Imablog Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.

Happy new year!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe celebration into 2006!

A day at the beach

It's been a delightfully lazy weekend. Being uncharacteristically warm (for me anyway), the wife and I decided to take Nala out to the beach and go for a walk. The breeze cooled things down a little bit and the water was a little cool on the feet, but otherwise it was a nice stroll on the beach.

Fortune cookie quote

When in doubt, mumble.

I think I know a lot of people who do this.

Found in a fortune cookie from lunch today.

Review: Marley & Me

Just finished reading Marley & Me last night. It's a book that will tug at the heart strings of every dog lover out there.

Marley is a lab retriever. Somewhat overly rambunctions, not all there, but full of life, love and energy. Maybe a little more than his fair share, but despite his antics, the trouble he gets into and the chaos he causes, you can't help but fall in love with Marley (even if he's not yours). At the same time you're thanking the gods that your dog isn't like Marley, you almost wish he was your dog. Marley's all exhuberance, loyalty and love and shares it by the bucketloads even up to the very end. The ending is kind of sad, but even still you can't help but remember the fun parts of Marley. After you're finished the book, it really made me think about Nala's place in our lives, how much joy and love she's brought to us (even though she's not nearly as exhuberant as Marley by a long shot) and definitely not to take her for granted.

Read the book, and then go hug your dog. You'll appreciate it.

I even miss Marley, even though I only knew him from reading the book.

5 stars out of 5 for this one.

Nuc Med tech wanted

Any nuclear medicine techs out there looking for a job in a well staffed reasonably state-of-the-art teaching hospital? We have an opening for a PET/CT technologist in our Nuclear Medicine department. Dual RT and NM certification is required.

Apply at https://www.applymuscjobs.com/. Click on Search postings and select Radiology Services in the Division dropdown to find the posting.

Tasty meaty fare

Went to check out a new Brazilian place called Amazon Grill last night. Way out in Goose Creek, it was out in an area that we've never been to before, so finding the place was a bit of an adventure to begin with. But after being lost for only about 30 minutes or so, we finally found our way to the place, located in an unassuming strip mall.

The restaurant was a nice, well lit place with the buffet running down the middle. Not a huge selection, but enough to keep us interested. We saw black beans, stewed beef, chicken, fish, rice, some delicious fried bananas that everybody kept going back for, and a cauldron of reasonably tasty soup made with beans and meat. At the other end of the buffet was the salady and fruity stuff and in between a freezer section with ice cream for later.

The real attraction were the guys bringing around spits of meat and sausages fresh off the grill to each of the tables (which apparently only happens on Fridays and Saturdays). If you opt for the buffet and grill, they stop at your table, you grab a piece of meat and they slice it right off the spit for you. There were a few different varieties, including bacon-wrapped chicken, brazillian sausages, sirloin, tenderloin and filet. All of them were very tasty, and if you managed to get some of the inner more medium sections, very tender and juicy. Even the outer more well-done parts of meat were tasty and full of that grilled rotisserie flavour, although somewhat tougher to eat.

It's definitely a very meaty restaurant with anything resembling veggies being in somewhat short supply. Meat-loving carnivores out there are sure to love the buffet and grill. Definitely a place we'll have to go back and try again.

Happy birthday to me!

I've managed to start off the year with an odd every other day posting pattern, so I thought I might as well continue it with a narcissistic happy birthday posting to me :)

Oil cooled PCs

Why not, works for x-ray tubes and transformers. The guys at THG fill a case with cooking oil and dunk a motherboard in it to test out the insulating and heat dissipation powers of oil.

Haven't finished reading all of it yet, but I assume it worked for them since they're writing about it.

Trying to learn about PHP frameworks

A recent discussion on PHP frameworks on the PHP mailing list got me thinking about how I could use them to rewrite some of my DB projects. I looked into a few of the frameworks brought up in the discussion, and they look interesting. The frameworks I picked up on were the MVC (model-view-controller) types, which reminded me of the event-based OO programming style of Objective-C on NeXTStep.

They also made me realize that I'd really be pushing my meager programming skills to the edge trying to figure out how these things work and how to use them. It's also going to take me a good bit of time to learn them too, which is something that always seems to be in short supply these days.

Well, add one more thing to my ever growing list of things to learn :)

Couple of useful articles I stumbled upon over at ONLamp.com that might help me get started.
Understanding MVC in PHP
Implementing MVC in PHP: The Controller
Implementing MVC in PHP: The View
Implementing MVC in PHP: The Model

A list of different PHP frameworks: MVC Frameworks Written in PHP
WASP looks interesting.

Sick...ugh

Being sick sucks, as any sick person can tell you. This past week I've been trying to fend off a cold, but to no avail. First cold I've had in quite a while I think. Trying to puzzle out these MVC frameworks and figuring out how to rework my equipment tracking system using one of them is darned near impossible with a cold-fuzzed head. Ugh.

I just hope I'm better by the end of the weekend.

Still sick...bleh

It's not often that I get sick (thanks to this hardy Canadian constitution of mine), but when I do, it's usually a doozy. So much for hoping to get better by the end of the weekend.

