So, this is a little late in coming, but I've been "busy" with stuff so I haven't made a Christmas entry until now.

I was planning on putting a number of pictures up here, but most of mine aren't worth going through the effort to put up, so I'll just show a couple.

Before leaving Provo we had a pseudo-Christmas at our house. It was lots of fun to get a group of people together, exchange gifts, eat food, and drink wassail.

I'm not much in the mood for writing at the moment, so this will be brief. Christmas eve we did what we always do, we had snacks and stuff and played music and read stories, then opened presents from the kids.

Christmas morning we slept in until 10-ish.

Here's a picture of our tree:


After 13 long months of searching and scouring I finally got a Wii:


Mom just happened to be in Wal-Mart one day and wandered past the electronics section figuring they wouldn't have any Wiis, but that she may as well look anyways. As she arrived they had just put 3 into the case, so she got one. I am quite pleased. This is the main reason I have been so "busy" and haven't had time/interest to post anything on here. With the Wii I also received Guitar Hero III from Mike, Super Mario Galaxy from "Santa", and Zelda: Twilight Princess from Evan. I haven't played Zelda yet, and been splitting all my time between Guitar Hero, Mario, and reading.

Since break started I've started and finished "Prisoner's Dilemma" by William Poundstone, which Alicia gave to me. Having just finished Multi-Agent Systems which focused heavily on Game Theory I really enjoyed reading Prisoner's Dilemma which gives some history of the circumstances in which game theory really got a foothold in the world.

I also read "The Bourne Ultimatum" by Robert Ludlum. It was a good read, the series, overall, was fun. The books are quite complex with intricate plot details. The capstone of the trilogy has at least 4 main plot lines going on with the Mafia, Bourne, the CIA, and the Jackal viewpoints being given at various times, though I suppose it's really two major plot lines which break into smaller players' viewpoints. The books are many times more complicated than the movies, and the movies only bear slight resemblance to the actual story lines of the books.

I'm currently about halfway done with "The Paradox of Choice" by Barry Schwartz which provides a fascinating insight into the realm of decision making; why having some choices is good, but too many choices is bad. It's a fast read, as I started it last night and I'll probably finish it tonight. It wasn't on my book list, because I had forgotten to add it when I first heard about it from my Multi-Agent Systems professor.

I also have a nice store of other books to read as well. For Christmas I received "The Words we Live By" (a guide to the Constitution), "Stumbling on Happiness" (Why can't we just be happy?), and "Fast Food Nation". Those will also be fun reads, I anticipate.

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So we've had a Christmas tree up for a while now, but I hadn't gotten a chance to take pictures and put them up. So here they are:





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Classes end on Thursday. I still have two papers to complete by 11:59pm Thursday. On Wednesday I will receive my take home final for CS678, which I will have to hand in on Tuesday. My final for CS670 is on Monday. On Wednesday I fly back to Connecticut. So there's not a lot of time, and yet still plenty to get done. Tonight is also my ward Christmas party. Last night for FHE we made faux gingerbread houses, ate cookies, and drank hot chocolate. We had a total of 6 people 7 people show up: 3 from my house. We have like 28 people in our group, yet our average turnout is around 8. It's kind of sad.

To all you CT dwellers out there that happen to read this, let me know when you'll be around.

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