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.

Dust bunnies beware!

After Roomba died, we were stuck with using the old vacuum again (over there on the left). Does a reasonably decent job for being a 10 year old vacuum. We were going to get another Roomba, but then the wife decided she wanted a Dyson. And not just any Dyson either. We were going to get a Dyson Ball.

After some reading and research, we decided to get the Animal variant, partly because of the extra attachments it comes with, and partly because of the cool purple colour.

The wife got to use it first, and after seeing the pictures of what came out of the carpet, I'm sold. Now admitedly, it had been a while since our last vacuuming so that was probably a few weeks worth of dust build up. Still, I don't think it's anywhere near what our old vacuum would have sucked up.

The Dyson is a bit on the heavy side, but actually surprisingly easy to move around. It's also a lot quieter than I expected. I used it a little bit last night to vacuum along the baseboards with the mini-turbine head. The hose is nice and long, although it becomes a little bit cumbersome moving around with the rest of the vacuum dragging behind. The telescoping wand is reasonably thin, and with the crevice tool allows me to get into places that our old vacuum wouldn't (it had a larger diameter hose). I was finally able to get to those clumps of dog hair towards the back of the fridge!

I imagine the house will be pretty clean with the new Dyson (at least for the next few weeks until the novelty factor wears off).

At the Charity Ball

Yesterday we were at the MUSC Charity Ball, one of those fund raising events put on by a student organization where everyone gets to dress up and look all spiffy. Lots of students and faculty show up to have a good time dancing and showing off their dressy duds.

Since the wife is part of the group that puts the event on, attendance for me is kind of mandatory. It's a nice event though, and a chance for people to see how really dressed up everyone else can get. It also means I usually end up being one of the helpers at the end too. Generally, whatever organization the wife ends up joining, they usually end up getting a two-fer deal out of us. It's fun though, and I get to walk around taking lots of pictures. There were a few interesting things that we put bids on, but other people ended up outbidding us on them.

There's also a silent auction (the fundraising portion) that goes along with the charity ball that the students work hard at putting together. Lots of donations from local businesses are solicited and put up for auction. The money raised helps fund various student-run programs like the CARES clinic.

The end of the evening ends up being a little hectic with people lining up to pay for and collect the items they won, and people running back and forth brining things up to the front table (that's usually where I pitch in and help out a bit). It's all fairly well organized though and goes pretty smoothly for the most part. Anything that's left over at the end of the night are collected and carted back to campus so that people can come by to get their items later.

Looked like everybody had a good time at this year's event again.

Graduation day

Nala's last day of Real Life 101 was yesterday over at Waterfront Park. With all the people and other dogs around, it's a pretty challenging place for dog obedience traning, but all the dogs in today's class did very well, even when someone's escaped dog stopped by to check out all the action and maybe get some play time in. The instructor finished the class off with the presentation of the certificates and a little something for the dogs. All in all, RL101 is a great class for dogs and people who've been through regular obedience class, and are looking to help improve their dog's behaviour out in public. We really had a lot of fun working out in public and going to different places for each class.

Poop watching

We have firm poop!

Probably only something you'd hear a dedicated dog owner say out loud.

The last week or so Nala's been having issues with really soft runny poop, so finally we decided to drop the fish based food altogether. We had her on 1/2 lamb & rice and 1/2 fish/sweet potatoe for the last few weeks, but after the soft poop started up again, we decided to go with straight lamb & rice food. It's the 2nd day and the poop has started to get more solid. This is a good thing. Nothing worse than trying to pick up soft mushy poop at the dog park. Hopefully it stays this way.

