Ought to be easy; ought to be simple enough...

Had a really nice weekend up in Chicago, where we attended the wedding of our friends Mark (also my employee) and Leah. Saturday night pizza party, then a wedding and a LOOONG (8+ hour) reception Sunday, then an after-hours party at a hotel, then a few hours' sleep and then the drive back downstate this morning. And we're both totally worn out and exhausted! We just can't party like we used to, I guess.

But the ceremony (Jewish traditional) was really lovely and meaningful, and the reception was basically the same old crew that gets back together, Four-Weddings-and-a-Funeral-style. But for some reason, maybe just that everyone is growing up, settling down, and in some cases starting families, we had much better conversations with people, and that was really need to feel those connections to people. Kate and I even both had brief but nice conversations with an ex of mine whom neither of us had been getting along with, which I really appreciated.

I can't believe we did not bring a camera, though. I'm so bad about that, and even when I have one I don't take as many pictures as I should. Maybe I need a smaller, easier-to-use digital camera. Mine is over 5 years old, and works fine although it's pretty unwieldy by today's standards. I certainly got to geek out by envying other people's fancy newest digital camera action, so I got some ideas on what I might like to buy next.

So my trusty Linux laptop, a 4-year-old IBM Thinkpad 390X, after working flawlessly for its entire life, just now made a very ominous SNAP sound, and powered off right in the middle of me typing an email. I guess it is finally giving up the proverbial ghost.

It still works when plugged into its power adapter, but claims it has no battery at all; apmd now thinks this is a desktop machine with only one power source.

I'll have to see about getting this thing replaced/repaired. (It's not mine; it belongs to one of the places I contract for.)