Happy Groundhog Day, Owlstowners! For those not familiar with this quirky tradition, superstition says that if the groundhog sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. Well, this year, the famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, did not see his shadow, so spring will come early. Woohoo!

Groundhog Day is also my favorite movie. (This year’s Super Bowl had a Jeep commercial that re-enacted several scenes from the movie). I fell in love with the movie when I was in the middle of grad school for a couple of reasons:

1. I have fond memories of my grad school friends and I going to Punxsutawney, the town famous for its Groundhog Day celebration. We would watch Groundhog Day at midnight, camp out in the theater overnight, then wake up early to see the groundhog at Gobbler’s Knob. Fun times!

2. The movie is a good allegory for the grad school experience. Grad school takes a long time, the days seem to repeat over and over, and you may feel stuck sometimes. Eventually, you learn to make meaning out of your experience (and your research). At the end, you contribute back to the community (in the form of your dissertation).

Updates

Some of you know that I’ve been working on updating the billing and pricing of Owlstown. It’s not complete yet, but I wanted to give you a preview.

Owlstown will keep its current plans, but I’m introducing a fourth plan.

• Basic - Free - 50 pages

• Standard - $3/month - 100 pages with custom domain

• Plus - $5/month - 300 pages with custom domain

• Premium - $10/month - Unlimited pages with collaboration features

If you’re interested in the new Standard plan, you can have it for a special price of $12 for the whole year ($1/month, 1/3 of the price). If you’re interested, email me and I’ll sign you up.

Inspiration

Your friendly neighborhood website builder,
Ian