next next steps (and some code, too!)
and two shots; one of the temp going up and one going down 
link to my code (non-commercial DIY use only, please):
http://www.netstuff.org/espresso-master/firmware/arduino/
no PID logic, yet. so far, mostly just temperature monitoring (trending and graphing, though!) and stopwatch timer.
the framework is there and what I've written so far, does work
hope someone finds it useful.