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Courtney broke the story first, I recently bought an iPhone. After months of listening to podcasts that ranted and raved about the phone my gadget-aquiring-sensors freaked out and I couldn’t live without it. I bought it a week ago today and I can say that it’s worth every penny I paid for it.

Here’s what I got for my money:

1. Courtney can actually use the phone. I’ve had some crazy phones over the years. With the iPhone being more than just a dedicated phone, Courtney had her reservations about how well it worked as an actual phone. Within 5 minutes she was comfortable with the interface.  I don’t think either of us knew exactly how to dial on my MDA.

2. A new, working iPod. My old 4th generation iPod has been dying a slow death. It’s hard drive developed the “click-of-death”, which could be fixed with a swift whack on any hard surface. While I am grateful that there is a fix for the “click-of-death” I don’t believe it was extending my iPod’s life much longer. The new interface is slick and fun. It’s quicker too, when navigating to shuffle songs.

3. A GPS-esque map system. Google Maps I think is the killer app on the iPhone. While not quite a GPS, as long as I have a data connection through the cell provider I can find where I’m at and where I’m going to. This weekend we were out and about in Green Bay, WI visiting friends and family. Google Maps came in handy when navigating the streets of Kaukauna, WI.

4. A 80% normal web browser. Safari is awesome on the phone. But it’s still short of a full web browser. it chokes a bit when it comes to AJAX. Also, the touch interface gets in the way a little bit when trying to navigate the actual http://maps.google.com . But all in all, it’s the best mobile browser I have used.

Courtney was well aware of my intentions with the iPhone. I wasn’t about to pony up for AT&T service. I’m a very happy T-Mobile customer.  Courtney knew what it was going to take for me to use the iPhone. We were standing in the mall and I was damn-near pleading to get one. She looked at me and said, “You’re sure you can hack it?” “Oh yeah,” I assured her. When we got home I went to town and started researching how to get the phone unlocked and onto T-Mobile.

After an hour I wasn’t having much luck. Court asked me how it was going and I gave her the straight scoop. “You didn’t know how to hack itbefore you bought the phone?” “uh, no.” She called my bluff, I hadn’t done my appropriate research before I bought the phone. I wasn’t sure how easy or hard it was to actually unlock it. It took some time and some alternate instructions but at the end of the day I got it fully working.

So Christmas came early for me. I’m 400 bones down but at least I have traffic conditions in my pocket now.

The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy. From the week before Riles birthday up until today I’m not quite sure what’s happened. I’ll try to recap:

Riley’s birthday came and went. It was a two day food fest that was just a riot. Riley was a good sport through it all. As with all 1 year olds, he didn’t really know that he was getting gifts. It was more of a second birthday party for me, the gift opener, if I were 1 years old. He enjoyed the cake. We have pictures somewhere but I’m not sure which camera they’re on. I think even Chad and Tina have our pictures somehow on their camera.

We spent Riley’s actual birthday (a.k.a. Halloween) buying ourselves Anti-Riley furniture. We replaced our Ikea television stand with something from Slumberland that was taller and contained doors. Riley’s favorite past-time is banging stuff on the television and digging through the poorly managed stereo wires. So we thought it was time to finally pony up and get some real furniture.

After Riley’s birthday weekend we spent last weekend cleaning up leaves. We had ignored them for most of October which meant we had to spend a fair amount of our Saturday catching up. We had shipped Riley off for the weekend to Camp Motylinski so we enjoyed some time to ourselves. We even caught a movie at the theater, something we hadn’t done in well over a year.

The next few weeks hold a ton of work for me. At the client site we’re trying to get the final release of the Q3 software out the door (if you hadn’t noticed, it’s Q4 now which tells you the urgency). Every day I am lectured about needing to put in extra hours. In the very short time I’ve been here the team has shrunk by 50% so some days it feels like almost a Herculean task that we are still on pace to launch on time. Regardless, by Thanksgiving all should be settled down.

Oh yeah, and in any free time I may have I play Guitar Hero 3. Courtney has already grown sick of my flying couch dives and my back-on-the-floor killer solos.