Some days are better than others. I had been far too optimistic the other day in assuming that a 15-minute seemingly successful installation was actually going to work properly.

I'm not sure what happened with GRB 070731 (there appears to be no data, and I never got the GCN circular delivered in my email), but GRB 070802 was detected today. I downloaded the data and ran the processing script, but near the very end of the script, I got a calibration error.

So, I deleted the new CALDB installation and started from scratch, this time taking very close care to make sure I did everything correctly. The diagnostic told me I had installed it correctly. I ran the processing script again, and got the same error. I did it again, deleting the old installation and installing it carefully. Again, I got the same error.

At a loss as to what to do, I emailed the man who's in charge of the software. He wrote back a bit later to tell me that he's not sure, but he thinks I need to upgrade to HEASOFT 6.3.1. I had just installed the brand new upgrade 6.3.0 less than a month ago, and it took me a week to get it working. The idea of upgrading to 6.3.1 is nightmarish to me, but it's apparently what I need to do in order to continue researching.

I have my summer research paper (which I'm just about done) due tomorrow and my summer course final exam tomorrow. I really don't know how much time I'll have to work on this issue tomorrow as well. If I put it off until next week, when will I have the time to have Bob help me install the GIOC software? Next week is my last week in Huntsville before I visit my parents in Pennsylvania for a week, and when I get back, classes will begin again, and I'll be very busy.

Computer problems really do suck the productivity away.