A few bone head things to report on this TI eval board.
First, as it turns out there is no need to press the reset switch on the evaluation board. As a matter of fact, had I read their popups, it states it. Just power cycle the board. This is far better than removing the board from the chamber.
Next, my software had a major structural flaw that was causing some really strange behaviors. I was suspecting their under lying code and wrote TI today about it after I couldn't find anything in the datasheets. This problem was there from the beginning and am now certain this was the problem I saw when I use using the towel to keep the air flow off the circuit board.
I am very happy to say the system is finally working.
Shown is updated software. The chamber is programmed to run a sweep from 22 to 30C and back down where it will hold. The dwell time at each temperature will be 60 minutes. The reference's flat area is higher than this. It's more of a sanity check.