Time: 0645
Temp: 15°C
Distance: ~2 km
Time: 25 min
Just went for a brisk walk with the dog this morning. Much warmer today compared to the past couple of days. Mornings around here are nice and quiet. Might see a few other people out for an early morning stroll. Didn't see anyone today though.
That was the traditional cry at the door when we went trick-or-treating as a kid. We used "trick-or-treat" too, but mostly it was kids shouting "Halloween apples!". No idea where it came from, but that's what we did.
I've never been much of a Halloween person, and was never really into getting into costume or going trick-or-treating as a kid. Most of the time there was snow on the ground already, so there wasn't really much point in dressing up because you had to put a coat on top of the costume anyway. We always had lots of kids at our door though back home and usually stayed pretty busy handing out candy and dropping change for UNICEF into the little orange boxes.
Last week, we bought a couple of bags of candy to hand out to the expected trick-or-treaters. A few days ago, the wife bought some more, having forgotten that she already bought some several days earlier. I know there are a few families in the area so we were expecting a few kids trick-or-treating yesterday. Only 1 kid showed up at our door last night. Perhaps we missed them because of coming home a little bit later than usual. Perhaps kids don't go trick-or-treating anymore like we used to. It's definitely become a much more paranoid time than it used to be when I was a kid. I remember when I was back home working at the hospital during my undergrad, the x-ray department in the ER would be busy x-raying buckets and bags of candy that kids and their families brought in. Nothing was ever found though. But the paranoia remains. Kinda sad, I suppose.
In any case, we have a bunch of candy left over now. Darn :)
Yesterday, I finally got around to upgrading the department photo gallery from Gallery 1.5 to 2.0. I'd upgraded my own photo gallery about a month ago with no problems, and wasn't expecting too many issues with this one.
Installation went fine, and importing the photos from the old version went fine. Can't seem to get the URL rewriting to work though. It works fine in my personal gallery, but doesn't work right in the department gallery. The mod_rewrite directives in the .htaccess file don't seem to be getting processed or something. I'm suspecting some strange interaction/non-interaction with some directive in httpd.conf and the Gallery-generated .htaccess, but I haven't quite figured it out yet. No doubt it's probably something simple that I'm overlooking.
In the meantime, there's another mystery: why is httpd always giving me SegFaults when an error occurs. It started happening after the upgrade to PHP 4.4.1? Yet another thing to dig into.
Update: Figured out the mod_rewrite oddness. Turned out to be an AllowOveride None directive that was messing things up. Once I moved the .htaccess contents into the main httpd.conf, everything started working properly. Knew it was something simple.
Went to the first organizational meeting for the homeowner's association for the development we live in. There seemed to be a pretty good turnout for this first meeting. Learned a few things about the neighbourhood too.
Overall it seemed to be a reasonably productive meeting. Picked a few 'volunteers' to serve as the HOA officers and architectural review board, set up a few rules for the neighbourhood and set the HOA dues. They dealt mostly with where cars could and couldn't park and noise regulations. I think there will end up being another meeting in a month or so to work on more organizational things.
Time: 0615
Temp: 10°C
Distance: ~2.2 km
Time: 25 min
A brisk walk with the dog this morning. Back to cool mornings for the rest of the week. I'm sure if anybody was out this early and saw me walking, they'd be wondering why I'm not cold or anything. Going to have to break out a sweater soon for these morning walks.
Time: 1750
Temp: 15°C
Distance: ~2.2 km
Time: 25 min
A late afternoon walk with the dog today. The wife had just taken her to one of the local pet shops to give her a bath, and she was still a little bit damp, so I figured a nice walk might help dry her off a bit. Just another up and back walk today. Worked on her loose leash walking some more. Having treats with me helped a lot today.
It's been a good year at work. I've managed to get the department to purchase almost all the things I put on my wishlist this year, and now my office is almost overflowing with toys and equipment waiting for me to find time to play with.
The latest delivery was a much anticipated RTI Barracuda survey meter. This is something I've had on my wishlist for a long time. It comes about as close to a 'do it all' device for us diagnostic physicists as anything else out there. The real reason that I really wanted one this year is because of this: the CT Slice Detector. It's a 30 cm long chamber that's supposed to provide dose information at each point along the length of the chamber. Instant dose profile information. Whoops, spoke too hastily without really knowing how the chamber worked. So it's not exactly what I thought it was, but still gives the same information. After a little more reading about the CT-SD16, I discovered it's actually 1 long chamber with two separate solid state detectors separated by 16 cm. Dose profile information is obtained by doing a regular helical scan with the chamber in the phantom so that the detectors are advanced through the beam. Seeing as how I have the annual surveys for our CT scanners scheduled for the next few Friday's, the Barracuda came just in time too. I'm so looking forward to playing with this new CT chamber. Especially can't wait to try it out on our flat panel CT scanner. Dose profile on the flat panel CT isn't going to be as easy as I hoped, but I'll figure out something to make it work.
