Awhile back, I made a post with pictures of one of my power quality monitoring installations.  Some people mentioned that it was confusing, so I have put together a Powerpoint that I believe is more clear.  You can find it here.

Have you ever heard of the Rotten Tomatoes website?  What they do is take the ratings of many reviews of a movie and bring them together into one percentage.   It is a pretty handy tool for determining whether or not a movie is good.  Well, right now, Return of the King has a rating of 97%!!!  That means that 97/100 reviewers thought the movie was good.  Go check it out here.

I have finally gotten around to scanning the last of my graduation pictures.  They are posted under Grad Pics in the Pictures section.  Go check them out!

Okay, everyone needs to go check this out.   How cool is that?  On a mildly related note, I am totally excited about RotK coming out this week.  I had hoped to watch it on Tuesday or Wednesday night, but Heather is not up to it.  So, it looks like I am going to have to settle for a Friday night showing, but no later!  Although, my dad is going to be in town on Saturday.  I am sure he wants to see the movie, but I don't know if that's how he would like to spend his time with us...  If he does, I may be willing to wait until Saturday, but it will not be without pain.   OR, I could just see the movie on Friday AND Saturday, that works for me!

This last weekend we had our annual Christmas party with Ginny's (Heather's mom) friends from college and their family.  They have been around since Heather was little, and in fact Ginny moved out to Phoenix with them.  They are essentially aunts to Heather and Holly.  We had fun, and unfortunately I forgot my digital camera at work so I don't have any pictures to share.  I will be sure to make certain that I have it for Christmas day, though.  So, expect many holiday pictures after Christmas.

My Grandma Howland (my step-dad's mother) lives nearby and has invited Heather, Jenifer, Darby, and I over for dinner this Sunday.  You know, I have always admired Jeff (my step father) and his family's ability to so openly accept family that is only related through marital ties.   I have never doubted that I am loved any less than if I had been born into the family.  It is so easy for us as humans to reject the foreign objects in our lives.  I think it shows real character and emotional maturity to embrace new experiences and new relations.  Anyway, I guess that what I am trying to say is that I am excited that I get to spend so much time with family this weekend, and that none of my relations with my family members (blood related or otherwise) feels fake or forced.

Check out the link I provided in the December 13th post.  The e-mail section is a riot.

I'm at Jeff's house right now and showing him how my new web page works through SSH.  Ignore this if you don't care.  Check out this link: Homestar Runner.

Heather, Holly, and I watched Timeline last Saturday. 
I had read the book, and was excited to see the movie.  Unfortunately, the movie was disappointing.  The book was great, and I recommend it.  Michael Crichton really does his research, and this was very evident in the book.  I am familiar with many of the principles of quantum mechanics, and found myself nodding my head while reading those parts of the book.  While the idea of using these principles for time travel is preposterous, it was an interesting and entertaining take on those principles.  The movie didn't address any of these concepts.  In fact, they glossed over all of the technology that was used in the time travel.  I noticed the absence of Michael Crichton's name on the list of screenwriters, and I think that is one of the problems.  I can safely say that this is the worst film made from a Crichton book since Congo.

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  This year was a little different for me.  For some time now, Heather and I have always spent Thanksgiving with Ginny's (Heather's Mom) friends from college that are now like aunts to Heather and Holly.  However, this year we had
Thanksgiving at Ginny's house and Jenifer, Darby (Jen's boyfriend), and Heather's Aunt Marcia joined us.  It was a nice, laid back day.  I did, however, run my 4 miles in the morning to prepare for the Thanksgiving food...  I have posted some pictures under "Turkey Day" and I also posted the pictures from Halloween.

This last weekend was a nice 4-day weekend.  Heather and I actually braved the crowd to do a bit of shopping on Friday.  I didn't really want to (I had crowds), but after being indoors most of the day Thursday, we just had to get out. 

I ran one of those free credit checks Monday night.  My credit is pretty good:  According to TransUnion, my score is 830/950, and my credit ranks higher than 70.3% of the population.  Also, my creditworthiness falls in the category of Very Good.  Hopefully this means that Heather and I will be able to purchase a house with little trouble and at a good interest rate.

Berkeley Breathed is back in the game!  Check out Opus if you get a chance.  I loved Bloom County, and Outland was entertaining most of the time.  I enjoy Berkeley's wit, and hopefully Opus won't disappoint.

I have a new web host.  If anyone is looking for an awesome deal, go to
www.1and1.com.  These guys are offering free professional hosting for 3 years.  It includes 500Mb of web space, 5GB of bandwidth a month, plus they support all sorts of scripting and databases.  Hopefully this means my web page will have all sorts of new nifty features.  I guess we will see.