessions for Apple and the pricing and contract reupping maybe (hopefully) part of it.
So about the image of the iPhone. I went to the apple store as soon as I could after the keynote but no new hardware was announced, bummer. (Maybe a special event or better yet, just do a new iLife, iWork, iMac, and Leopard launch all at the same time) So I did notice that the site had been redone. Maybe that is what Jobs meant when he mentioned going to a more unified look. The page for the iPhone was reworked. The first thing I noticed was the size of the hand model or was it the size of iPhone? Did it shrink? So with a bit of digging through old emails I found on of the first public images of the phone. The first image was sent on January 18th as part of the Apple eNews. The second is currently on the Apple website as part of the iPhone gallery. The difference is quite dramatic in my opinion. I am guessing that size is a big deal for some people and the first hand makes the phone look rather large. The way to fix that is just get a hand model with bigger hands. The slight of hand (pun intended) is subtle. Judge for yourself. So Apple wants the phone to look smaller,… it does. But it still looks just as cool.

I could pass up today to post something. There has been a large amount of time dedicated to the number of today’s date. June 6, 3006. I say who cares.

June 6, 1944. The first day of Operation Overlord or D-Day. The invasion of Normandy and German occupied France. This is very significant. I dare say even more than than some sixes.