The father-in-law's getting a little frustrated with his computer now and has been surfing E-Bay checking out prospects for a new one. Since he knows just enough about computers to get into trouble, mom-in-law's asked me to see about specing out and purchasing a new one that will keep him going for the next few years.
Old computer is a Dell I spec'd out about 5 years ago, a relatively modest 450MHz that's starting to show its age. So what to get next.
Budget is limited, so I've been thinking about an AMD Athlon duall-core something. Single core would probably be more than sufficient, but I think a dual core CPU will stay technologically relevant longer. I've been looking at the HP Pavillion series, partly because Dell doesn't do AMD, and lately some of the newer Dells at work have been having some reliability issues. I think I should be able to get something pretty decent that fits within the budget.
Halloween pumpkins are barely in the trash and the endless loop of Christmas songs has started on one of the local radio stations already. Last year it didn't start until the 10th. Seems to have started a full week earlier this year! Already saw a bunch of Christmas stuff on the shelves well before Halloween. If the goal is Christmas saturation/aggravation by Thanksgiving, it looks like stores are well on the way.
Halloween: it's the new Thanksgiving.
We were out at the Labrador Fun Day hosted by the Coastal South Carolina Lab Retriever Club yesterday. Great day to be out at the park, and they had a lot of fun things for dogs and people going on. There were lab races, biscuit eating contests, costume contests, lab kissing and tail wagging contests going on, and retriever demonstrations both on land and in the water. Nala got 2nd place in the costume contest and race! Definitely a fun time, and we got to meet a lot of other lab owners and their dogs. When it came to the water retrieving, she went for the duck like a champ. Not the most elegant retrieve, and she ended up splashing the duck further away before she managed to nab it though, but she really went for it. Maybe we'll have to get one of those floating duck decoys. We'd have to attach it to a long string though, just in case she decides to go swim after something else.
Just in time for the Christmas shopping season: The Ultimate Star Trek Collection. Even though it hasn't been released yet, there are already 7 reviews of it at Amazon, most of them complaining about how it can't be the Ultimate collection because the animated series isn't included.
At Amazon's discounted price $2500, it's a little bit of a spendy gift for someone, but definitely something I wouldn't mind having in my collection. 212 DVDs all in one collection...I'll need to get a comfy chair for this one.
Time: 0700
Temp: 15°C
Distance: ~2.2 km
Time: 30 min
Out for a brisk walk with the dog on a very foggy morning. Otherwise it was a nice morning and a nice comfy temperature. More like what I'm used to for a summer morning. It's always interesting to be out in the fog.
There's this big white male poodle that shows up at the dog park every now and then. The dumb poodle must have a thing for labs, because every time he sees Nala, he's always running after her trying to mount and hump my poor little puppy. One of the other lab owners said his dog was victimized the other day too. There are plenty of other dogs around, but the poodle only goes after the labs. It doesn't seem like a dominance kind of thing, because as far as the poodle seems to be concerned, the only dogs around are himself and Nala, and he doesn't seem to go after any of the other dogs. It's a full time job just keeping the dog off Nala. Turn around and there he is again trying to climb on top of her.
Stupid horny dog.
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
Well, this is a new one (for me anyway). Spam coming through Amazon's seller contact form. Like lots of other people, I sell some of my unneeded books on Amazon. The profile page has a 'Contact this seller' link that sends you to a form where you can send a message to the seller asking questions. Today this obviously spammy message was waiting for me in my mailbox
How are you! I am very interested in this production. Is it new or secondhand ? I used to buy something on '_______________', Because I found that most of the goods on the website are more cheaper than on the amazon. I would like to buy what I need if you can list the goods on it.
I removed the mangled URL (no doubt mangled to escape whatever URL filters Amazon might have in place), since the last thing I want to do is help the dumb spammers along. I wonder how many other Amazon sellers have this problem.
It's been 60 years since WW II ended, ending 6 years of war that started on one side of the globe and ended on the other side. In the 60 years since then, there have been numerous localized conflicts and wars adding to the population of veterans. Take a moment and put a few of them in your thoughts.
