The Thanksgiving feast has ended, I think I managed to escape without putting on any permanent weight gains. We spent ours in Portland (Michigan, not Oregon) which is right on the edge of the lake effect snow belt, so we got covered with an awful lot of snow over the holiday. It seemed to arrive, along with freezing temps and high winds, just in time to mess up everybody’s travel plans. Today its warm again, raining, and all the snow has already disappeared.

Yesterday was a movie marathon day, spent the whole time at Eastwood for matinees, first Jarhead at 1:35, then the new Harry Potter at 5:30. Reviews should follow shortly. Burgers at Max & Ermas for dinner - I have to say Erma’s has about the best restaurant burgers around. Where do they get those poppy seed buns? I’ve never seen them in any grocery store? No really interesting new trailers, although I was annoyed to see the preview for the new peak oil propaganda film Syriana. I predict King Kong will be a relative flop. Oh yeah, we also watched House of Sand and Fog - kinda depressing, but very well acted.

This morning watched Blow Up, a strange, seemingly pointless movie. Still too baffled to adequately comment.

I’m feeling pretty motivated today, already cleaned and ran the dishwasher. In the mood finally to exercise, and the weather, although a bit wet, is warm enough to cooperate perhaps with a short run. Sarah stole my MP3 player and that will make it tough, but we’ll see.

The Ayn Rand Institute: Thanksgiving: The Producer’s Holiday:

“Thanksgiving celebrates man’s ability to produce. The cornucopia filled with exotic flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with aromatic trimmings, the mouth-watering pies, the colorful decorations–it’s all a testament to the creation of wealth.”

This is from last year, but relevant as always. Happy Thanksgiving!

Sarah looking busy in the lab, playing with all the cool equipment:

I’ve known about Google Book Search for some time, though I hadn’t had the chance to really take it for a test drive and see how well it worked. Well I just plugged a few quick searches in, and I’ve decided it is the most awesome thing EVER! They must be scanning like mad because my few searches came up with hundreds of results.

The interface has one bug I feel, you can’t page through from the table of contents to actual pages directly. The images are a little fuzzy even for my eyes, but its not really intended for lengthy reading. It turns up key word search results better than any current index of books. Even obscure references in the footnotes are turned up!

I went to work this morning gas was $2.11, by the time I came home it was $2.01 and I hear its lower elsewhere. That’s sweet.

Wow, today I had 4 interviews that lasted a total of 5 hours, all for a single position. I know companies want to be sure about who they hire, but this is getting ridiculous! Still, this job will be pretty awesome so hopefully it will be worth it.

I know it’s early, but better to get the lights up now before it snows!

Eric and I had fun watching Ethan while the girls went out and partied. Actually it was perfect, I ran him around as much as I could and he pretty well passed out early in the evening leaving us to watch movies, drink beer, and eat pizza and wings in complete peace. We checked out a giant hole some guys were digging at a house nearby, drunk and permitless of course! I brought Dust To Glory even though I have seen it, Eric had not. Also saw the arty Happy Endings which was also quite good, very reminiscent of Magnolia.

No need to go into any more detail but, you know people had a good time when you end up pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of the night with someone vomiting on the shoulder! Not me of course, being the DD and all. I just get to clean up.

Spartans lost big I see yesterday, not a surprise. They held PSU off for the first half which was impressive, but couldn’t hang in the whole game.

Spartans tied WMU 3-3 in hockey last night. Both teams looked horrible, so I guess a tie was the appropriate result. Curious to see the result of todays football game between PSU and the Spartans.

Tonight heading to D-town for some fun. Actually, I personally will be enlisted to watch some kids - Sarah will be having the real fun. But I’ll be enjoying some tasty Michigan Brewing Company beer so all is not lost.

Right now preparing for a marathon interview Monday morning with DCX. The job sounds awesome, although the commute will be tough. I just hate interviewing so much. Argh! Ok, back to work.

Holy crap is it cold out! The first snow actually stuck for once. It was 24 degrees for crying out loud. Last week it was 60.

Dirty Dancing Havana Nights is on. I didn’t think it was possible to make a worse movie than the original, but lightning has truly struck twice.

Another hour on the bike tonight. I could have done more but it was dark outside and Sarah said my time was up.

I’m not sure why but I’ve been thinking lately that it would be fun to take part in a mini-triathlon. I think I could handle the running and cycling, not so sure about the swimming. I wonder if people would laugh if I wore a life jacket just in case?