Something woke me up at around 4:00 this morning. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got out of bed, worked out for an hour or so, then sat down to do a little work on version 2.1.0.4.6.9b of the Flash Photo Album application. This will be, I think, the fifth time in the past year that I have started to rebuild it. I won’t bother posting a date when it will be ready because, frankly, I just don’t know.

Last night after teaching the Kendall class (in which nobody cried) I stopped out to the local book merchant and picked up the new Neal Stephenson book, The System of the World. It looks quite beautiful on my bookshelf next to the first two volumes of the Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver and The Confusion . It was my intention to only pick up the one book but I stopped past the remainder tables and there, in their shiny hardcover glory, were Baudolino and The Collected What If? , which brings together What If? and What If?2. So much for saving money. So much for sleep.