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.

What do you mean there's no water?

The flight home was pretty uneventful although a little long. Fortunately we had some DVDs to play on the laptop to keep us entertained, although I think some pop may have spilled on the keyboard because it's been acting a little flaky since the flight.

Arrived back home to news of a water main break that disrupted water service to pretty much the entire area. Apparently the break occurred in a 48" water main near the treatment plant, so it wasn't exactly a trivial issue. Serviceable water pressure was restored reasonably quickly, but they've been telling people to boil water before drinking or cooking with it.

Vegas was fun overall. Had a good time checking out the resort casinos that we've been watching all about on Travel Channel. We managed to pack in a lot of things over the week we were there and had lots of fun. Almost would have liked another day or so maybe, but we were glad to be getting back home. Maybe we'll make another trip out there another time. Who knows, the wife might even want to go there after she finishes school. I guess time will tell.

Nala Reunion

The wife picked Nala up at the kennel while I was off doing my volunteer thing at the aquarium this morning. Apparently Nala had a good time at the kennel and seems to have barked herself hoarse. All that comes out now is a raspy bark. Very unusual because at home, Nala's not really a barker. Even at the dog park she hardly ever barks. About the only time she will bark at home is when she spots a squirrel, bird or some other dog roaming through the back yard. We've been trying to keep her quiet so she can rest her vocal cords and recover. It's kind of tough because she still wants to bark at whatever she happens to see in the back yard.

Hopefully she recovers her bark soon. She's sounding kind of pathetic right now.

A new addition to the family

We're adding another dog to our pack! They're 6 weeks old now and just so cute. This is the one we're going to be getting, nicknamed Wee-One because he was the last and smallest puppy of the litter. He's still a little bit smaller than his littermates, but getting bigger all the time. Such a cute and mellow little guy (so far). It'll be a couple of weeks before we can bring him home yet but in the meantime he and his littermates are being well cared for by their breeder, the people at Surry Labradors.

Fun dates in history

Rick tells me that:

On Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again.

2006 Hurricane forecast

The official NHC hurricane forecast won't be out for a couple of months yet, but Dr. Bill Gray's updated April forecast is calling for another active season with 17 named storms, 9 hurricanes (5 of them intense) along with a 64% probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the eastern coast of the US. Hopefully we won't see a repeat of last year's storm season.

The report makes for an interesting read and offers a look at some of the things looked at to come up with a hurricane forecast.

Abstract:

Information obtained through March 2006 continues to indicate that the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season will be much more active than the average 1950-2000 season. We estimate that 2006 will have about 9 hurricanes (average is 5.9), 17 named storms (average is 9.6), 85 named storm days (average is 49.1), 45 hurricane days (average is 24.5), 5 intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 13 intense hurricane days (average is 5.0). The probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall is estimated to be about 55 percent above the long-period average. We expect Atlantic basin Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC) activity in 2006 to be about 195 percent of the long-term average. This early April forecast is based on a newly devised extended range statistical forecast procedure which utilizes 52 years of past global reanalysis data. Analog predictors are also utilized. We have maintained our forecast from our early December prediction as the Atlantic Ocean, although cooling slightly with respect to climatology, remains anomalously warm and central and eastern tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures anomalies have continued to cool. Currently, weak La Niña conditions are observed. We expect either neutral or weak La Niña conditions to be present during the upcoming hurricane season.

A fun day at PetFest

We managed to make it out to Pet Fest today before all the big rain started coming down. It was a little windy though, but it was a nice day for being in the park. Lots of people and lots of dogs to see (and for Nala to visit with). Had a really great time at Pet Fest (our first time going...forgot to bring the camera though) and saw some great vendors selling dog related things. One of my favourites were the door mats sold by Dog Lovers @ Home. The wife couldn't resist getting Nala another pair of Doggles, so we got her a pair of the Racing Flames ILS doggles.

