I'm officially on vacation. Actually, I could have taken a Summer Friday and left at 1:00, but ended up staying until 4:00. Wasn't sure whether I wanted to lug my 3.04 GHz laptop with me on vacation (it weighs 10 lbs., and is really a substitute for a desktop-type machine), or whether I wanted to bring my much lighter and much slower office-issued laptop, which I almost never use.

The fact that I almost never use the office-issued laptop means that it was hopelessly out of date, and the battery had run all the way down. Had to get it up to speed. IT had turned off my second data port because I hadn't used it in several months, so I had to camp out in an empty cube across the hall from my office that had been used by a temp who's no longer around. That data port was live.

Even the network drives had to be remapped on that machine once I was finally able to log on. Winzip was at least two versions out of date. I had to install Nikon View so I can download photos to it from my camera. At least it had the drivers for the Netgear wireless card installed. Had to go add that machine to my list of computers at my LogMeIn account, then for the heck of it, installed the client it as well. Tested the remote access to my office desktop, and it worked fine, so even if VPN can't see all the network drives but not my desktop's C: drive, LogMeIn can.

Was ready to shut down and pack up the laptop with its cables, wireless card, and mouse, when WinXP decided it needed to do 12 updates before it would shut down. That took another half hour. The one thing neither my personal laptop nor my office-issued one has is my bookmark list from this machine. I should spend some time this weekend getting both of them updated in that regard. Can't surf people's blogs without the bookmarks if they aren't on Froggie's list, because I can't remember all the URLs; heck, I can't even remember who's on Xanga vs. Blogspot vs. MySpace. And why bring the Nikon and one of the laptops on vacation where broadband access is free, if I won't be able to post entries to my blog and read yours?

After reading the above, you might wonder why there is a picture of a blooming Epiphyllum accompanying this entry. There's no special reason other than I found it blooming with fourteen more buds on it when I came home this evening. Fairly typical of me to neglect a plant then discover out of the blue that not only does it have buds, but is actually blooming. It's always a nice surprise.

Hope everyone gets off to a good start for the holiday weekend. No rain on Monday, okay? Nobody wants a soggy barbeque.