Pumpkin Pie, From Scratch!

On my way into the grocery store this week, my eye was caught buy some festive Jack-O-Lantern-type pumpkins outside that were priced at a mere 29 cents per pound.  Thinking that I could could toast off the pumpkin seeds for a snack, I bought a couple of them.  After I got them home, I noticed that the two pumpkins I had grabbed were definitely different species.  One of them was, in fact, a jack-o-lantern pumpkin.  The other one was a rather large sugar pumpkin that is meant for cooking. Naturally, it occurred to me, this is a sign that I should make a pumpkin pie.
I asked my SO (Significant Other) if he would like to try it, since he is the only one of us with a sweet tooth.  Oh no, I only eat the pumpkin pies from Costco.  I don't like homemade pumpkin pie.  "You may not have liked other homemade pies, but you know that I am a good cook" (I am the same person that decided five years ago to take on a full Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, which included a giant turkey, with all the fixings, and somehow managed to have all 6 dishes end up almost picture-perfect).  I guess I would try it.
Armed with the meekest consent, I set about figuring out how I am actually going to do this.
Fuck, most of Gourmet magazine's recipes for pumpkin pie call for canned pumpkin.  If the most prominent authority on food suggests just skipping fresh pumpkin and just going for canned, maybe I should just give up.  Oh well, here is a recipe for fresh pumpkin puree.  That worked well enough.

At this point, it is time for bed.  I scoop out the flesh from the five pound pumpkin and put it in the fridge for the next day.
I start the morning out by going to the grocery store to buy the ingredients that I don't already have from this recipe.  Unfortunately, it seems that my local 24 hour grocery store is populated by crackheads at 5 in the morning.  As I am waiting in line to pay for my purchase, I get to listen to this exchange:
"Did you steal hair dye?", "Um, what man? no", "So if we checked your pockets right now we would not find a box of hair dye?", "No", "Debit or credit?", "I don't know", "If you don't have ID, it needs to be debit...it was declined, you entered the wrong PIN", "What, isn't it the same as the expiration date?"
I am not typically the kind of person to confront people, but it is early in the morning and I am just trying to pay for my pumpkin pie ingredients, yet I can't, because a klepto crackhead doesn't know the right PIN.
"YOU CLEARLY DON'T HAVE AUTHORIZATION TO USE THAT CARD.  YOU NEED TO LEAVE!"  "huh?" "YOU NEED TO LEAVE."
The crackhead grumbles a little bit before leaving without her energy drink(but probably with her purloined hair dye).  "I  didn't know that you get such nutjobs at this time of night," I tell the cashier.  "You have no idea," he responds.

Armed with my ingredients, I start to prepare my first pumpkin pie.

Unlike most reasonable people, I feel the need to use a whole cinnamon stick and a microplane to constitute my teaspoon of cinnamon.

 Incidentally, the scent of freshly grated cinnamon can be quite intoxicating.
When I have all my pie fillings nicely blended, I pour them into my store-bought pie shell. My pie goes in the oven for the prescribed amount of time, then I pull it out to cool on a rack.
The result:

It may not look like the pumpkin pie that you could buy at Costco, but I swear it is better.  Creamy, rich, and spiked with fresh spices, it beats the hell out of some pie that has been made by rote.