18 November 2012
A Shot in the Dark
18/11/12 15:43
The story generating the most buzz locally this week happened in Victoria. This guy was remodelling a house. In the process he disconnected the old oil tank and removed the furnace. Well, a few days later the oil delivery truck pulled up. The owner hadn’t asked for a delivery, the driver got the wrong address/house. The driver then proceeded to pump a few hundred gallons of fuel oil into the filler, which hadn’t been removed yet. The oil permeated the ground under the house making a huge environmental contamination problem. This is where a bad situation got even worse. This sort of thing isn’t that unusual. Normally the oil company hires a contractor who jacks up the house, removes and replaces the dirt, and then installs a new foundation and sets the house down. However in this case the house was on a hill so that wouldn’t work. The contamination was so bad they had to demolish the house completely, then clean up the oil spill, and build a whole new house on the spot. What a mess, but on the bright side, rather than a refurbished house the owner is getting a completely new place out of it.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/11/14/bc-oil-tank-saanich.html
This week there was an eclipse in the South Pacific. It actually crossed the uppermost tip of Australia near Cairns. We’d considered going but it was only 2 minutes and the chance of clouds was pretty high so we skipped it. In any event we saw the annular eclipse earlier this year so now we’re waiting for the big one in 2017. Missing this eclipse did give us an opportunity to explain why we travel to see eclipses. The people in Cairns saw scenes like this:
Watching it on the internet I saw scenes like this
And that is why we go to see eclipses in person.
One bit of interesting Canadian news was out of the Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario. They figured a way to use an MRI scanner to read responses from patients in persistent vegetative states. For the first time they can ask these patients questions and get yes or no answers. Eventually they hope to get more complex answers and it could open up a whole new area of direct computer-brain integration. On one level this is a huge breakthrough in being able to communicate with patients that were considered locked in. On another level being able to communicate with vegetables isn’t that much of a surprise for me. I’ve taught junior high students at 8:00am.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20268044
Friday I went in for the second hepatitis shot. Some of you may remember that I went in a month ago to get vaccinated. That was when I got three shots when I expected one and found that I’d have to come back for “the second dose” of the hepatitis vaccine in November. That was not a happy afternoon for me. So on Friday I went back in and to put it mildly things were a bit different. The issue was that it wasn’t the same lady on the other end of the needle. The last time I barely felt the shots. Literally the needles slipped in and out before I knew she’d started. This time I did. I think she vaccinated me with a ballpoint pen. Maybe an ice pick. I was surprised to realize that Lizzy Borden was working as a nurse. Seriously, she should have been wearing a “Jason” hockey mask when she came at me. It hurt a lot. She tried to cover by saying that I “must work out with weights” because this happens when “your muscles are really solid and well developed”. Yeah right lady, you’re not fooling me. I’m a pudgy 52 year old bald guy. My muscle tone is somewhere between tapioca and chicken fat. The problem wasn’t muscle tone. The problem was your reenactment of the shower scene from Psycho.
But it wasn’t over.
Just as I was picking up my coat, she asked me if I wanted a flu vaccine while I was there. Oh sure, way to sell it. Kinda like Col Sanders asking the chicken if he wants seconds. The sad part though was that I DID need a flu shot. After getting impaled in the left arm I was hesitating to bring it up, but she offered it at no cost. So, I put the coat down, steeled myself, and let Ms. Freddy Krueger get another stab at me. The best part though was that when we were all done they told me that the Twinrex hepatitis vaccine requires THREE doses. I have to go back in April and let them go at it again. I wonder who I’ll get? Maybe I’ll get the last dose from Hannibal Lecter or Chucky.
Oh yeah, I’m so looking forward to this.
Thought for the week: At work we were talking about a project that we were going to have a lot of trouble completing, if we could do it at all. Finally one of the participants concluded with “It’s like they say, No matter how hard you try you can’t baptize a cat.”
I’m going to use that somewhere.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all you folks in the States.
Pix: View from balcony and a very comfortable Geiger
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/11/14/bc-oil-tank-saanich.html
This week there was an eclipse in the South Pacific. It actually crossed the uppermost tip of Australia near Cairns. We’d considered going but it was only 2 minutes and the chance of clouds was pretty high so we skipped it. In any event we saw the annular eclipse earlier this year so now we’re waiting for the big one in 2017. Missing this eclipse did give us an opportunity to explain why we travel to see eclipses. The people in Cairns saw scenes like this:
Watching it on the internet I saw scenes like this
And that is why we go to see eclipses in person.
One bit of interesting Canadian news was out of the Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario. They figured a way to use an MRI scanner to read responses from patients in persistent vegetative states. For the first time they can ask these patients questions and get yes or no answers. Eventually they hope to get more complex answers and it could open up a whole new area of direct computer-brain integration. On one level this is a huge breakthrough in being able to communicate with patients that were considered locked in. On another level being able to communicate with vegetables isn’t that much of a surprise for me. I’ve taught junior high students at 8:00am.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20268044
Friday I went in for the second hepatitis shot. Some of you may remember that I went in a month ago to get vaccinated. That was when I got three shots when I expected one and found that I’d have to come back for “the second dose” of the hepatitis vaccine in November. That was not a happy afternoon for me. So on Friday I went back in and to put it mildly things were a bit different. The issue was that it wasn’t the same lady on the other end of the needle. The last time I barely felt the shots. Literally the needles slipped in and out before I knew she’d started. This time I did. I think she vaccinated me with a ballpoint pen. Maybe an ice pick. I was surprised to realize that Lizzy Borden was working as a nurse. Seriously, she should have been wearing a “Jason” hockey mask when she came at me. It hurt a lot. She tried to cover by saying that I “must work out with weights” because this happens when “your muscles are really solid and well developed”. Yeah right lady, you’re not fooling me. I’m a pudgy 52 year old bald guy. My muscle tone is somewhere between tapioca and chicken fat. The problem wasn’t muscle tone. The problem was your reenactment of the shower scene from Psycho.
But it wasn’t over.
Just as I was picking up my coat, she asked me if I wanted a flu vaccine while I was there. Oh sure, way to sell it. Kinda like Col Sanders asking the chicken if he wants seconds. The sad part though was that I DID need a flu shot. After getting impaled in the left arm I was hesitating to bring it up, but she offered it at no cost. So, I put the coat down, steeled myself, and let Ms. Freddy Krueger get another stab at me. The best part though was that when we were all done they told me that the Twinrex hepatitis vaccine requires THREE doses. I have to go back in April and let them go at it again. I wonder who I’ll get? Maybe I’ll get the last dose from Hannibal Lecter or Chucky.
Oh yeah, I’m so looking forward to this.
Thought for the week: At work we were talking about a project that we were going to have a lot of trouble completing, if we could do it at all. Finally one of the participants concluded with “It’s like they say, No matter how hard you try you can’t baptize a cat.”
I’m going to use that somewhere.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all you folks in the States.
Pix: View from balcony and a very comfortable Geiger