Yesterday was an uncharacteristically busy day, but a fun day.
The past week was pretty busy, and Nala was cooped up inside for most of the week, so yesterday we spent most of the morning out at the dog park letting her run around and play with some of her dog park buddies. Then it was off to a local vineyard (Irvin House Vineyard) with some friends for their 'Blessing of the Vines' event. It was the first time out to a vineyard for most of us, so it was a pretty good time. We rolled up just in time to see the priest's blessing, so we unfolded the lawn chairs, grabbed some BBQ and some popcorn, and sat down under some shady oak trees to watch. There was some reasonably decent music to listen to, and afterwards we strolled through the vineyard and looked at the muscadine vines. There were even a few grapes left too, but they were still ripening or on the way to becoming raisins. Our friends hadn't encountered muscadines before though, so the wife educated them a bit and showed them the innards and described how to eat muscadines.
Admission to the event came with a glass of wine, so we sampled a few of them. I think our group found them passable, but not terribly impressive. Perhaps this vintage wasn't one of their best. The wife and I tried their Mullet Hall Red and the Magnolia (one of their white wines). I'm not really a big fan of red wines, but the Mullet Hall Red was enjoyable, light and not to tannin-y like most other reds. The Magnolia was supposed to be their sweeter white wine, but wasn't nearly as sweet as some other muscadine wines I've had (although those were almost too sweet for my liking). I think I'd have to try a few more varieties and vintages to see if I really like the Irvin House wines.
After we got home, one of the wife's friends stopped by to hang out and help finish off some of the extra food left over from Friday's post-exam party. Then it was off to the John Legend concert at The Plex. It was a pretty good sized crown at the event, and we even ran into a few people that we knew there. It was a pretty decent concert overall, although the John Legend part of it didn't actually start until around 10, and went for about an hour and a half. Most all the people there seemed to be pretty into the concert though, including the opening acts.
First concert I've ever been to where I was patted down and frisked. Just the guys too, not the women. "Welcome to our world", the wife says.
Time: 0900
Temp: 15°°C
Distance: ~2 km
Time: 20 min
Pleasant jog up and back with the dog today. First jog in a few days, so I was a little bit huffy and puffy, but not too bad. Better than when I first started out, that's for sure.
You get to see some really nice sunsets. Caught this one heading over the Ashley River bridge on the way home one day.
Just in case anybody though there might finally be a quiet end to a very busy storm season, there's now TD 27 in the Carribean. 5 day track has it heading west into southern Mexico/Central America, so probably not likely to have much effect here. I doubt that area would want much more rain though, after the beating the area got from TS Beta a few weeks ago.
Nala started doing this in the car
so we decided we'd better get her some Doggles to help protect her eyes from any dust or bugs.
Doesn't she look stylish? I think I need to find a motorbike to pose her on.
Does anybody else out there find that Burger King 'king' really creepy? I just saw the newest commercial this morning where this guy and girl are riding a tandem bike through a tunnel, and on the other side, the girl's disappeared and been replaced with the 'king'. It's creepy I tell you, Creepy! And those ones with the 'king' standing out on the guy's lawn? It's like some kind of bad hangover hallucination or something.
Looks like TD 27 resurrected itself and has become TS Gamma, making it the 24th named storm of the season. Doesn't look like it will get much stronger as it travels up through Cuba/Florida.
From this morning's 4 AM discussion:
A WEAKNESS IN THE RIDGE TO THE NORTH OF GAMMA IS ALSO BEGINNING TO APPEAR AT THE 700 MB LEVEL. THE COMBINATION OF THE WEAKENING RIDGE ALONG 85W LONGITUDE AND THE MODERATE TO STRONG UPPER-LEVEL SOUTHERLY FLOW ACROSS THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN SHOULD OPEN AN ALLEY FOR GAMMA TO MOVE NORTHWARD THROUGH OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. AFTER THAT... A SERIES OF SHORTWAVE TROUGHS CURRENTLY OVER THE U.S. PLAINS STATES ARE FORECAST BY ALL THE MODELS TO MERGE AND DEVELOP INTO A HIGH-AMPLITUDE TROUGH OVER THE EASTERN U.S. AND THE EASTERN GULF OF MEXICO BY 72 HOURS. THIS FEATURE IS EXPECTED TO INDUCE SOUTHWESTERLY TO WESTERLY STEERING FLOW NORTH OF 20N LATITUDE BY 60-72 HOURS... WHICH SHOULD RESULT IN GAMMA LIFTING OUT TO THE NORTHEAST ACROSS WESTERN CUBA... THE BAHAMAS... AND POSSIBLY SOUTH FLORIDA. THE GLOBAL MODELS DISSIPATE GAMMA OR KEEP IT TRAPPED IN THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA DURING THE NEXT 5 DAYS... WHICH SEEMS UNREASONABLE GIVEN THE VERTICALLY DEEP CIRCULATION NOTED IN THE 00Z UPPER-AIR DATA. AS SUCH...THE OFFICIAL FORECAST TRACK LEANS MORE TOWARD THE GFDL SOLUTION SINCE THAT MODEL MAINTAINS A DEEP TROPICAL CYCLONE THROUGH 120 HOURS.