Four things

Another one of those meme things from Mike that he tagged me with today. If you're reading, consider yourself 'tagged' :)

Four jobs you have had in your life:

1. carrier for the Edmonton Journal
2. sys admin
3. medical physicist
4. PACS administrator

Four movies you would watch over and over:

1. Lord of the Rings
2. Casablanca
3. Muppets Take Manhattan
4. The Muppet Movie

Four places you have lived:

1. Edmonton
2. MERK Chapterhouse
3. Dearborn Heights, MI
4. Charleston, SC

Four TV shows you love to watch:

1. Mythbusters
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. SG1
4. Good Eats

Four places you have been on vacation:

1. Los Angeles
2. Orlando
3. Barbados
4. Shuswaps Lakes

Four websites I visit daily:

1. Slashdot
2. hooligan.net
3. UserFriendly
4. Order of the Stick

Four of my favorite foods:

1. pizza
2. pulled pork BBQ
3. lasagna
4. ice cream

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Barbados
2. At the beach
3. On a beach in Barbados
4. On my rocking chair on the back porch

Campus in the spring

Spring time is always nice around here, because the groundskeepers present you with scenes like this to enjoy on the walk in to work.

Saying hello

We were at the Lowcountry Dog Agility Club's trials on Sunday checking out the dog agility action. One of my co-workers (who's a member of the club) took this picture of Nala and a Great Dane checking each other out and saying hi.

Don't eat me!

Doesn't today's APOD make you think of The Doomsday Machine episode from Star Trek:TOS?

Blogger code

In the tradition of the Geek Code:

Found via Jay Allen

Off to Vegas!

Wow, a whole week without a single entry. Ever get so busy that you have a hard time keeping track of what you're supposed to be working on? That's my problem right now. Too many things going on.It's starting to get me a little bit behind on my equipment surveys. I've got technical support for a bunch of clinical research protocols that are starting to get ramped up and a couple of research projects that need to get finished up among the many things starting to pile up.

Yesterday a Shimadzu portable unit with integrated digital detector fell into my lap for acceptance testing. TPTB decided to bring one in on a trial basis for the week. An interesting compact unit powered by Windows XP of all things. The detector is a scintillator based aSi:H flat panel detector about 35cmx43cm tethered to the portable by a long cable. The portable unit itself wasn't terribly remarkable. The integrated flat panel detector was pretty neat, although I didn't have much time to spend doing a more thorough evaluation of the panel itself.

One thing that's kind of bugging me about the DR software vendors use is the exposure area masking they do. Of the two digital units I've tested so far, both of them mask off the unexposed area of the image. It's probably convenient for the radiologist looking at the image, because they don't have to deal with a large white unexposed area. For me, the masking makes it a little bit difficult to test the radiation/light field alignment because my light field markers usually end up being in the masked area. So far I haven't been able to find any way to get the software to turn the masking off. Mightily inconvenient if you ask me.

For the next week, I can put that stack of things to do away (at least for a little while) while we head off to see the sights and sounds of Las Vegas. This will be our first trip there and we're looking forward to it. Many things planned, including going to see Mystere, some horseback riding and the Atomic Testing Museum. We're flying out tomorrow afternoon, and coming back next Friday night. Should be cool. Look for a few blog entries and pictures in the gallery while I'm there (if I can get online).

Nethack code

NH 3.4.3L D eugenem-Mon-Hum-Mal-Law HP:115 Pw:134 AC:5 L:18
[+ )+ i 2- P S+ D+ p+ $+ t- s+ W+ E++ PS- PP-
!G C- I++ Ps-- @W(d) N-- !Y X So+ Sp+ sb+ wb +many

No SNM for me this year

Darn, the abstract I submitted for this year's SNM meeting didn't get accepted. No trip to San Diego for me this year.

Still working on the accompanying paper, so maybe I can get that published somewhere.

This is the abstract that I submitted:

Verification of I-131 Half Life Obtained by Conjugate View Measurements Using Medium and High Energy Collimators

Objective: Residence time measurements obtained by serial whole body conjugate view imaging are commonly used in patient specific dosimetry for radioimmunotherapy (RIT) applications. In order to determine the effect of collimator selection on residence time measurements for I-131, the accuracy of I-131 half-life measurements using multiple gamma camera and collimator combinations was investigated.

Method: Serial anterior and posterior whole body images were acquired over a period of 15 days using 4 different gamma cameras with medium and/or high energy collimators. Background corrected geometric mean counts from the images were fitted to a mono-exponential curve to determine the half-life of I-131 for the different gamma camera/collimator combinations.

