My wife and I were planning to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, but our schedules didn't allow for it. So, for Christmas Eve we're going to cook a turkey. Actually, we already cooked the turkey last night. Considering that this is the first turkey that my wife and I have every bought, prepared, cooked and carved (short of the turkey that comes in TV dinners) I think we did an excellent job. I was happy that we didn't under or over-cook the turkey. I was expecting the turkey to be on the dry side, but I was pleasantly surprised at how juicy it actually turned out.

Yesterday was an interesting day temperature-wise. The temperature would go a few degrees above freezing for a bit and then drop back down below freezing. The nature result was icicles. Along the roof's edge, we had icicles that were five or six inches long and were up to a half-inch in diameter. As my wife and I were inspecting the roof, trying to get a good picture, we noticed that the bushes in front of our house didn't look quite right. Upon closer inspection, we had found that snow from the roof and the top of the bushes had melted and refrozen.

This week we got our Christmas letters out in the mail. If you don't receive a letter within the next few weeks (and would like to receive a letter), just send an email with your mailing address. I also decided to post the picture (that we sent out with the letters). We had wanted to get our picture taken with Santa, but unfortunately our work schedules wouldn't allow it. However, I think the picture turned out just fine. After sealing the letters, we had the idea to put a decorative border around the picture. So, the posted picture is only slightly different from the one we sent out.

I've added an advanced search feature to my website. I was getting tired of not having the ability to sort the results. I'm still testing this feature, so use at your own risk.

I was trying to print out some letters yesterday on my printer (I have an Epson Stylus C80) and I was having some problems. After printing about a dozen letters, I noticed that I started to get some gaps in the printout. Tried to run the ink head cleaning utility, but I didn't have much luck. I kept getting a message a being low on yellow ink. So, I skipped the cleaning for a bit. However, it wouldn't let me print anything any more. The printer has a black ink cartridge in addition to the color ones.

Well, today was the first day that I had to shovel snow. About half of the driveway had about an inch or two of power. The remainder of the stuff (what I'm shoveling in the picture) is mostly slush. Hopefully now the tire tracks won't turn to ice. It should also be a lot easier getting to and from the garage now. Besides, after all of the food I consumed over the Thanksgiving holiday, I probably need some additional exercise.

After living in Ohio for over six months, I finally decided to change my cell phones from California phone numbers. Since I didn't want to pay the early termination fees and since I couldn't afford new cell phones, I decided to stick with my current provider (Sprint PCS). It only took about a half hour over the phone to get everything switched over. That's a bit longer than I expected, but it wasn't too bad. It definitely beats having to go to a store.

After watching the rain all day Thursday, it was kind of nice that the weather changed to something else on Friday. As you can see from the picture, we got just enough snow to coat the ground. I think that we got less than a quarter of an inch because parts of the grass were still visible. It was enough, however, to make a few nice big snowballs. Unfortunately, since no one else was outside at 10:30 at night, I didn't have any one to throw my snowballs at. My wife was wise enough to stay inside. The trees in our backyard weren't quite as lucky.

My wife and I spent the afternoon at my father-in-law's parents' house for Thanksgiving. I spent some time helping to rewire their television setup. Afterwards, we had a nice and very filling dinner. Of course, I had to indulge in some pumpkin pie as well. On the down side, I'll probably have to exercise a bit more than usual for the next few days. On the up side, I probably won't need to eat for the next few days.

Tagline for today: "After they make Styrofoam, what do they ship it in?" - Steven Wright

On Monday night, my parents-in-law took my wife and I to Olive Garden. I think that's the first time that I've ever eaten there (I don't remember). Anyways, the food was great. I had their "Tour of Italy." It consists of homemade lasagna, lightly breaded chicken parmigiana, and creamy fettuccine alfredo. I also had their salad and breadsticks. To finish off the meal, I had a nice slice of pumpkin cheesecake. Mmmm.