But the new Mac mini? I have no reason to get it. I have an older PowerMac that does fine as a server and the Mac mini’s stats are about the same as my PowerBook. But yet… *drool* It’s just such a cool little box.

I’m also looking forward to the new iPhoto. It looks like it will fix some of the complaints I had about iPhoto and I will probably be a little more timely about adding pictures to my gallery.

Ooo, and since they managed to hit all the major rumors on the head, I am hoping that this drives up their stock price a little bit more. A large percentage of my retirement money is tied up with Apple right now so I actually have a real reason to root for them. Frightening, huh?

Matt had already driven up on Friday and didn’t get a chance to grab his copy, but he brought his PowerBook up with him. With my discs, we would be able to install it on both of our PowerBooks.

Matt had also brought his wireless router and had it working before I got there. Within an hour of my arrival my poor mom was treated to both of her sons sitting at the kitchen counter hunched over their PowerBooks. We started up the Panther upgrade process and left the house to do other things. When we got back, we finished up the installs and took Panther for a test drive.

I have to admit, Exposé is cooler than I thought. Right now it’s just a neat toy for me, but I can tell that it’s going to be indispensable soon. The worst part is that I don’t think there’s anything like it in the Windows world which will make using my work computer very annoying. Oh well, I am sure that Microsoft will rip it off and put it in Longhorn, in some form or another. The other feature that I am loving is the new Finder windows. Navigation is a lot easier. There’s plenty of other neat toys too. It should be fun to find them.

On the down side, my keyboard still won’t light up and I have the “white spots” on my screen. I hear that the Apple Store is really good about swapping out hardware, so I will probably wait until I hear that Apple has a good solution for the “white spots” and then I’ll head to Milwaukee.

This past weekend was JoAnn’s birthday. I headed down to Milwaukee to party with her. She likes to make an event of her birthday and it is usually a lot of fun. I arranged to take Monday off at work and headed south on Friday night. I got a late start (even for me) so I ended up getting there when things were winding down.

Scott, JoAnn, and I did some shopping on Saturday and I picked up some $3 used CDs (Soul Coughing, Seal, Reel Big Fish, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Pulp Fiction). Then we met up with Steve & Liza at Buca di Beppo’s . Mmmmm… It was a ton of very good food and a fun time with friends. We had coffee and desert at Bella Caffe. Steve & Liza had to rescue the babysitters and Scott, JoAnn, and I continued on to Mindgame which was being put on by the Next Act Theatre. It was a challenging play but worth the work. It helped that my companions were trained in theatre. Then we headed back and played some GameCube until we crashed.

Sunday started with the traditional Annual Myasthenia Gravis Breakfast Event. There are only a few things that will get me out of bed and eating breakfast before noon and this is one of them. It ended up paying off. We got a bunch of 32 Mb USB pendrives for free (mostly because no one else knew what they were) and we got some other fun trinkets. Then we headed off to Steve & Liza’s to move a lizard cage and spend some time with Samantha and Travis (who are both insanely cute!). Scott headed off to parts unknown and JoAnn and I headed south. We found my brother’s place in Arlington Heights. He and Jessie have a setup that makes my insanely jealous. They are renting a great little house in a cool neighborhood. After getting the nickel tour, we headed off to Ikea. I finally got some dishes, silverware, and a strainer that the damn spaghetti noodles won’t just slip though! We wrapped up the visit with a visit to the Cheesecake Factory. Yum. I plan to visit Matt & Jesse more often. We got back to Milwaukee and JoAnn watched the season premiere of Alias (which she had set to tape while we were gone) while I logged onto the ‘net and took care of some emergencies for work. *grrr*

On Monday, we slept. I gave JoAnn a lift to work and then I swung by to visit the HMS Wooldrage. I watched Hannah for a few hours while Mark & Shanah were both at work. Hannah and I had fun breaking all of mom and dad’s rules. (Shhhh!) Then I headed out of town so that I would make it to Stevens Point in time to catch the Packers at Chicago on Monday Night Football. Pat, Sarah, and Ian were kind enough to host a small group of football fans. The Packers properly inaugurated the newly renovated Soldier field by crushing da Bears. I pulled out a copy of Blast and we watched that too. And then I limped home to get a little sleep before having to be at work at 7:50 am.

On Tuesday morning I got to attending a meeting of all the networking group personnel from CWCI (the new company that is the merging of DataWave, TZ Net, and Wood County Telephone Company). Looks like my job is fairly secure through the end of the year, at least.

Oh, on Monday night Matt picked up a 12″ PowerBook. Apple certainly is getting its share of cash from the Berkvams.