One of the reasons we went was to see if we could get Nala past the Canine Good Citizen test. After taking her out walking around to see the booths, visit other dogs and see/participate in some of the contests (gotta tucker her out a bit so she's not so wound up), she managed to pass the test on her very first try! Yay!!! She's well on the way to one of our goals of getting her into therapy dog work. We're also looking forward to trying out some dog agility with her.

Go Nala (CGC)!

She's so spoiled

Looking through the growing collection of Nala pictures, you can definitely see how much we spoil Nala (doesn't everybody love to spoil their dogs rotten?)

Right now she gets the back seat of the car all to herself, complete with her own pillow to rest on. She's going to have to get used to sharing the back seat soon though.

Search log spam?

Sometimes the search terms I find in the activity log for my blog really puzzles me.

Over in the sidebar, there's a block called Search the blog. It doesn't say 'Search the Web' or 'Search the Internet'. It says 'Search the blog'. That's exactly what it does: search this blog using MT's search function. That's all it does too. It doesn't search anything else. So why has someone been feeding the blog search long strings of spam URLs? Is this perhaps another attempt at spammers to hijack blogs? As if comment spam isn't bad enough.

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't display search terms that people have entered anywhere in the blog or in stats, so the only place they're visible is through MT's admin interface. But perhaps there are some people who do show off recent search terms. It seems like spammers might be trying to capitalize on that by inserting spammy search strings which would then end up showing up in bloggers' visible search term lists.

Wonder if anybody else has seen this happening.

Puppies at 7 weeks

One more visit with the puppies before we get to bring ours home next week.

We were the only ones visiting the puppies today. When we got there, they were all outside in their outdoor pen while their indoor pen was being cleaned. It seems they all like to pile into their little doghouse.

After a few minutes, the puppies noticed they had visitors and were all eager to greet us.

We got to take Simba out to play with on the front lawn. We also brought some toys to leave with him and his littermates, so that when we bring him home he'll have some familiar smells with him for the first few nights.

We played with him for a while, and then Simba got tired and decided to take a nap.

We let him nap for a while out on the front lawn, and then took him back to his littermates, who also decided to have an after-lunch nap.

Next week Monday we get to bring him home! Check out the rest of the pictures in the gallery.

Back on the food merry-go-round

The search for a food for Nala continues. After about 2 months on the Blue Buffalo Lamb & Rice, Nala's back to having soft runny and now mucousy poops. Since everything else about Nala looks normal, the only suggestion the vet could offer was that Nala had a sensitive or irritable bowel (large bowel issues) that wasn't agreeing with one or more of the ingredients in her food. Rats. She was looking really good on the Blue Buffalo food too.

So now it's back to searching for another food. In the meantime the vet suggested we put her on some Science Diet i/d for a while. He says it's a very digestible food for dogs with sensitive tummies.

This time I'm going to take a more methodical approach to finding a food with a thorough ingredients comparison. I know that when she was on Diamond LB Lamb & Rice everything was fine. It wasn't until the beginning of the year when we started switching her to adult foods that the soft poop problem started.

• Premium Edge Skin & Coat formula: soft poop after a month.
• Wellness Fish & Sweet Potato: still soft poop.
• Blue Buffalo Lamb & Rice: Poop firmed right back up. Soft runny poop again after about 6 weeks.

So breaking out the trusty spreadsheet, I put all the ingredients for each food in and see what's in the Premium Edge, Wellness and Blue Buffalo that's not in the Diamond. Since they're all so different, filtering out what's in one and not in the other is easier than it sounds, but at a first iteration, the Premium Edge, Wellness and even Blue Buffalo have some kind of fish or fish meal in them. More noticable is that they also all have some form of barley, which the Diamond doesn't have. So maybe it's the barley Nala's reacting to. Neither the Diamond or Nutro lamb & rice have barley or corn in them, so those are two possibilities for us to try. Diamond does have fish meal in it though, so if Nala has problems with fish too, Nutro might be the one to go with.

Anybody want a 30lb bag of Blue Buffalo lamb & rice to try?

