I have been noticing that there are some cheap Compact Fluorescent Lamps out there. My father-in-law gave me a few that he got for something like a quarter a piece. I put it in a light at the top of our basement stairs and the first thing i noticed was that the more expensive CFL at the bottom comes on instantly where the new (cheap) one takes a second or two to come on if they are not warmed up.

CFL's are awesome for the environment and your pocketbook. One of the biggest misconceptions that the evil people have ingrained into America is that being environmentally friendly is not economical. A CFL will last 8000 hours and save over $30 in power over it's life time compared to a regular incandescent bulb. Plus the an incandescent bulb lasts about 1000 hours. Even though the CFL is a little more it will outlast EIGHT incandescents. Sounds like it will save people money and use less power which equals less pollution.

Here is how our house looks:
Basement
Combo of CFL and fluorescent
Garage
fluorescent inside and one incandescent on the outside that almost never gets used
Bedrooms
all CFL, with an LED night-light
Kitchen
low-voltage halogen (sometimes CFL's don't look too cool)
Living Room
CFL and a a 3-way incandescent

The Christmas whirlwind is over now. With Bridgit's two brothers in from out of town combined with my side of the family things get really busy. Things are pretty much settled down now.

It has now been a year since Bridgit and I got married. In that one year we bought a house, went on a few trips, and had a baby. Crazy.

Today is the shortest day and longest night of the year (for the northern hemisphere).

Basic Solstice Info
Really Sciencey Solstice Info
Historic Solstice Info
Wikipedia

This is a great version of “She's Too Fat For Me”, an old polka song.

So last weekend I was listening to NPR and this guy Jonathan Coulton was on. He has lots of cool songs, one about zombies. His music is released under the CCS, and I found this cool WoW video some guys made