show me where the sun comes through the sky / I’ll show you where the rain gets in

Late update today, but not for any real reason. I basically got nothing done this morning because I couldn’t upgrade to the software I needed. It’s my own fault. A month ago, a sysadmin sent out an email telling us we needed to upgrade to Exceed 9 (software I use to remotely connect to the lab I do all my sim processing on). I hate upgrades because something always seems to go wrong, so I didn’t upgrade at the time. Well, Friday afternoon they deleted the old version of the software from the server, so not only could I not use the old version, but I couldn’t upgrade to the new version (because it needed the old version). UGH. This is why computers suck.

So he put the old version back on the server long enough this morning to allow me to upgrade right after lunch. And now I can be productive. Instead, I’m updating this.

I need a new computer. Why? Well, my almost five year old computer at home is starting to show signs of aging; yep, it’s slowing down. Photoshop already takes forever to load each time I use it, which I had decided I could just suffer through. But then this weekend I installed the 30-day trial of Flash MX 2004 and the damn thing (the computer, not the software) is using all it’s got to simply get the software up and running before 60 seconds is up. Seriously. And then every time I click a different tool, there’s a 2 second lag while the system tries to figure out what to do next. It’s gonna drive me crazy. So I need something new.

The thing is, I don’t really need anything in a new computer other than the ability to handle today’s software. I don’t need any fancy stuff because 1) I already have what I need and 2) since I’m not in school anymore, I really don’t use my computer at home for anything more than web-surfing, email, financial stuff, photos and photo editing, and now messing around with Flash/graphics stuff. So I need a bare bones computer that’ll do that for me without paying too much. If anyone out there has suggestions, I welcome them.

Other than that, it was a nice weekend. Friday night Jo organized a group to go to Mi Luna for tapas and sangria. Both were delicious, and our only complaint was that the restaurant was really loud and it was impossible to talk to anyone at the other end of the table. Still, the food was awesome and the sangria was tasty, if a bit weak (six people went through three pitchers of it without anyone showing the effects).

Saturday morning I completely forgot that I was supposed to play soccer, but Saturday night’s belated St. Patrick’s Day party at Edgar and Betsy’s was entertaining as always, and complete with green beer. I posted some of the many pictures the two of them took here. I hadn’t been to a true “party” in a while, so it was fun.

Yesterday morning Gavin and Debbie and I went over to Challenger Park for the final race course measurement, and I spent the rest of the afternoon watching basketball and messing around. Georgia Tech squeaked into the Sweet 16, thankfully! With Gonzaga and Kentucky out, Tech only has to worry about getting past Nevada (shouldn’t be a huge problem) and Kansas (could be tougher) to be in the Final Four. That would be really cool. Though my “being reasonable” pick to win it all now is probably Duke…