Results: An average half-life of 8.15 days with a standard deviation (SD) of 0.07 days was obtained from all camera/collimator combinations. A half life of 8.12 days (SD 0.11 d) was obtained for the high energy collimators, and 8.18 d (SD 0.04 d) for the medium energy collimators. These values are all very close to the 8.021 day I-131 half-life from the NuDat 2.1 database. Similar results were also obtained when looking at the measured half-life for single head gamma camera configurations (mean half life 8.15 d, SD 0.12 d). The variation in the therapeutic I-131-tositumomab dose resulting from the differences in measured half-ilfe ranged between 69.8-70.4 mCi.

Conclusion: There is no significant difference in I-131 half-life and residence time measurements made using medium or high energy collimators in dual head or single head imaging configurations.

Las Vegas in one word: Gaudy

Capital G gaudy, but an interesting place. Slot machines are the first thing you see getting off the plane, and they'll probably be the last thing you see leaving. Got some time to kill waiting for your flight? Feed the one-armed bandits for one last chance to leave Vegas on the plus side. Waiting for your partner to finish the grocery shopping? Spin the slot machine wheels to try to win enough to pay for them.

On today's itinerary was the Bellagio where we started with the brunch buffet, then wandered around the expansive resort to check out the scenery. The Fine Art Gallery at the Bellagio was the wife's attempt to instill some culture into me. Nice paintings but Impressionism, which was on display, wasn't something that ever really appealed to me.

Lots of upscale restaurants to spend even more money on at Bellagio. $12 iceberg lettuce wedge salads and up from there.

The next stop was Mandalay Bay and the Shark Reef exhibit. It's basically a large aquarium based on predatory fishes and other sea creatures. Mandalay Bay was pretty expansive with even more upscale uber-pricey restaurants, mostly Asian themed.

A Fry's Electronics shop was the final destination this afternoon for checking out their goodies. Plenty of things for a geek to drool over, including a quad-Opteron MB for just under $1300.

The final event for the day was Cirque du Soleiel's Zumanity. Not your typical Cirque show, and definitely one the kids won't be able to see. Great show with some great performances. Not quite as acrobatic or circus-y as some other Cirque shows I've seen, but still very good.

Go to Vegas...to go somewhere else

One interesting thing about Vegas (at least on the Strip anyway) I've observed is that lots of people come here just to go to a replica of somewhere else. Just about everything on the strip seems to be a replica, down to the fake stone benches outside in the valet pickup areas.

This morning started off with dim sum, something we look for everywhere we go since there isn't any in Charleston. The one we found, Chang's Hong Kong Cuisine, wasn't too far away, so we headed out there mid-morning and fortunately weren't disappointed. The selection wasn't extremely large, but they were good and had all my favourites. The prices were decent too.

Then, with full bellies we headed off to the Luxor, that large pyramidal behemoth of a resort. We wanted to check out the King Tut exhibit and the Lion Habitat. Both were a little disappointing and didn't quite measure up to our expectations. The Lion Habitat consisted of a smallish glass enclosure housing two lionesses, both of which seemed to be pretty domesticated. At least they weren't trying to eat the handler in there with them at the time anyway. Inside, you could shell out $25 to have your photo taken with a lion cub if you wanted and if the cubs were in the mood for it.

We wandered around the rest of the Luxor to check out the scenery, shops and restaurants. Like Mandalay Bay, Luxor had lots of pricey upscale restaurants with famous chef's names attached to them.

Then it was off to MGM Grand to have a look around there. MGM Grand seemed to have about the largest casino floor of all the ones we'd seen so far. It also seemed to have the largest sports book area of the four resorts we'd been to so far. For the more budget conscious diners, MGM at least had a food court area where you could get some McD's, a Nathan's hot dog or even some Haagen Daaz. MGM also had its share of upscale restaurants too, including a couple of places with Joel Robuchon's name on them, although most of them were priced a little more reasonably than the ones at Mandalay Bay or Luxor.

We finished off the afternoon with a much anticipated trip to M&M's World just up the block from MGM. Four floors of just about every conceivable item you can think of related to M&Ms. Pillows, key chains, magnetic letters, dominos, cookie jars, candy dispensers and more. The place was packed too, particularly around the M&Ms Wall of Colour. It's hard to resist a wall of M&Ms even if they are $9/lb, so we ended coming out with about four pounds worth of them.

