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For Christmas I took my family to see Bodies: The Exhibition in downtown Seattle. Seemed a little odd to go look at dead people for Christmas, but it really was amazing. I think we spent close to four hours there looking at everything. We didn’t do the audio tour. There’s plenty to do without it.

The bodies are all very well preserved and sliced in very interesting ways. One really interesting display showed the skeletal system of a man looking at the muscular system from the same man. There was a section where all the nerves were separated and laid out. The circulatory section had just the arteries and veins with everything else stripped away, so you could still see the basic shape of the body.

One of my only complaints is that some things weren’t labeled as well as they could have been. A lot of the descriptions talked about parts that weren’t obvious in the accompanying body section. You could usually figure it out if you had some basic anatomy knowledge. Overall though, it was an amazing display that a lot time and effort has gone into.

I finally got an electrician out here from Boyer Electric to take a look at some of the funky wiring in this house. It turned out to be well worth it, despite the high hourly rates all electricians charge. He figured out a 3-way switch wiring that he called “California style” in the first half hour, and I had spent 3 or 4 hours trying to get right. Everything he did he made look easy and did way faster then I could have even if I had known for sure what I was doing. It’s always nice to watch someone work who is really knowledgeable in their field.

The storm last night did a number on our roof by knocking the neighbors tree onto it. We were in bed and about to fall asleep, when just at midnight we heard a very loud sound. I’m amazed at how strong the wind was. I didn’t feel safe even being out to look at the damage since there were other trees that could just have easily have blown down nearby. The only real damage was a small hole in the roof and the rain gutter got thrashed. Could have been a lot worse. I saw other places in Seattle that had been smashed by multiple trees and flooded.

I’ve been totally sucked into Final Fantasy XII and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the last month. Those games are huge and soooo much fun, but they’re really bad for my social life. So if you haven’t seen me since I got back from my honeymoon, that’s why. I decided to buy a Playstation 2 for really cheap instead of a new video game system like the Nintendo Wii. I figure there’s already a ton of great games for cheap for these old systems, and I didn’t want to wait in line to spend $300 for Zelda. It was close though. That new controller looks awfully fun.