I'm too young to know of a time when science was done without computers. Unfortunately, we now rely on computers so much that we can't work without them. When something stops working, progress is halted.

There is some kind of conflict between the new version of HEASOFT that I installed last Friday and the new version of Astro CFITSIO that Bob installed last Tuesday. When I tried to run the xrtpipeline program today, I got an error message from Perl that I had never seen before. Bob is stumped. He said he'll think about it and look into it more later, but he's too busy right now to dedicate much time to the problem, and he can't help me install the GIOC software now either.

So right now, I'm stuck. I can't process any Swift XRT data and I can't continue on with the GBM data project. Luckily, the only GRB in my “to do” list is an INTEGRAL burst from the weekend that doesn't meet the criteria of my timing study, but if any good Swift bursts are detected this week, I won't be able to analyze them properly until this Perl conflict is fixed.

Furthermore, I asked Bill again today about getting those large-size low-threshold VCDU 9 data files from Phoenix. The GLAST schedule now is in such flux that he has no idea who's traveling to Phoenix when, who would have time to get the data for me, and how (one file is too large even for a DVD).

There are only three and a half weeks left in the summer semester. I can easily shift this GBM project to whatever time frame is necessary. However, the initial idea was to have this project supplement my Swift timing study for my summer research course. Unless I can get that Phoenix data within the next two weeks or so, I can't include it in my report. (Not to mention that I still don't have the GBM software I need installed yet.) Bill said that if I don't have the data, then there's nothing I can do, and it wouldn't be my fault. But I still feel responsible.