The past few weeks have been rather stressful for me. Yesterday was the deadline for the International Workshop on Nitrides deadline in Kyoto. I've been wanting to go to this since I heard about it, since 1) it's a very respected conference in the nitride community, and 2) it's a free ticket to Japan. I've never been to Japan or Asia for that matter, so here's hoping the abstract I cranked out yesterday gets accepted. I got the data I needed for the abstract Tuesday night, just before midnight, so I was cutting it a little close. Unfortunately, I broke my Zen MicroPhoto while I was testing. I had placed it on the testing bench, and when I moved to look at the computer, the headphone cord yanked it off the bench. It fell about 3 feet onto a hard floor, and now it only makes a weird noise when trying to start. Luckily I still have my iPod Mini, but it's only 4 gigs. I want to upgrade to a 30 gig player, but I'm hesitant after this latest debacle. So right now, I'm thinking of doing a couple things. First, is using the Mini for as long as possible and just saving money, but that's not very fun. Option 2 is to upgrade to a video iPod now or wait until Apple to update it and the upgrade then. I could also wait for the rumored 8 gig Nano. Door number 3 is waiting until the new Toshiba Gigabeat S comes out at the end of May.  It's not like I need to spend waste any more money right now, so I'll probably end up sticking with the Mini. My parents are going to be here from this Saturday until early Wednesday, so I'm really looking forward to that.  It'll be good to see them, plus we're going to play some golf and head up to Solvang for some wine tasting.  It will also be nice to relax after such a stressful couple of weeks.