The wife's parents made it back from their side trip to LA, so it was dinner at the Bayside Buffet at Mandalay Bay. There was lots of tasty food with a couple of carving stations and a pasta bar where it's cooked right in front of you. Not quite as large as the buffet at The Bellagio, but I thought the food was better. At $25/person for the dinner buffet, it's a little pricey, but you can stay pretty much as long as you want and eat as much as you like.

The evening's entertainment was La Femme at MGM, a topless cabaret style show brought over from the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris, France. Interesting show and very entertaining.

Wear comfortable shoes

Even if you're just wandering through a couple of casinos to sightsee, it's not difficult to put on 8 or 9 km worth of walking around. Finding a place to rest your feet and take a load off can be a bit challenging too. Most of the time the only seats around are either in front of slot machines, at the gambling tables or inside restaurants. You can sometimes find benches scattered about, but those are usually few and far between.

Horseback riding was on the schedule for the afternoon, so we took it easy in the morning and didn't do much. After a bit of some miscommunication (either they didn't record our reservation or forgot about us), we ended up making the 50 mile drive north of Vegas to Sagebrush Ranch (not much of a ranch...just a few trailers and storage buildings and some horse pens) for their Sunset trail ride and dinner. It's actually not too far off I-15, but feels like it's in the middle of nowhere. A few more riders than they were expecting showed up, so the trail ride got off to a bit of a late start because they had to saddle up some extra horses.

The ride itself was pretty cool. Rode down through some dry stream beds, up to the top of some hills, back down through some flat areas and saw lots of desert with the mountains for a backdrop. Clouds obscured the sun setting behind the mountains, but it probably would have been really cool. Because of the late start, we ended up spending the last third of the trail ride in the dark. There was no moon in the sky either, so it was really dark, although you could still see the dark shapes of the brush and other riders nearby. Good thing the horses knew where they were going.

After being on a horse for almost two and a half hours, most of the riders were glad to finally make it back and get off the horses. The evening ended with dinner (either steak or chicken) and marshmallow roasting over a campfire.

A rainy day today.

Fortunately we had mostly indoor things planned for today. We had planned to go to the Lost City Museum today, but decided to change that to later because of the rain. The original plan had us checking out Chinatown Plaza to check out another place for dim sum. On the way we encountered a bunch of students walking down the street escorted by police demonstrating for immigration reform. They were between us and Chinatown Plaza, so we ended going back to Chang's. The rest of the morning was spent doing some shopping at one of the outlet malls. One of the things we ended up buying was another suitcase to fit all the other stuff we bought.

Yesterday's horseback riding had the wife still a little wiped out, so we ended up spending most of the afternoon just resting and hanging out. For dinner we decided to check out Rumjungle over at Mandalay Bay to see what their rodizio Brazilian grill was like. Food was pretty decent, although the flavours of some of the meats seemed a little confused. At $40/person it's a little pricey, but go hungry because it's an all you can eat thing. Then when you're done, stick around for the nightclub action (if you can still make it out of your seat).

After dinner we headed over to catch Folies Bergere over at Tropicana. It's a very entertaining variety show with lots of dancing, singing and pretty costumes. A comedy routine in the middle provided a very humourous intermission. Pretty good show, although if you're looking for something a little more risqué, you're probably better off looking somewhere else.

The walls of Las Vegas

We hadn't driven around Vegas too much, but from what we've seen, people seem to like living behind walls and gated communities around here.

Today we decided to try Dishes, the buffet over at Treasure Island. Smaller than the other buffets, but for breakfast/lunch it was pretty tasty and fairly reasonably priced at $12/person.

After breakfast, we made a road trip out to check out the civil engineering wonder that is Hoover Dam. It's only about 40 miles south of Vegas, so it was a pretty easy trip down a nice scenic route. Aside from some road construction traffic we encountered in Boulder City, the trip was pretty uneventful. Part of the route takes you through this residential area, which seemed kind of odd. Then as you round a corner at the top of a hill all of a sudden you see an expansive valley that looks down onto Lake Mead. The fortunate residents of this area have a very impressive view.

