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.

Dog rescue transport

Anybody out there between Atlanta and Charleston headed this way this weekend who wants to give a lift to a couple of Labrador Retrievers? They're coming from a shelter in Alabama and headed to a Lab rescue group based in Georgetown. Looks like their trip up to Atlanta is covered so far, but they still need to get from there to Charleston. If you're headed this way, have room (they'll be in crates) and can give them a lift, please think about helping out!

Transports are typically set up in relatively short legs (1-2 hours), so you don't have to be travelling the entire distance from Atlanta to Charleston (although if you were, that would be really cool too). If you're somewhere in between and can help out with one of the legs, that would be marvelous.

I may even end up fostering one of the dogs that you transport!

If you're interested, check out the details.

Defending territory

The new hospital building hasn't even been fully occupied yet and I'm already having to defend my territory from poachers.

We were given a room for storing all the new equipment needed to test the x-ray equipment over there. It would be completely impractical to haul stuff back and forth every time I needed to test the x-ray equipment there. Plus the room provides me space to test the portable x-ray and mobile c-arm units too.

Today I wandered over there to find the room and start moving things over. When I found it, I discovered that someone had pasted a carefully crafted 'Physician Workstation' label over the sign that said 'Physics Workroom'.

Was someone trying to fix what they thought was a room labeling mistake, or was someone trying to claim it for themselves? Personally I think it was the latter. Whatever the label, the key I was given unlocked the door, so it's mine.

Off came the label and in went my stuff.

First Foster!

Picked up my first foster dog yesterday from Wild Heir Lab Resue. Her name is Hannah, a yellow lab with a very happy personality. A little timid about some things, but a very nice and sweet dog. Needs some training and a little fattening up, but I think she'll make someone a good pet.

Started working with her on getting her to recognize her name and respond to it. The initial training is reminding me of how much patience I need for dog training. Two years of reasonably well behaved Nala and Simba have spoiled me I think. Fortunately she's a lab and very food motivated so training should be pretty easy.

I don't think Simba's entirely happy with this new interloper, but I think he'll get used to her in a few days.

Hannah Banana

Hannah has a few issues that need to be worked on (including some house training), but so far she's turning out to be a pretty nice dog and starting to settle in. I think Simba would still rather not have her around, but he'll have to learn to get used to another dog besides Nala.

More Hannah

Now that Hannah's starting to settle in a little more, I'm beginning to see some more of her personality come out.

She's a really sweet girl, loves to be around her people, eats like there's no tomorrow and totally food motivated. Training her has been pretty easy so far. She's got a lot of energy, gets really excited (especially if there's food involved) and seems like she'd get along pretty well with other dogs. I'll have to give her a try at the dog park soon to check that out.

She walks pretty well on leash, but will definitely take off if she sees something interesting. She's the kind of dog that needs a structured and disciplined (ordered) house to live in. If you let her have her way, she'll take it and more. All she needs is consistency, a nice long walk by your side, a comfy spot to lay at your feet and she'll be your best friend.

I think she's still got a little more time to spend with me before she's ready to go to a permanent home, but in the meantime I'm working hard to get her ship-shape and fattened up so that she'll be a very well-behaved dog where ever she ends up going.

Anybody out there have room in their life for this sweetie?

Acceptance!

Caught Simba playing with Hannah today the same way he plays with Nala. Yay! He's finally accepted Hannah into the pack! No more growling when she comes near. This is a big milestone.

Her training is coming along quite nicely. She'll sit on command now, almost has down down pat and goes into her crate willingly. Need to work on wait and stay and getting a good recall going. Now I can start taking her other places to work on commands too.

Full of oysters

Today's blogger gathering at Bowen's Island Restaurant was fun and pretty well attended. Met a few new local bloggers which was nice. Always nice to see new faces at the blogger gatherings.

This was my first visit to the restaurant, but I'd definitely like to go back. It's got a great location with a fantastic view of the sunset over the marsh. Figures I would forget to grab my camera.

There were 6 of us stuffing ourselves with all the oysters we could eat while the rest went for regular food. The oysters were plentiful and they were tasty. I think the oyster guy ended up dumping about 4 baskets of oysters onto the table for us. I was oystered out after the third one.

The conversation was pretty good too.

Another programming language to learn

With the new Siemens Symbia SPECT/CT cameras comes yet another programming language I need to learn.

Nuclear medicine, unlike other imaging modalities, generally requires a good deal of technologist intervention to process, analyze and present the images. In an academic hospital setting, a lot of customized analysis and processing usually needs to be done. In the past, to handle these tasks most companies have provided their own proprietary programming/macro facility which generally don't look much like conventional programming languages. Guess who gets to learn all those programming/macro environments and develop all those custom programs.

The first one I learned was the PIXIE macro language used on Picker's Odyssey platform. Completely proprietary and bearing absolutely no resemblance to any programming language I had encountered at that point. Probably based on something, but what I couldn't say. Keywords were delimited using a strange .keyword. syntax. Not to hard to use, but cumbersome when it came to creating displays for the data.