Vegas pics!

Finally got around to posting the pictures from our Las Vegas trip in the gallery. Haven't had time to caption them yet, so feel free to make up your own while you browse. :)

7 years at work

Marking the 7th year on the job here go started off with an early bonus. This week I got to transfer to the much coveted E lot parkade across the street after 7 years on the waiting list. Woo hoo!

Year 7 was a pretty good year marked with lots of new equipment and a few accomplishments. It was also another year where I added more things to my to-do list than I managed to tick off. Between keeping up with the latest technology and taking on more research, things are getting busier than ever at work which is starting to make getting all the equipment surveyed on time a little more difficult. Hopefully one of the things that happens in year 8 will be hiring of another physicist to share the load.

In the meantime, this 8th year coming up I have lots to look forward to. I'll be wrapping up a couple more research projects and trying to get them published or presented somewhere, starting up a few new projects, new digital x-ray equipment being installed and getting more involved with the PET/CT scanner. Should be another good and very busy year.

New beast in the lab

There's a new beast sitting in the radiopharmacy lab at work called a BVA-100 that's supposed to revolutionize the way blood volume studies are performed. The old way is a labour intensive process that took about 3-4 hours to complete. This new machine can do it in about 60-90 minutes with 6 blood draws. I haven't had a chance to familiarize myself with the entire procedure, but it looks pretty simple and is a lot less work. Patient is injected with about 20-40 μCi of I-131 HSA and 6 blood samples are drawn at regular time intervals. Blood is spun down, plasma removed and put into 2x1mL test tubes which are placed in the machine. The computer takes care of getting all the samples counted and spitting out the results.

It's pretty neat and is supposed to be helpful for a few different things like finding appropriate treatments for hypertension. The company came to our nuc med radiologists to get us to try the unit out for a 3 month demo period, which considering our current volume of blood volume study requests was hard to justify. Once their sales guys figured out the people to go to were the cardiologists, those guys were all over it and immediately requested us to proceed with the demo. We just got through with the installation and training period and have done 2 or 3 patients so far with good results and positive response from the techs. If it gets a similar response from the cardiologists and spreads to other potential referring docs, the machine might stick around. The one big downside I've been told is that the consumables have to be purchased from the company and is a little on the pricey side. That's something I leave for te administrators to worry about though.

I'll have to see about finding some time to become a little more familiar with this thing.

Meet Simba

Yesterday we got to bring Simba home from the breeder. Here he is at 8 weeks in a rare still shot while the wife and breeder are inside going over paperwork and stuff.

I brought him back inside so the wife could hold him for a bit before we left.

When we got Simba home, we brought Nala outside to introduce her to Simba. Nala wasn't quite sure what to make of this black furball the wife was holding. Then we brought them inside so they could check each other out some more.

I think Nala's still not quite sure what to make of Simba or why he's still here. Hard to believe that Nala was once that size.

After a while Simba pooped out. We're slowly working on crate training him. He doesn't mind it too much and will sleep in it, although he's still a little reluctant to stay in it. He's adopted some strange sleeping positions in his crate. Here he's managed to prop his head up against the side of the crate and is sleeping peacefully.

Most of the time he's got his head dangling out of the crate like this. Don't worry, he can still breathe.

Is he grown up yet?

Ok, we've only had Simba for 3 days now, but it feels like it's been 3 weeks. Whew!

I don't remember the first few days with Nala being quite so challenging, but then again Nala was two weeks older than Simba when we brought her home. She was just starting to get into the trainable phase. Simba's still just a dopey blank slate that loves nothing more than to hop around like a jumping bean. I think he's started to recognize us calling him though and reacting to his name.

So far Nala seems to be adjusting well to the new addition. Simba hasn't quite got the idea that he's been weaned yet and always tries to nurse on Nala when we put them together. At first Nala was wondering what the heck the little guy was doing until his needle teeth sunk in. Then she was outta there. She doesn't let him do that anymore, but he still tries.