SINCE SIGNIFICANT VERTICAL SHEAR IS FORECAST TO REMAIN ACROSS GAMMA THROUGHOUT THE PERIOD... ONLY SLIGHT INTENSIFICATION IS EXPECTED. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS A BLEND OF THE GFDL AND SHIPS MODELS.
Looks like TS Gamma is starting to fizzle out and may not last much longer. The forecast track has moved quite a bit south from yesterday too, so what remains of Gamma won't be much more than a rain event for Jamaica.
From this morning's 4 AM discussion:
EARLIER DEEP CONVECTIVE BURSTS NEAR AND TO THE NORTHEAST OF THE CENTER HAVE WEAKENED CONSIDERABLY DURING THE PAST 6 HOURS. THE HIGHEST 1500 FT FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS INDICATED BY AN AIR FORCE RESERVE RECON AIRCRAFT HAS BEEN 37 KT IN A FEW SPOTS JUST NORTH AND NORTHEAST OF THE CENTER... WHICH DOES NOT SUPPORT TROPICAL STORM STATUS. AT BEST...GRADIENT WIND COMPUTATIONS SUPPORT BORDERLINE TROPICAL STORM-FORCE WINDS SOMEWHERE IN THE NORTHERN SEMICIRCLE. SINCE WHAT CONVECTION REMAINS IS LOCATED BETWEEN THE FLIGHT LEGS IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT... GAMMA IS BEING KEPT A TROPICAL STORM BUT THE WINDS HAVE BEEN LOWERED TO 35 KT... WHICH MAY BE GENEROUS...
MODERATE TO STRONG SOUTHERLY UPPER-LEVEL WIND FLOW HAS HELPED TO MAINTAIN A SHEARING PATTERN ACROSS GAMMA. THE RESULT IS THAT THE CYCLONE NOW APPEARS TO BE VERTICALLY LESS DEEP THAN THIS TIME YESTERDAY... AND THE SYSTEM MAY NOT EVEN BE AROUND AS A TROPICAL CYCLONE IN 48 HOURS ACCORDING TO THE SHIPS MODEL. THE VARIOUS NHC TRACK MODELS MOVE A WEAKENING GAMMA EAST-NORTHEASTWARD TO SOUTHEASTWARD THROUGH THE FORECAST PERIOD... WITH SEVERAL OF THE MODELS FORECASTING DISSIPATION OR ABSORPTION BY 96 HOURS AS A STRONG COLD FRONT PUSHES INTO THE CARIBBEAN SEA. THE OFFICIAL TRACK WAS SHIFTED WELL SOUTH OF THE PREVIOUS TRACK AND AGREES WITH THE CONSENSUS OF THE GLOBAL MODELS WITH EITHER DISSIPATION OR ABSORPTION OCCURRING BY 72-96 HOURS OVER THE WEST-CENTRAL CARIBBEAN SEA.
You know, after being here for 6 years, you'd think that on a day like this, I'd have learned to pack an extra pair of socks by now.
Sigh.
The flooding on this street has actually been made worse by the new hospital construction. Before, all the extra water would fill the parking lot that used to be on the right, where part of the new hospital is going up, so the street hardly ever flooded. Now, any time it rains, this is normal.
Lots of active playing with the dog though. Tossing the ball and racing her to it, walking and other romping around with Nala. Been kinda busy lately, but I think I'll be able to get back to it soon after we get back home this weekend.
Hope everyone celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday had a good one.
It was another trip up to the Rocky Mount, NC area this year for Thanksgiving at the wife's aunt's house. A nice fun time, with lots of good tasty food. Could do without the drive there, but the food was worth it. Nala was very well behaved around all the people too, and got lots of play time outside. I think every one left very fat and happy yesterday.
Once we get back home, it'll be time to start preparing and practising for Christmas at our house.