GE's Xeleris platform uses Visual Basic with a custom library to provide access to the image data and perform various operations. A little more standard, easier to use, but somewhat sparsely documented. Still somewhat cumbersome to use when creating displays for the data, but at least it's BASIC.

The Syngo platform that runs the Symbia cameras uses IDL for programming, which means I have to learn IDL and how it integrates with Siemens' Syngo platform.

The good thing is that companies have dumped the proprietary programming/macro facilities and deploying more common development environments. I just wish they would all go with one language. Create their own libraries to deal with the images, but stick with one language to make it easier on folks like me who have to work in multi-vendor environments.

I don't really care what language they pick. Just use the same one. That way all I need to learn are the libraries and objects each company uses rather than having to learn completely separate languages for each gamma camera I have to work with. And I'd also be able to develop one program that would work on all the cameras instead of having to maintain 2 or 3 versions of the same program. Oh, wouldn't that be just marvelous!

Now, while TPTB figure out how and when they're going to get me a license for IDL, I guess I'll start playing with GDL (good thing I'm using Linux now) and figuring out what books to add to my library to learn IDL from.

I am so doomed.

There's a Cold Stone Creamery opening up in South Windermere in the spot Dolittles moved out of.

This is going to be like when I was living around the corner from the Haagen Daaz back home. At least back then I was running and cycling more than I am now.

Doomed, doomed I say!

Fending off the strays

Not having too many problems with Hannah now. Just having problems with the neighbourhood strays that have become extremely interested in checking Hannah out. I've got four dogs practically camped out in my yard during the day waiting for me to bring Hannah out.

Since Hannah hasn't been spayed yet, I'm not letting her anywhere near the other dogs, so that means I'm spending my time fending them off while waiting for Hannah to do her business outside. Forget about doing any training in the yard either.

Sheesh. This fostering thing is turning out to be harder than I thought.

Early eclipse

Next week, Feb 20 there will be a total lunar eclipse that you won't have to stay up until the wee hours of night to catch. Don't miss it because it will be only one for 2008 and the last total lunar eclipse until December 2010.

The eclipse will start at around 8:43PM and end just after midnight.

I always love a good lunar eclipse.

You can get more details here

Random walk through the Blogroll

I'm quite literally clicking random links in the blogroll for this.

• Al Forno's checking out some BBQ in South Florida
• Hedgehog cuteness at Heather and Chopper's
• Send some good thoughts out to Tilly. She's not feeling so well right now.
• A little bit of naval history over at New Wars
• The SC Photography Guild is having their monthly shoot at SEWE this weekend.
• Lowcountry Dog has the real presidential race action.
• Ping Island Strike has the garden started already.
• Chocolate and coffee yumminess at Tartlette's

Ok, back to the salt mines for me.

Camping families?

Any family types out there into camping and looking for a chance to get some new gear? As part of the promo activities for the Aquarium's new Camp Carolina exhibit (opening soon), they're having a great camping gear giveaway contest. Sadly since I'm an Aquarium volunteer I can't enter, but you can (as long as you don't work there or are related to someone who works there)!

ExtravaTent Giveaway
Register to win gear for the most discerning camping family!
Now through March 15, 2008

Let the South Carolina Aquarium and The Backpacker outfit your family for an unforgettable camping trip. Register to win a customized ExtravaTent filled with deluxe gear for the most discerning camping family! You've never camped like this before: Sleep under the stars in 2 roomy tents: one for the adults and one just for the kids; Protect your feet with top quality hiking boots, Merrell© shoes and sandals; Relax after a day of hiking in comfy travel hammocks; Keep the whole family in sync with Timex© watches; Stay cool with clothing from Columbia© Sportswear; Bring the kitchen to the outdoors with a personal stove and cooking supplies; Enjoy a night of rest with plush mattress pads and sleeping bags; Plus explore the Lowcountry with exclusive tours from Coastal Expeditions: Daily excursions include a Kayak tour, adventure on Bulls Island and lunch in Francis Marion National Forest.

Enter to win at any of the following convenient locations:

• The South Carolina Aquarium
• The Backpacker: 1440 Ben Sawyer Blvd, Suite 1100, Mt. Pleasant
• The Backpacker: 1215 Wayne Street, Columbia, South Carolina
• Online at scaquarium.org

One entry per person. Must be 18 years of age or older. For a complete listing of rules and regulations visit scaquarium.org

Special thanks to our supporting sponsors: The Backpacker, News Channel 2, Papa John's Pizza and Mom's in the Know.

Too smart for her own good

One of the problems you run into when training dogs (especially ones that are highly motivated) is that they start offering behaviours they've previously learned (and usually not the ones you want) in order to get the treat.

Hannah's does this all the time. When she first came, the main focus was to get her to enjoy being in the crate. Lots of treats thrown into the crate to get her in, lots of praise when she went in and a few more treats. She also gets fed in the crate.

Now the problem I'm having is that a few treats into the training session, she'll dive into her crate thinking if she stays there she'll get even more treats.

I can close the door, but she still runs over to the crate to try to get in.

Then I have to wait until she figures out she's not going to get anything, and then start all over again until she dives back into the crate again (or tries to).

Kind of breaks the flow of the training. Guess I just have to be more persistent than she is. It is kind of entertaining though.