Getting Simba used to staying in his crate is a little tougher than it was with Nala. With Nala it was pretty easy. Throw pieces of kibble in and let her go after it. Not working quite so effectively with Simba yet. Either he's not quite as food motivated as Nala was, or he's just not as trainable yet. I have a feeling it's going to take a little more work with Simba.

This kid is going to be a lot more work than Nala was.

Blogging in the Lowcountry

Who knew there would be so many local blogs. Joan over at Walk This Way has a goodly sized collection of them and now there's lowcountryblogs which aims to collect even more of them. Kind of neat to see what other bloggers in the area have to talk about.

A day in the life of an 8 week old pup

0600: Get woken up by dad taking big sis out to go potty
0630: Get woken up again by dad to go out to potty
0645: Mmmm, breakfast!
0730: Go potty again
0800: Go for a car ride! Hey, where's mom going??!!
0830: Back home again. Get to walk outside again!
0900: Zzzzz
1000: Wake up and play with dad and big sis
1030: Go out to walk around and potty. Hey, who's that dog over there?
1130: Lunch!
1230: Another car ride. Whee! Hey, it's mom! Wait, where's dad going??!!
1300: Zzzzzz
1330: Get treats from mom for doing stuff. This is cool!
1400: Zzzzzz
1600: Another car ride? Hey, it's dad!
1630: Go out and potty. Can we go for another walk?
1700: Is it time to eat yet?
1800: Ooo, dinner!
1845: Zzzzzz
1930: Play time!
2130: Go out to potty. Hey, it's dark outside!
2145: Play time again!
2300: Dad says it's time to go to sleep
0130: Dad, wake up! I gotta potty!
0600: Is it time to get up yet?

Happy anniversary!

5 years ago today, the wife and I finally got around to getting hitched. We were going to get married when we were in Detroit, but that was interrupted by our move to Charleston, so once we moved down and got established the wedding planning got started in earnest. 2 years later (to save up some $ and about a year of planning) we got mawwied!

It was a very nice spring day that started off with me and the guys stuffed into our little 1 bedroom apartment getting up, a panicked phone call from the wife telling me to rush over to the dry cleaners to pick up one of the bridesmaid's skirts, running out to the grocery store to pick up the sandwich platter and trying to figure out how the tuxedos went together.

The day followed with meeting the women over at the courtesy suite at Charleston Place and then off to Middleton Place for the photos. Weather was perfect with not a cloud in the sky (which made hanging around in black tuxedos a little bit toasty).

After the photos, it was back downtown to the church where we waited around for about an hour and cooled off while guests started arriving. Final primpings were done and then it was showtime!

It was a very nice ceremony with a lot of Catholic pomp (but no mass, since I'm not Catholic). Afterwards there were more photos inside the church and then outside for photos with everyone else. Then we went off on a carriage ride through downtown (the wedding party got their own carriage ride tour too) and got dropped off at Charleston Place for the reception.

People still talk to us about our reception and what a great time they had there. It seemed like everyone was having a really good time too. Definitely wasn't one of those eat-and-run receptions I've been to before. People stayed until the very end when the DJ announced the busses were here to take everyone back to their hotels. They were even carrying off the centerpieces and table decorations we made (which we encouraged...what the heck were we going to do with 35 table centerpieces...)

One of these days I need to get a scanner and scan all the photos. I also need to redigitize the wedding video and put it onto DVD. The wedding was definitely an event to remember.

Simba's a leaky dog

So according to the wife, Simba's been peeing all over the place inside rather than outside where he's supposed to be doing his business. When I called her on the phone today, she told me about what was going on and it evoked memories of a Crank Yankers skit where some guy was talking on the phone while he was holding a dog that might as well have had a hose attached to it.

Funny, but the wife seemed stressed.

He was pretty active when I got home at lunch, but so far he's been sleeping all afternoon. Well, at least he's been peeing in the kitchen where it's easy to clean up and not on the carpet.