Looks like while everybody was getting ready for Thanksgiving and filling up on tasty food, TS Delta(2005) popped up, making it the 25th named storm in this season that just won't end. Fortunately it's out in the middle of the Atlantic and is forecast to stay there. It's certainly taking an odd track though.
Yes! Another Edmonton championship team!
Yesterday's Grey Cup, aside from being the first CFL game I've been able to see in 6 years, was probably one of the best games I've seen in a long time.
Imagine my surprise to find the Grey Cup game actually being broadcast on a US sports station, and on CSS no less. And what a game it was. From Edmonton's first field goal and touch down and a 10-1 lead after the first quarter, to the nailbiting second mini-game in OT it was an exciting game, and pretty much a quarterback duel. The Edmonton offensive line seemed to have a hard time containing Montreal's blitz, but several good defensive interceptions and blocks kept Edmonton scoring. By the numbers, it was Edmonton all the way though, with turnovers and bad penalties playing key parts in the game.
Of course it would have been much better if I had been able to see the whole game...Seems that for time and scheduling reasons, CSS chopped off large chunks of the broadcast, like a good chunk of the 2nd quarter, the entire half-time show, and pretty much the entire 3rd quarter. After the 2nd half kick off, it went from being 10-8 in the 3rd quarter to 20-18 in the 4th quarter. Argh.
Oh well, at least I got to see (most of) the game.
"In physics, you don't have to go around making trouble for yourself - nature does it for you." - Frank Wilczek
Spotted over at Physics Forums
I must have been doing more high impact stuff with the dog than I thought. Boy do my shins hurt when I run. Guess I'll have to take a bit of a break and stick to walking for a bit.
Last year's hurricane season was ended by TS Ottowhich sprouted up Nov 30, the last day of the season. This year we might see the same thing happening. From this morning's Tropical Weather Outlook:
CONVECTIVE ACTIVITY ASSOCIATED WITH A NON-TROPICAL AREA OF LOW PRESSURE CENTERED ABOUT 900 MILES EAST OF BERMUDA HAS BECOME MORE CONCENTRATED ABOUT THE CENTER DURING THE NIGHT.SUBTROPICAL OR TROPICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SYSTEM IS POSSIBLE OVER THE NEXT DAY OR TWO AS IT MOVES SLOWLY WEST OR SOUTHWESTWARD.
Yep, there it is. TS Epsilon(2005), making it the 26th named storm of the year. Looks like this one will just spin around in the middle of the Atlantic and not bother anyone except shipping.
From this morning's 10 AM NHC discussion:
CONVENTIONAL SATELLITE IMAGERY...NEARBY SHIP AND BUOY OBSERVATIONS...AND 29/0938Z QUIKSCAT SATELLITE WIND DATA INDICATE THE LARGE NON-TROPICAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED ABOUT 730 NMI EAST OF BERMUDA HAS ACQUIRED ENOUGH CONVECTION NEAR THE CENTER TO BE CLASSIFIED AS TROPICAL STORM EPSILON...THE 26TH NAMED STORM OF THE APPARENTLY NEVER ENDING 2005 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON. THE INITIAL INTENSITY OF 45 KT IS BASED ON BLEND OF 40-KT QUIKSCAT WINDS IN THE NORTHWEST QUADRANT AND A 29/0800Z 996.0 MB...EQUAL TO APPROXIMATELY 55 KT... PRESSURE REPORT FROM BUOY 41543 THAT WAS LOCATED ABOUT 90 NMI SOUTH OF THE CENTER.THE INITIAL MOTION ESTIMATE IS 270/07 KT. EPSILON IS EXPECTED TO MOVE GENERALLY WESTWARD FOR THE NEXT 24-36 HOURS AROUND THE SOUTHERN PERIPHERY OF A HIGH-LATITUDE RIDGE. AFTER THAT...THE CYCLONE IS FORECAST TO SLOW DOWN AND TURN AND NORTHEASTWARD AS A DEEP-LAYER TROUGH AND ASSOCIATED FRONTAL SYSTEM CURRENTLY OVER THE EASTERN UNITED STATES MOVES EASTWARD AND BEGINS TO TURN EPSILON BACK TOWARD THE EAST. BY 96 HOURS... EPSILON IS EXPECTED TO ACCELERATE RAPIDLY NORTHEASTWARD AND BECOME EXTRATROPICAL OR POSSIBLY EVEN BECOME ABSORBED BY THE MUCH LARGER EXTRATROPICAL LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM. THE FORECAST TRACK IS SIMILAR TO THE NHC MODEL CONSENSUS.