Yesterday was Nala's first day in Real Life 101, an obedience class held out in public areas with plenty of distractions to deal with. Nala did pretty well doing what we asked her to do, but getting her to stay focused on us was a bit tough.

After class,we had a little bit of time left on the meter, so we went for a stroll downtown. Nala did pretty well walking around with all the people and cars.

If you happen to be strolling down King St in Charleston with your dog, stop in at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. They're very dog friendly and welcome pooches in the store. They even have collars and leashes in the back. Just make sure your pet doesn't pee all over the place, or you might end up buying a few more things than you planned. Nala was very good in the store, and got lots of attention from one of the staff who also has a black lab.

Trusty computer, don't fail me now!

The computer at home decided not to boot up properly anymore. Gets to the Windows boot screen, then does a BSOD, and reboots itself. So after doing this a few times, I booted up the Dell diagnostics and started running those. At least two tests on one of the drives failed, saying 'a possible failure is predicted by the device's SMART status'. Not sure which drive it is yet, but with my luck it's probably the one with all the important stuff on it and no recent backup done either (I was getting around to doing one, really I was). Go figure.

Hopefully I can figure out a way to recover from this enough so I can at least copy some of the more important stuff to another drive.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long night.

Update: 10 hours later it's still doing the read test on my 160GB drive. 1 bad block found so far, which hopefully will be recoverable. Hopefully I won't have to reformat it or anything. That'll mean losing a lot of non-critical stuff like captured videos, photos and all our ripped CDs. Inconvenient, but not fatal. If this is the only problem found, then I'll have gotten off lucky. I have a feeling there will be more though.

A double anniversary year

Boy time sure flies. This month's e-Trail from the U of A Alumni Association reminded me that this year marks 15 years since completing my BSc, and 10 years since completing my MSc. Doesn't seem like those carefree undergrad days were so long ago until I think about what's gone on since then.

Unfortunately I've lost track of most of my fellow classmates, so I don't know what anybody's been up to these days or what kind of progress they've made in the physics world. Would be interesting to find out how some of them are doing. Maybe I ought to do some literature searches.

In the meantime, while most of the rest of the country is taking the day off for MLK day (I'd forgotten about it), I have an RF room to test this afternoon. I guess that explains why it was so easy to get the room today...

Alive and kicking again

After a day of running the Dell Diagnostics, only one bad block on the 160GB drive and a flaked out Zip drive were found. Fortunately, the Maxtor utilities were able to scan and repair the error without any loss of data (that I've discovered yet). The Zip drive seems to be pretty much dead and won't read anymore Zip disks, so I guess that might as well come out.

Now, what to put in the empty bay...

I have another neice!

Congratulations to my brother and his wife on the newest member of their family, Vivian Woon Marie Mah (they seem to like to give their kids lots of names).

For you baby fiends out there, this is what my brother said about her:
Vivian Woon Marie Mah
January 18, 2006 @ 10:28am
3.88 kilograms or
8 pounds 9 ounces

Interesting SC laws relating to dogs

The lab retriever club we're part of had one of their meetings this evening where one of the members (who happens to be an attorney) talked about some of the legal issues involved in owning a dog. Found out about a couple of interesting SC laws relating to dogs. For example:

• Stealing an identifiable dog (identifiable via tag or tatoo) is a misdemeanor. Stealing a cat isn't.
• Abandoning a dog is illegal in SC. Abandoning a hunting dog isn't.
• If your dog bites someone, you're liable, even if:
  • the person that got bit jumped the fence into your yard to mess with your dog.
  • someone let the dog out either by accident or on purpose

There were other things mentioned, but those were the ones that stuck in my head the most.

You call that service?

I've never been a big fan of McDonald's, both from a food and service stand point, but the wife gets these cravings for McDonald's every now and then, so we end up there on occasion. Yesterday was one of those occasions, and what probably should only have been a few minutes waiting in the drive-thru lane turned into about 30 at the McDonald on the peninsula. This particular McDonald's has always had pretty crappy service to begin with, but we were there and the wife wanted a cheeseburger. I suppose when I restarted the car to move up to the ordering sign, we should have taken that as an indication of things to come.

So there we are, third in line wondering what's taking the person so long to order. Finally he drives off, the lady in front of us starts up the car and drives up to the speaker. After waiting a few more minutes, she gives multiple orders, asking for the price after each one. This takes about 10 minutes.

Finally we make it up to the speaker, and end up waiting for another 5 minutes before a staticy voice says she'll be with us in a minute. 5 more minutes pass by with cars behind us deciding to bail out and leave. We probably should have joined them.

15 minutes *after* we reach the speaker, the staticy voice comes back and asks for our order, which we have to give *twice* because apparently weweretalkingtoofast the first time. S..o....w..e....s..p..o..k..e....s..l..o..w..e..r. Finally, we got our order in. Drive up to the window, pay...and wait some more.

We get the drink we ordered, but then someone says the McNuggets were dropped, and ask us to pull forward to...you guessed it, wait some more. At this point I was about ready to go inside and tell them to forget the order and get a refund. Finally after waiting another 5 minutes, we got our stuff (minus straw, napkins and sauce for the McNuggets) and left.

