If you’re interested in getting involved in dog rescue, but are unable to take on a dog, then consider volunteering for these two positions with Wild Heir Lab Rescue. WHLR is currently in need of a Foster Coordinator. This person acts as the point of contact for the rescue and foster parents, keeps track of what dogs are where and coordinates vaccinations and vet appointments.
An Event Coordinator is also needed to help set up events, meet and greets and basically get WHLR and the dogs out in front of people.
If you’re interested in either of these, contact WHLR.
Backscatter scanner simulation
Threw together this MCNP input file to work out the depth dose curve for a very simplified back scatter scanner. Since I don’t have enough details to model exactly what’s going on, I made a lot of simplifications regarding the geometry.
I’m not terribly concerned about creating a detailed model of the scanner. This is all just back of the envelope stuff. I just want to get some order of magnitude estimates that will give me an idea of how the dose would be distributed.
It’s not complete yet. I still need to work on the source definition and set up an appropriate x-ray spectrum.
Backscatter screener simulation
c Simulation to look at the depth dose curve for one of those
c airport backscatter screening machines
c The "passenger" is modeled as a rectangular slab of water
c 1.8m tall by 0.5m wide x 0.3m thick
c Souce is modeled as a planar source 1.8m tall by 0.5m wide
c based on the assumption that these backscatter machines
c operate using a scanning line source (which seems to be
c a reasonable assumption)
c --------- Cell cards -------------------------------
1 2 -1.0 -1 imp:p=1 $ "Passenger"
2 1 -1.205e-3 1 -2 imp:p=1 $ Air around passenger
c --------- Surface cards ----------------------------
1 rpp -30 30 -15 15 -85 85 $ "Passenger" 60cm x 30cm x 170cm
2 rpp -250 250 -250 250 -250 250 $ universe, 500 * 500 * 500 cm^3
c --------- Data cards -------------------------------
mode p
rand gen=2 $ Use l'Ecuyer RNG, larger random number space
c --------- Source Definition ------------------------
c Define a planar source emitting 50 kVp photons located 150 cm away from
c the water slab
sdef par=2 x=d1 y=150 z=d2 erg=d3
vec=-1 0 0 dir=1
si1 h -30 30
sp1 d 0 1
si2 h -85 85
sp2 d 0 1
# SI3 SP3
c 50 kVp spectrum goes here
nps 1e9
c --------- Tallies ----------------------------------
c Mesh tally inside water slab
fmesh4:p geom=xyz origin=-30 -15 -85
imesh=60 iints=60
jmesh=30 jints=30
kmesh=170 jints=170
fm14 1.60651e-5 2 -5 -6 $ mesh tally in uGy per source photon
fc14 Water slab dose in uGy/source photon
c --------- Materials --------------------------------
c Dry air at sea level - Mass density = 0.001205 g/cm^3
m1 6000 -0.000124
7000 -0.755268
8000 -0.231781
18000 -0.012827
c Water - Density 1 g/cm^3
m2 1000 -0.111898
8000 -0.888102
Thanksgiving on the beach
On the beach at Surf City, NC
A giant of a turkey from Keegan-Filion Farm in Walterboro. At 12 kg (27lb), one of the biggest turkeys I’ve ever roasted. This bad boy was in the oven 5 hours before it was done.
Apparently it was too cold for everybody else. While everybody ate inside, I was enjoying my Thanksgiving dinner out on the balcony overlooking the beach. It was pretty nice out there.
The dogs couldn’t join in the festivities at the beach house, but I made sure they all had a good time
Weather gloating
It’s probablly mean of me to do this.
Canadian meetup
Got to do something I don’t get to do a lot of here in Charleston: meet other Canadians!
Thanks to the new Canadians in the South meetup group, I got to meet a few more of my people this evening. The meetup was supposed to take place at Moe’s Crosstown Tavern, but apparently they’re closed for renovations, so we ended up meeting at Charleston Beer Works instead. Had a good time meeting and talking to people. There were 7 people so it wasn’t a huge group.
Looking forward to future meetups.