Meet Hannah!

Hannah and I will be manning the Wild Heir Lab Rescue booth at SEWE on Sunday, so if you're in the area, stop by and say hi! We'll be in Marion Square in the Conservation Tent (if you don't see us there, we're probably wandering around).

You might also catch us wandering around Brittlebank park checking out the Dock Dogs action on Saturday afternoon. That will depend on how I feel after my volunteer shift at the Aquarium and if I feel like being dragged around by three dogs at the park.

She can't wait to meet you!

Snoozing

Fun at SEWE

Had a good time manning the WHLR booth at SEWE. Didn't really get to see much of what was going on in Marion Square because there were so many people asking about the dogs, playing with the puppies and buying stuff. Unfortunately I forgot to grab my camera so no pictures, but Joan stopped by and got a picture of me and Hannah.

Had lots of people asking about adopting a dog, which is a good thing. The puppies were of course very popular and had a few people stop by who seemed interested in Hannah. Hopefully they will fill out an application form and Hannah will have a new home to go to soon. It will be tough to let Hannah go now, but It will be nice to get back to a two dog household (at least until the next foster comes).

Three Amigos

Birthday Boy

Simba turns 2 today!

Here he is at 8 weeks

2 year old Simba

Darned clouds

Last night's eclipse watching was a bit of a bust where I was. Started off ok with some thin cirrus clouds, but getting towards the partial eclipse, the clouds started getting thicker and obscured my view of the moon. I decided to call it a night around 10ish with a last glimpse of a reddish-orange moon just as totality was starting. Then the moon disappeared behind more clouds.

Hard Drive Dissection Part 4

The latest drives to fall victim to my screwdriver are 4 of these 9 GB IBM SCSI drives. These drives actually contained the first incarnation of radinfo and were pulled out of the Dell server that served as radinfo for about 5 years. These drives date back to 1999 as can be seen on the label.

It's a much larger drive than modern ones and pretty hefty. There are 24 screws that need to be removed for complete disassembly.

One odd thing I noticed was this large capacitor that didn't seem to be electrically connected to anything on the board (at least I couldn't see any traces leading from where the capacitor was soldered onto the board).

Once the cover is removed, this is what you see inside. 10 platters worth of magnetic storage.

These are the read/write heads

A close-up of the read/write heads

And here's what I'm really after: the magnets. These are really, really big magnets with a very powerful field. You do not want these snapping together with body parts anywhere nearby. For a size comparison I've placed them next to the magnets from the 2.5" 60 GB drive.

With 8 of these big magnets on my workbench now, I have to be careful where I put them and to not let them get too close to each other.

Hannah's first dog park visit

The dog park is usually pretty wet and mucky after it rains, but I thought I'd take the dogs out there anyway. Since it's all fenced in, it's a perfect spot to see how Hannah behaves off-leash.

As expected, Hannah is quite the ball fiend and will happily chase after the ball until she wears herself out. Sometimes she even brings it back too!

The hard part was trying to keep her from using the mud puddles for cooling off. Not entirely successful, but with labs you can never keep them out of the water.

Overall, Hannah was very well behaved and was even pretty decent at coming when I called her.

Now all the dogs are nice and tired and snoozing very peacefully.

Sailing Physics

Finally got around to reading through the February issue of Physics Today. There was an article on the physics of sailing that was an interesting read. Lots of interesting physics involved in sailing and designing sailboats that I'm sure most sailors probably don't think much about. It never really occurred to me, but a sail is basically a large wing and operates the same way to move a boat through water.

If you're into sailing, it's definitely worth checking out.

Hannah on Petfinder

Hannah's profile has been posted to Petfinder, so she's out there for everybody to check out. Hopefully someone will be interested in her and she'll find a forever home soon. Maybe that could be you!

She really is a great dog and will make a wonderful pet for someone.

Want

Rollermouse Pro from Contour Design

Played with one at the SIIM meeting last year and thought it was very cool. I wonder if it works with Linux. A little on the pricey side though and I don't think it would fit my Logitech Wave keyboard.

Quieter house

Left Hannah with one of the other WHLR volunteers last night to be taken to her vet appointment where she'll get a a thorough checkup and spay operation. Not sure the dogs really noticed or thought much of her absence but the house was definitely quieter without the three dogs running around. She'll be back in a few days after her initial recovery for more training and pampering.

Radioactive pollen

From one of the mailing lists I subscribe to.

Mug of Perl

Oooo, this would go great with my vi mug.

From ThinkGeek.

New monitor

The Samsung 226BW I ordered arrived today. Decided to take the opportunity to rearrange the computer setup and move things around a bit. I really need some kind of cable management system.

1600x1050 pixels of LCD goodness. This thing is super bright too. Had to crank the brightness all the way down so that it was tolerable. It's on a swivel stand, but not height adjustable and for some reason it only tilts toward the back. 90° is as far forward as the monitor tilts, so you don't want to position it too high.

Would like to try and get a dual-head setup going with the new monitor and the old CRT. Might look strange, but it's one of the Dell Trinitron 17" monitors and even after 7 years the image quality is still pretty good.

I love this monitor. I want another one now.