Where to go next

It's a few years off yet, but the wife is already thinking about where we might end up next when she starts her residency. One of the people from the dog park told us about this website, www.findyourspot.com so we took the little quiz to see what spots it would suggest to us.

We both ended up with very different lists. My top 5 spots were

1. Anchorage, AK
2. Denver, CO
3. Flagstaff, AZ
4. Fort Collins, CO
5. Salt Lake City, UT

Admittedly, they weren't exactly places I would have put at the top of my list if I were picking, but interesting selections. Always wanted to try living in the Yukon or Alaska. Just seems like it would be a cool place to live. Kent, Olympia and Tacoma WA were the next three spots to live in. Wouldn't mind those three areas.

Now we'll have to compare lists and see if there was anything in common. Maybe for another iteration we'll take the quiz together.

I'm a great bleeder too

So not only do the Red Cross donor center staff like me because of my big fat veins and AB+ blood type, but also because I bleed so well. I suppose that's a good thing if I'm donating, but I hope it's not a sign of trouble if I happen to accidentally sever an appendage or something.

Charleston blogger dinner

This sounds ilke it could be fun. A Lowcountry blogger get-together scheduled for 6 PM, May 16 at Toucan Reef. I'll have to try to see if I can make it.

Journal Club: Breast milk excretion of radiopharmaceuticals: mechanisms, findings, and radiation dosimetry

The latest installment of the journal club is an older article from JNM but still relevant and looks at the radiation dose to infants from isotopes excreted through breast milk. Breast milk excretion of radiopharmaceuticals: mechanisms, findings, and radiation dosimetry by Stabin and Breitz (J Nucl Med 41, 863-873 (2000)) is more of a review article and summarizes some of the past literature looking at concentrations of various radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals excreted in breast milk of female patients undergoing nuclear medicine procedures. The article starts off with a short discussion on the basic anatomy and physiology of the breast and then goes into a nice concise compilation of breast milk concentrations and infant doses for 25 radiopharmaceuticals. The concentrations of radioactivity in breast milk turns out to be relatively low, but not insignificant except for a few of the usual isotopes, most notably I-131 and Ga-67. Suggested times for how long breast feeding should be stopped for are also given. Table 2 of the paper is probably most useful for anybody who needs to do some dosimetry calculations for physicians or concerned patients.

A good paper to add to the library for any medical or health physicist that finds themselves doing patient dosimetry.

Abstract:

The excretion of radiopharmaceuticals in breast milk is studied to understand excretion mechanisms and to determine recommended breast feeding interruption times for many compounds based on the radiation absorbed dose estimated. A literature review is summarized, providing information on breast milk excretion of many radiopharmaceuticals, including the observed fractions of administered activity excreted and the disappearance half-times. Radiation doses to the infant and to the mother's breasts have been calculated using mathematical models of the activity clearance into milk, with interruption schedules for the nursing infant derived using a dose criteria of 1 mSv effective dose to the infant. In only 9 of the 25 radiopharmaceuticals considered here is interruption in breast feeding thought necessary. However, in the literature, breast milk concentrations of radiopharmaceuticals and half-times varied considerably between subjects, and individual measurements are encouraged to raise confidence in specific cases. The absorbed dose to the mother's breast approaches 10-20 mGy (1-2 rad) for a few nuclides, but most doses are quite low. Therapeutic administration of 131I-NaI is a special case, for which the breast dose for a 5550 MBq (150 mCi) administration could approach 2 Gy (200 rad). In this article, these data are discussed, with the aim of assisting others in evaluating the significance of administration of radiopharmaceuticals to lactating women. An example of a sampling scheme and calculation to determine dose for a specific patient is also developed.

Comparison of two dogs

Nala at 10 weeks	Simba at 9 weeks

It's tough to do size comparisons without a scale, but I think Simba's just about the size Nala was when we first got her. He's still a little bit smaller, but that's changing quickly. I can tell already he's gotten a few pounds heavier than he was last week, and he's definitely bigger too.