Then it was mostly downhill until you reach the Hoover Dam visitor center. There's a security checkpoint just before you get there, but they just seemed to be waving people through without doing any inspecting. The drive over the dam was pretty neat and presented some pretty nice views of Lake Mead and the river valley downstream of the dam. Plenty of parking areas off the road allow people to get out and take pictures or walk around a bit.

Hoover Dam is a pretty impressive sight in person. There's a tour you can take that starts off with a short film that talks about the history of the dam, then a descent 500 ft down to the complex where the generators are. It's pretty impressive to see the size of these generators. Then it's back up to the surface for some more tour stops and pre-recorded presentations. The winged sculpture and floor were an interesting display. Laid into the ground beneath the winged statues are stars and constellations as they appeared in the sky at the time the dam was dedicated. We were going to walk across the dam, but it was starting to get a little late so we decided to head back.

After a bit of a nap, we headed out to another buffet for dinner (it was seafood night next door at the South Coast resort) and then to check out Caesar's Palace. It's definitely a spectacle from the outside and inside. We even saw some people dressed up in Roman costumes walking around. The Forum shops at Caesar's were pretty cool. Lots of high end stores to spend your winnings on (or anything you might have left over). The ceiling is painted sky blue with a smattering of white puffy clouds and is illuminated to give you the illusion of being in an outdoor market. It's an illusion that actually works quite well too. The lighting also changes from being daylight to dusk and finally turns dim to simulate night. All the ceiling needs are some pinholes to stimulate the stars when the nighttime illumination kicks in.

There's a cool sound and light show over at the Atlantis fountain that happens every hour. We happened to catch the end of it. Around the fountain is a large saltwater aquarium with lots of colourful reef fish.

For car buffs, the collection of cars at Exotic Cars is definitely worth checking out. You can see the insides of Lambhorghini's, Ferarri's and even a Maybach 62 (a sweet, sweet ultra-luxury car). If you've got $20 000 burning a hole in your pocket, you can even buy a race car simulator that'll beat the pants off any Xbox 360, or you can just try it out ($20 for 5 minutes).

You know you're a physics geek when...

you look at the curved mirrored exterior of the Wynn Las Vegas resort and wonder what the focal length of the building is. Seriously, it was the first thing I thought of when I drove by the hotel.

Today's our last full day in Vegas and our last chance to cram in a few more things to see. On the docket were the Atomic Testing Museum, Star Trek: The Experience, Chinatown Plaza, dinner at the Stratosphere and Cirque du Soleil's Mystere at Treasure Island.

The first stop of the day was the Atomic Testing Museum. I have to say, this is one cool place. The museum chronicles the history of atomic weapons testing and has plenty of artifacts and models to go along with the displays. You learn all sorts of neat things like how various things associated with the blast were measured, different types of tests conducted and the tools they used. I could have spent the whole day there, but the in-laws were starting to get munchy, so we headed down to the Chinatown Plaza for more dim sum.

Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton was another place I could have spent a good chunk of the day at. There's a complete timeline of the Star Trek Universe to browse through along with lots of props, models and costumes to check out. Klingon Encounter was the better of the two rides at the end, although both were pretty cool. When you're done, the gift shop has some cool Star Trek props to buy if you've got some cash to spare, or you can have something to snack on at Quark's. Lots of fun, but I could only stay there for a few hours.

We had just enough time after that to go check out the fountain show at the Bellagio (very cool. prepare to get misted depending on the wind direction) before rushing back to get dressed up for dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere. Nice place, great food, fantastic view. Make sure you have lots of money to spend, because it's rather pricey. The food is good though, but the Chocolate Stratosphere we had for dessert was a little disappointing. I though the mousse was a little too dense to be called a mousse. Tasty if you like chocolate, but a little pricey at $10.

The last show of the week was Mystere at Treasure Island (forgot the tickets back at the room so we had to run back to grab the tickets after dinner) which was another good Cirque production. The big dinner beforehand had me a little sleepy though and I ended up dozing off a little bit during some of the slower parts.

We were all pooped at the end of the show, so we headed back and called it a night. Lots of packing up to do before leaving the next day.