We were out at the Labrador Fun Day hosted by the Coastal South Carolina Lab Retriever Club yesterday. Great day to be out at the park, and they had a lot of fun things for dogs and people going on. There were lab races, biscuit eating contests, costume contests, lab kissing and tail wagging contests going on, and retriever demonstrations both on land and in the water. Nala got 2nd place in the costume contest and race! Definitely a fun time, and we got to meet a lot of other lab owners and their dogs. When it came to the water retrieving, she went for the duck like a champ. Not the most elegant retrieve, and she ended up splashing the duck further away before she managed to nab it though, but she really went for it. Maybe we’ll have to get one of those floating duck decoys. We’d have to attach it to a long string though, just in case she decides to go swim after something else.
Halloween’s over, cue Christmas
Halloween pumpkins are barely in the trash and the endless loop of Christmas songs has started on one of the local radio stations already. Last year it didn’t start until the 10th. Seems to have started a full week earlier this year! Already saw a bunch of Christmas stuff on the shelves well before Halloween. If the goal is Christmas saturation/aggravation by Thanksgiving, it looks like stores are well on the way.
Halloween: it’s the new Thanksgiving.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it…
The father-in-law’s getting a little frustrated with his computer now and has been surfing E-Bay checking out prospects for a new one. Since he knows just enough about computers to get into trouble, mom-in-law’s asked me to see about specing out and purchasing a new one that will keep him going for the next few years.
Old computer is a Dell I spec’d out about 5 years ago, a relatively modest 450MHz that’s starting to show its age. So what to get next.
Budget is limited, so I’ve been thinking about an AMD Athlon duall-core something. Single core would probably be more than sufficient, but I think a dual core CPU will stay technologically relevant longer. I’ve been looking at the HP Pavillion series, partly because Dell doesn’t do AMD, and lately some of the newer Dells at work have been having some reliability issues. I think I should be able to get something pretty decent that fits within the budget.
An early Christmas at work
It’s been a good year at work. I’ve managed to get the department to purchase almost all the things I put on my wishlist this year, and now my office is almost overflowing with toys and equipment waiting for me to find time to play with.
The latest delivery was a much anticipated RTI Barracuda survey meter. This is something I’ve had on my wishlist for a long time. It comes about as close to a ‘do it all’ device for us diagnostic physicists as anything else out there. The real reason that I really wanted one this year is because of this: the CT Slice Detector. It’s a 30 cm long chamber that’s supposed to provide dose information at each point along the length of the chamber. Instant dose profile information. Whoops, spoke too hastily without really knowing how the chamber worked. So it’s not exactly what I thought it was, but still gives the same information. After a little more reading about the CT-SD16, I discovered it’s actually 1 long chamber with two separate solid state detectors separated by 16 cm. Dose profile information is obtained by doing a regular helical scan with the chamber in the phantom so that the detectors are advanced through the beam. Seeing as how I have the annual surveys for our CT scanners scheduled for the next few Friday’s, the Barracuda came just in time too. I’m so looking forward to playing with this new CT chamber. Especially can’t wait to try it out on our flat panel CT scanner. Dose profile on the flat panel CT isn’t going to be as easy as I hoped, but I’ll figure out something to make it work.
Getting darker earlier now
Time: 1750
Temp: 15°C
Distance: ~2.2 km
Time: 25 min
A late afternoon walk with the dog today. The wife had just taken her to one of the local pet shops to give her a bath, and she was still a little bit damp, so I figured a nice walk might help dry her off a bit. Just another up and back walk today. Worked on her loose leash walking some more. Having treats with me helped a lot today.