View From the Bushes

Well, it's my older son's birthday today; he's turning 5. Both he and his older sister were born so close to Christmas (his sister was born on December 19th), that rather than giving them gifts on their birthday we give them gifts for their half-birthday. I agree it is somewhat strange, but it seems to be working out so far. We'll have to see what happens as they get older. We do, however, take them out for dinner for their birthday, to the place of their choosing (another thing which may have to change as they get older and learn about places that are $20/plate). My son wants to go to Wendy's, a man after my own heart -- their new chicken strips are surprisingly good.

As far as my New Year's resolution, it's going fairly well, though only time will tell. On Saturday I took advantage of the fact that the resolution doesn't require me to actually turn the pedals, since that's the day I finally cleared all the lingering ice off my driveway and as such figured I had already gotten plenty of exercise. Speaking of which, we've had quite the winter so far here in Utah, which is good because we've had quite a drought for awhile, but after the first big storm (the one chronicled on my vacation recap), I had decided it was time to break down and buy a snow-blower. Of course, as you might expect, with the heaviest snowfall in a decade there isn't a snow-blower to be found anywhere in the state.

I got Real Genius on DVD for Christmas. It's such a great movie that I may have to dedicate an entire blog to it. The movie is set at Pacific Tech, which I had always heard was a thinly disquised clone of Caltech, but I just barely found a page which lists all of the Caltech references in Real Genius. I confess that it's on the anal side, but I thought it was interesting. Perhaps more for its insight into Caltech than its insight into the movie.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross