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.

Busy tropics

While everybody's eyes are on Gustav today, we will have Hanna to think about in the coming days. The current 5 day forecast for Hanna has it going along the Bahamas before reaching the Georgia/South Carolina coast sometime Friday as a Category 1 hurricane.

From today's 11AM update:

THE INTENSITY FORECAST REMAINS TRICKY. WATER VAPOR IMAGERY SUGGESTS THAT THE UPPER-LEVEL LOW WHICH HAD PREVIOUSLY INHIBITED DEVELOPMENT HAS DISSIPATED...AND HANNA NOW FINDS ITSELF IN A VERY SMALL AREA OF LOW SHEAR. HOWEVER...WATER VAPOR IMAGERY ALSO SHOWS STRONG NORTHERLY FLOW ASSOCIATED WITH GUSTAV'S UPPER-LEVEL OUTFLOW JUST NORTH OF HANNA...AND GLOBAL MODELS FORECAST MODERATE TO STRONG NORTHERLY SHEAR PERSISTING DURING THE NEXT DAY OR SO. GIVEN THE UNCERTAINTY...THE OFFICIAL INTENSITY FORECAST IS CLOSE TO THE MODEL CONSENSUS AND SHOWS HANNA BECOMING A HURRICANE A LITTLE SOONER THAN THE PREVIOUS ADVISORY.

After Hanna goes by, TD9 (designated with today's 11AM update), which will likely become TS Ike today or tomorrow, may be knocking on the door the week after.

From the 11AM discussion on TD9:

NUMEROUS CYCLONICALLY CURVED BANDS AND A WELL ESTABLISHED OUTFLOW. DVORAK T-NUMBERS SUPPORT TROPICAL STORM INTENSITY AT THIS TIME BUT I WOULD RATHER WAIT TO SEE IF THE DEEP CONVECTION HOLDS FOR WHILE TO CALL IT A TROPICAL STORM...PROBABLY IN THE NEXT ADVISORY. INITIAL INTENSITY IS SET AT 30 KNOTS BUT GIVEN THE WARM OCEAN ALONG ITS PATH AND THE LOW SHEAR...THE DEPRESSION IS FORECAST TO REACH HURRICANE STATUS OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST FOLLOWS THE SHIPS INTENSITY MODEL.

What is it #2

Spiders seem to be getting pretty comfortable around the house. Spotted this neat green/yellow/white one up in the corner. Not sure what variety it is.

Update: A little more research and finding a few more similar looking specimens leads me to believe that this is an orchard orbweaver (leucauge venusta)

Beating on the Bahamas

Hanna has been lurking on and near the Bahamas for the last few days now as a Category 1 hurricane. The NHC forecast has it starting to move along the island chain, and eventually reaching the Charleston area as possibly a Category 2 or 3 hurricane by the end of the week.

Next week, the Bahamas may be in for more of the same from Ike. Still far too early to tell if Ike will be affecting the southeast or heading into the Gulf, but it's another one to keep a close eye on.

Then as if to remind everybody that August/September really is the peak of hurricane season, TD10 was designated with the 5AM update. it's currently located just south of the Cape Verde Islands, but may become Josephine in the next day or so.

If you haven't started doing so already, I'd say it's time to start prepping things and battening down the hatches.

Spinybacked Orbweaver

Spotted this spider on my way to the car as I was leaving work today. I'm pretty sure it's a spinybacked orbweaver (gasteracantha cancriformis). I thought it was really cool looking. I couldn't get around the other side to get a picture of the dorsal (top) side though.

This is the underside of the spider (ventral view).

Here it is from the side.

Golden silk orbweaver

Another spider that seems to be fairly common around here. They spin some pretty large and spectacular looking webs. Also called banana spiders (nephila clavipes). The photo is a little bit on the blurry side because she was kind of high up and a breeze kept blowing her around a little bit.

Dinner for Shelob

A few hornets were building a nest up in the corner by the front door. I managed to snag one of them before shooing them away and dropped it onto Shelob's web.

I was quite impressed with how fast she ran down to the trapped hornet and wrapped it up in a cocoon of silk. Even more surprising is that she actually wraps it up with a sheet of silk, not just individual strands.

She put on a pretty impressive show. I'll have to catch more bugs and try to get a movie of the action.

Anticlimactic Hanna

Well, after all the build up, the encounter with Hanna ended up being pretty anticlimactic for the Lowcountry. From what I can tell after hanging out with Jared and others most of the day at Charleston Weather, Hanna ended up being mostly a rain event without much in the way of wind. There wasn't much more than a nice breeze here at the house most of the day with a few periods of heavy rain that didn't last very long. There were definitely stronger winds higher up because some of those clouds were really cruising along but none of them reached down to the ground around here. A farily steady rain through the evening kept things pretty wet though.

Ike on the other hand is still a very powerful Category 3 storm heading toward the Carribean. Looks like Ike is likely headed through the Straits of Florida and then into the Gulf of Mexico. I think unless there are some serious issues with the forecast models, the eastern coast of the US will be spared from having to deal with Ike. Cuba, Florida and the Gulf coast states on the other hand will need to watch Ike very carefully.

From today's 5 AM advisory for Ike:

ALTHOUGH NORTHERLY SHEAR SEEMS TO BE PERSISTING OVER THE CYCLONE...IT DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE AFFECTING THE INNER CORE CONVECTION AS MUCH AS IT WAS PREVIOUSLY. INTENSITY MODELS CONTINUE TO INDICATE THAT THE SHEAR WILL DECREASE IN ABOUT 24 HOURS...WHICH SHOULD ALLOW FOR SOME STRENGTHENING BEFORE IKE MOVES NEAR OR OVER THE NORTHERN COAST OF CUBA. THE INTENSITY FORECAST IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE PREVIOUS PACKAGE BUT NOW DEPICTS SOME WEAKENING AS IKE TRAVERSES THE CUBAN COAST. OF COURSE...ANY SLIGHT DEVIATION NORTH OR SOUTH OF THE FORECAST WILL EITHER ALLOW FOR STRENGTHENING OVER WATER OR A LONGER PERIOD OF WEAKENING OVER LAND. LATER ON...CONDITIONS APPEAR RATHER CONDUCIVE FOR STRENGTHENING OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO.

DYNAMICAL MODELS SUGGEST THAT THE RIDGE WILL SHIFT TO A MORE ZONAL PATTERN DURING THE NEXT 24 TO 36 HOURS WHICH WILL CAUSE IKE TO MOVE IN A MORE WESTWARD FASHION. AFTERWARD...GUIDANCE INDICATES THAT THE SOUTHWEST RIDGE EXTENSION OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF/STRAITS OF FLORIDA WILL ERODE JUST ENOUGH TO INDUCE A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTHWEST BY THE END OF THE FORECAST PERIOD. THERE IS MUCH UNCERTAINTY IN THE MODELS AS TO HOW CLOSE IKE WILL APPROACH THE NORTHERN COAST OF CUBA. IN FACT...THE TWO HURRICANE MODELS ACTUALLY BRING THE CYCLONE OVER THE ISLAND IN 36 HOURS.

Orchard Orbweaver

Continuing the spider kick I've been on lately.

Found a pair of these orchard orbweavers (leucauge venusta) near the door of the back porch.

Virtual graffiti with Blobber

A bunch of us with the Charleston Linux Users Group got together in Marion Square tonight to mess around with virtual graffiti (laser tagging) using Blobber, a program created by one of the members.

Blobber's become a pretty cool piece of software in a fairly short period of time. You can select different colours to draw with, and can even track multiple lasers so more than one person can draw at the same time.

We had a good time using lasers to draw all over the base of the statue of John Calhoun, creating no mess and leaving nothing behind after we finished.

If you're interested in finding out more about it, we'll have it set up at our upcoming Linux Demo Day on September 14 at Muddy Waters in West Ashley (1331 Ashley River Road) from 1-4PM. Come on out and join us!

Quarter moon rising

Church sunset

Meet Stanley

My latest "foster" arrived courtesy of the lab retriever forum I hang out on. Stanley been travelling all over the country visiting other forum members and has the bling to prove it too.

Before I could get Stanley out of his box, he was mauled by two very curious noses

I was kind of surprised at all the bling action going on

Here he is hanging out with Nala and Simba

More pictures of Stanley's adventures with me are over in this album

Volunteers and Fosters needed

Are you interested in Lab Retriever rescue? Curious about rescue and want to find out more? Want to learn what's invovled in fostering a dog? Wild Heir Lab Rescue is rounding up VOLUNTEERS and FOSTERS! Join us for a drop in Thursday, September 25 to find our more about helping rescue. Wild Heir is growing at a rapid rate and we need help! We are also desperately seeking foster homes. We will update you on what is currently happening in the Wild Heir world, our upcoming events and our volunteer and foster needs. Feel free to bring any and all friends that also might be interested. Please- people only- do not bring your dogs or your foster dogs this time. Hope to see you!

If you're interested in coming, drop me a line or leave a comment and I'll fill you in on the details.

Auto milestones

I reached a couple of significant (to me anyway) auto-related milestones today.

• Paid off the car. Woot!
• Reached 90 000 miles.

For an 8 year old car, 90 000 miles isn't all that much. Car's still running pretty well. Doesn't get driven nearly as much as it used to when we first got it. Probably due for some more maintenance soon, and I think a hole is developing somewhere in the exhaust system. I'm pretty sure the brakes will need something done to them shortly as well. Needs a good cleaning too.

Dear DHL Delivery Guy

Apparently you tried to deliver the stuff I ordered from ThinkGeek Friday, Monday and Tuesday, but I had to contact DHL Customer Service to find out that you even tried to deliver it. When you try to deliver something to me and nobody's home, could you at least leave something that tells me you came by.

kthxbai

Stanley's visit to the hospital

Stanley came with me to work today so I showed him around the department.

He got to meet my other stuffed office mates, Pinky, Brain and Dogbert. They spent some time plotting their next scheme to rule the world.

Then it was off on a tour of the department.

Stanley was definitely into checking out the equipment. Here he is perched on a portable x-ray unit

on a gamma camera

and in front of a thyroid probe

He had a few x-rays taken to get checked out and make sure everything was ok.

More pictures of Stanley's adventures with me are over in this album. You can read about all his previous adventures over in the Flat Stanley forum at lab-retriever.net

Blobber

Playing at some attempts to make a splash image for Blobber. Took the Blobber part of this image, cleaned it up a bit and applied a Cubist filter with Gimp.

Stanley tours Charleston

Stanley came along with me for my volunteer shift at the SC Aquarium this morning. He watched me prepare the bird diets for the next day and after I was done with my shift, we took some pictures around the aquarium

We're at the top of the Great Ocean Tank here. That's a container of smelt that will be thrown out into the tank for the broadcast feeding.

A big green eel

Stanley with Liberty, the bald eagle that's part of the Camp Carolina exhibit

Out on the river side of the Aquarium. Stanley's perched on a copper frog sculpture with the Arthur Ravenel Bridge in the background.

USS Yorktown in the background

Then we hit the Charleston Farmer's Market where we found mini-donuts

Next stop was White Point Gardens at the tip of the Charleston Peninsula. Stanley wanted to sit on the replica cannons.

That's Fort Sumter way off in the background

More pictures of our day over in my Stanley album.

Lowcountry dog park tour: Palmetto Islands County Park

The next stop on the dog park tour takes us to the second of three dog parks located in a Charleston County Park: Palmetto Islands County Park in Mt. Pleasant. The dog park here is relatively new, having opened in 2007. It's a fairly large fenced in dog park located next to the fenced in area used by the Lowcountry Dog Agility group (this area is not part of the dog park). Dual dog lock type gates provide good flow for dogs entering and leaving the park. The park is somewhat narrow but very long giving you plenty of room for long ball throws and lots of room for dogs to run around in.

For people, a couple of bleachers provide plenty of seating space as do several picnic benches around the perimeter.

Two sandy areas serve as nice soft spots for dogs to wrestle, dig or plop down to rest.

The park is pretty near to the marshes, so as a result the water table is pretty close to the surface. This means when the ground gets wet, it tends to stay that way for a while and things can get a little muddy in spots, especially near the fence. Fortunately there's a hose positioned near the water fountain so you can hose off muddy dogs if necessary.

Admission to Palmetto Islands County Park is $1/person. Since the dog park is within the park, once you're in you also have access to the rest of Palmetto Islands County Park, which is quite large and has plenty of walking trails.

See the rest of my pictures of the dog park here.

Here's a Google Map to Palmetto Islands County Park. The dog park is just inside the entrance to the park. Take the first right after you get past the admission booth and you'll see the dog park in front of you.

View Palmetto Islands County Park dog park in a larger map

Stanley visits the dog park

Stanley came out with us to hit the next stop on my Lowcountry Dog Park Tour series: the dog park in Palmetto Islands County Park.

Simba was really intent on playing with Stanley at the park

but for the most part he was pretty content to sit on the bleachers and watch the action

At one point just before it was time for us to leave, I tried to get a picture of Nala, Simba and Stanley sitting together. I had them all sitting nicely and was just about to take the picture when Nala got up, grabbed Stanley and took off running.

Managed to get Stanley back and got this picture

Stanley geeks out

Stanley spent the afternoon hanging out with a bunch of computer geeks for CSCLUG's Linux Demonstration Day.

He's here sitting next to Tux and my laptop, which is currently booted from a GNUstep LiveCD.

CSCLUG Linux Demo Day

Today's CSCLUG Linux Demo Day turned out to be a pretty good event, and a resounding success by my standards. I'd say we had somewhere around 50-60 people stop by today. Most came by for the event, a few came in just to get coffee so we explained to them what was going on. There were even a few that said they were interested in learning more about Linux but didn't have anybody to guide them, which was precisely the audience we were looking for.

There were some very interesting demonstrations going on, including a couple of OLPC-XO units that could do interesting things like function as an oscilloscope and even acoustic distance measurements. Zenko showed off Linux gaming on a laptop and used his eeePC to remote control a Roomba. There was also lots of fun being had with Blobber.

Pictures from the event are here.

Stanley visits Waterfront Park

After hitting the dog park after work today, I decided to take the dogs for a walk down to Waterfront Park on the Charleston Peninsula. It was a very nice evening for a walk

Stanley at the Pineapple fountain.

Then we headed out onto the boardwalk to enjoy the view and some of the orange-y-ness of the sunset

It's not hair, it's a condiment

Found in the sig of a lab-retriever.net forum member

If the recipe doesn't include a few lab hairs...it ain't complete.

Beach bum Stanley

A vet appointment for Nala this morning gave me the perfect excuse to take the morning off and head to the beach with Stanley and the dogs before going to the vet. So off we went to the Washout area at Folly Beach. It was just before high tide, so there wasn't much beach area to speak of so we just stood and watched and listened to the waves.

Then we went over to the Folly Beach fishing pier where there was a little more beach to wander around on. Unfortunately the fishing pier has a no dogs rule, so we couldn't go for a walk on the pier.

Off to the vet. Nala has this quarter sized patch that she's been scratching at so I wanted to get it checked out because she's losing hair there now. Stanley's checking out what the vet tech is scribbling down in Nala's chart.

Peeking through the door into the secret back area

Waiting patiently on the exam room table

And that brings an end to Stanley's adventures in Charleston with me. He's at the mail box now waiting for Mail Guy to pick him up, but before packing him up I included a package of Nala and Simba's favourite cookies from The Good Dog Bakery for Stanley to share with the dogs at his next stop.

Engage the cloak!

Ok, it seems that a couple of days ago, my server got pushed back behind the firewall at work so now I'm effectively invisible and can't access several projects I've been working on unless I'm at work. The server is working just fine, and I have no problem getting to it from work. I just can't see it from anywhere outside of work.

I suspect third party interference in this but will refrain from spreading gossip about it.

Now to go see what can be done about this. May be invisible for a time while things get sorted out. Some rearranging might be required.

Update: Had one of the PACS guys check with one of the network people and the server is still outside the firewall. Looks like something else is going on. May have to relocate my blog, gallery, wiki and e107 site.

Host hunting

Looks like I'll need to find some hosting for my blog and gallery somewhere. Seeing has how some of the stuff I need to access from outside the hospital is personal stuff, that probably doesn't jive with the hospital's acceptable use policy and would be tough to justify.

Moving will mean another pain in the butt and mean more breakage in the blog though. I'll have to come up with a migration plan.

I see Jared has an ad for Dreamhost on his site, and Matthew suggested Linode. I'll have to go through the MT forum and wiki to see what recommended hosts are out there that can handle MT decently.

Had a look at what Linode has to offer. Interesting concept in hosting. They provide you with a VM of pretty much any OS distro you want, so you can do whatever you like with it. It's a little pricey though, but it's like having your own dedicated server instead of sharing and having to work around an existing configuration. Since they just provide the hosting, I'd have to register a domain from somewhere else.

Dreamhost provides a goodly amount of storage and bandwidth (unlimited promo going on right now) at a pretty reasonable cost, but on shared servers so MT might suffer. They also do domain registrations too, which is a plus. One stop shopping.

I'm sure I'll run into a few more before the week is out.

Garage 1, Car 0

Is there a rule that says once you finish paying off a car, you start breaking it?

I was a little careless backing out of the garage this morning and had forgotten that when I pulled in last night, I was a little close to the wall on the right side of the car. When I pulled out this morning, there was some snapping and crashing and when I looked, there was no side view mirror on the right side of the car.

Crap.

Now I have to go get it fixed.

New foster is here

The new foster arrived a few hours ago, and he's a big friendly energetic boy. My guess is that he's about a year old or so and he's taller than Nala. Don't really know what the story on him is aside from the fact that he was pulled from a shelter and despite baths was stinky enough for the people he was staying with temporarily to have him shaved. He's got this big patch of missing fur and skin on his forehead from a blob of pine sap that fell on him and accidentally got ripped off when he was trying to crawl under something.

He needs a name too. His temporary fosters (the people who brought him to me) told me the shelter people named him Matt, but that doesn't seem to fit him. I'll see what kind of dog he is over the next couple of days and try to come up with something appropriate.

Pictures to come once he's settled down enough and will sit still long enough for me to get some photos.

Barkley

Decided to name the new foster Barkley. I suppose it was inspired a little bit by the ST:TNG character, but it seems to fit him nicely. He's seems to be settling into the house nicely.

I can tell now that Barkley's a very high energy dog and one who likes to run around. Yesterday he got a bath and we discovered that the staples from his neutering operation were still in. Didn't realize he had *just* been neutered. This means no trips to the dog park and *trying* to keep him from being too wild at least until next week when his staples are supposed to come out. At least he smells better now.

The patch on his forehead seems to be healing up nicely and I see a few hairs trying to grow back. I suspect most of it will remain a large bald patch though.

Still trying to get some decent pictures of him.

Meet Barkley!

The patch on his forehead is where the blob of pine sap got ripped off when it got caught on something he was trying to crawl under. It's healing up quite nicely and looks worse in the picture than it really is. He's definitely a very active dog and a real sweetie who doesn't like to be very far away from his person. I'm looking forward to seeing how he behaves at the dog park once he gets the staples removed from his neutering operation.

Barkley catching a few zzz's

Blog freeze

Freezing the blog so I can dump the database and get it ready to migrate over to my new Dreamhost hosting. Next time you see this will/should be at http://blog.imabug.net/

Back online

If you're seeing this, then I successfully managed to get my blog back online and in a mostly functional state with only minor breakage (that I've found so far).

Now back to business as usual.

Bailout quote

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

From a Forbes article about the $700B bailout bill being worked on.

about:Barkley

So far, Barkley is showing himself to be a very stereotypical young Lab. He's very active and rambunctious, very clingy, always curious, and if you're not watching him closely, getting into trouble.

We're still working on his house training. I know he's quite capable of holding it while he's in the crate, but outside he always seems to want to pee every couple of hours. I think he's starting to get it through his little brain that he's not supposed to pee inside though, but it's still a work in progress at the moment.

He does pretty well at walking on the leash. Doesn't pull too much, but he does tend to wander around and if you're not careful you'll find your legs wrapped up by the leash.

He's starting to get a little bit better about being in the crate at night. He's down to whining and crying for only 15 minutes before settling down now instead of the loud anguished and tortured cries he used to make.

Haven't been out to the dog park with Barkley yet because he's still got a staple in him from his neutering operation. It looks like the staple can come out so I'll try to get him in to the vet tomorrow or Tuesday and get one of the vet techs to remote it. Then we can let the fun begin.

Nala (L) and Barkley (R) sleeping

TS Laura makes 12

Sub-tropical Storm Laura formed out in the middle of the Atlantic bringing the named storm count to 12 so far. It may even become Tropical Storm Laura today.

To date, the score is 6 hurricanes and 6 tropical storms. Definitely on track for NOAA's revised August forecast of 14-18 named storms and 7-10 hurricanes.

The forecast track for Laura has it staying out in the ocean and should be mainly a concern for shipping and boat traffic.

Staple free Barkley

After a trip to the vet, Barkley is now free of the last staple from his neutering operation. Taking it out was definitely a non-trivial operation too. This last one managed to get crimped around some skin at one end, and required some extra bending and a big yank to remove it. Barkley tolerated it pretty well, although I know he wasn't enjoying it. It was a big honkin' staple too. Even the vet was was surprised and commented that it wasn't the usual skin staple that would normally be used.

It'll be a couple more days before Barkley can head out to the dog park while the area finishes healing. Looking forward to that day. It can't come a moment too soon.