Needless to say, I think that'll be the last time we go to this particular McD's (or any other one if I had my druthers)

Things in Threes

My friend Mike sent me another one of these meme things, so here goes:

Three names you go by.

1. Eug
2. Spandex Ninja
3. Lurch

Three parts of your heritage.

1. Canadian
2. Chinese
3. Chinese

Three things that scare you.

1. Clowns. They're just plain creepy
2. The Burger King king
3. Things with large pointy teeth

Three of your everyday essentials.

1. Internet
2. Chocolate
3. Coca-cola

Three things you are wearing right now.

1. My ID badge
2. Dockers
3. Rockport shoes

Three things you need in a relationship. <other than real love>

1. Friendship
2. Humour
3. Communication

Two truths and a lie (in any order).

1. I've never met a chocolate I didn't like
2. I live for tequila

Three Physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you.

1. They're soft and curvy
2. Eyes
3. Butt

Three of your favorite hobbies.

1. Reading
2. Sleeping
3. Cycling

Three things you want to do really badly right now.

1. Finish off the chocolate ice cream in the freezer
2. Play some hockey
3. Splurge on a new computer

Three places you want to go.

1. Vegas
2. Barbados
3. Edmonton

Three things you want to do before you die.

1. Go skydiving
2. Fire off some really big guns like the Mail Call guy gets to do

Three ways you are stereotypically a girl/guy.

1. Tools, need more tools
2. I like to take things apart

Three ways in which you are not stereotypically a girl/guy.

1. Just not a big sports watcher
2. I'm not terribly mechanically inclined

Three things that annoy you.

1. Idiocy
2. Late people
3. My own stupidity

My first conference presentation

Good: Today I got asked by one of our rad techs to speak at the SCSRT meeting coming up in about 6 weeks.
Inconvenient: I need to come up with a topic and outline by tomorrow so the organizers can send all the info in to get the meeting approved for CE credits.
Good: I can speak on whatever topic I want.
Bad: I don't know what I want to talk about. Current ideas are digital detector technology and identifying image artifacts.
Bad: Whatever I end up talking about will mean lots of work preparing and researching.
Good: I can get Cat 1 CE credits for doing this.
Bad: It goes on the list with all the other things that need to get done in a very short time period.
Good: Something else to add to my CV.
Good: I can probably use this as a MOC SDEP

With my luck I'll be the last speaker on the last day of the meeting.

Energizer bunny, meet the Mars rovers

Heading into their third year on Mars, Spirit and Opportunity are still motoring along taking cool pictures, finding neat stuff and checking out more terrain.

Not bad for a couple of robots that were only supposed to last 3 months. Sounds like they're beginning to suffer from aging though.

While showing signs of wear, Spirit and Opportunity are still being used to their maximum remaining capabilities. On Spirit, the teeth of the rover's rock abrasion tool are too worn to grind the surface off any more rocks, but its wire-bristle brush can still remove loose coatings. The tool was designed to uncover three rocks, but it exposed interiors of 15 rocks.

On Opportunity, the steering motor for the front right wheel stopped working eight months ago. A motor at the shoulder joint of the rover's robotic arm shows symptoms of a broken wire in the motor winding. Opportunity can still maneuver with its three other steerable wheels. Its shoulder motor still works when given extra current, and the arm is still useable without that motor.

Cool.

Remembering Challenger

Hard to believe that tomorrow will be the 20th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident. I was in 11th grade when it happened. I remember walking down the hall from my locker in school when I saw a friend of mine who told me the space shuttle exploded. My first response was naturally disbelief, and it wasn't until I got home after school that I saw what happened on TV.

There's an interesting article over at MSNBC talking about 7 myths about the Challenger accident. I particularly like the last sentence of myth 7:

The disaster need never have happened if managers and workers had clung to known principles of safely operating on the edge of extreme hazards - nothing was learned by the disaster that hadn't already been learned, and then forgotten.

Ok, who broke my libpng!

Well, seems that at some point between PHP 4.4 and PHP 5, something about my libgd, libpng or zlib broke, because now I'm getting all these
PHP Fatal error: imagepng() [<a href='function.imagepng'>function.imagepng</a>]: gd-png: fatal libpng error: zlib error in ...
errors popping up. I know it worked a while ago. Not sure why it's not working now though.

Great, something else to dig into. One of these days I'm just going to have to break down and redo the whole server.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Chinese Red Fire Dog Year!

We headed out to the Charleston Kennel Club dog show yesterday, and I think we might head out there again today. Of course, we spent most of our time watching the labs. There were lots of really nice looking labs out there that all seemed to make Nala seem really scrawny by comparison. I wonder if we're feeding her enough...

Nala's breeders were there showing some of their dogs, including Nala's sire, Angus. That's him in the picture with his human. Nala comes from pretty thick stock.

What Type of Social Entity are You?

Category IV - The Musketeer

You have a small, highly edited social group, and you like it that way.

What Type of Social Entity are You?

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Just when you thought you knew everything about me...

Nabbed from Walk This Way