What are you doing today?

Drizzling and raining here all day.

It certainly feels like autumn.

Fish (for sashimi, - smoked eel, salmon, tuna - among other things) was delivered this morning, from the fishmonger's - I had ordered it yesterday, for delivery today.

Then, this afternoon, (as the rain showed no sign of abating), I phoned the French bakery, and placed an order for French bread (campagne baguette and rye bread) to be put aside for me tomorrow.

And I also phoned my favourite organic vegetable stall - run by Germans, and asked them to put aside some of their vegetables and two boxes of their amazing eggs; I haven't been in the farmers' market for some weeks; it is time to remedy that deficiency, hence, I shall head in tomorrow, and pick up my vegetables and eggs. And French bread.
 
Last edited:
JamesMike said:
During my Civil War studies, I found the Ironclades interesting.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what I was reading about - with utter and absorbed fascination. The ironclads were revolutionary and transformational in terms of naval tactics and the techology of how to wage (and win) war on water.

As a young man, David Farragut had trained in the world of sailing ships, Nelson's world - which wouldn't have looked different (not in any significant way) to the world of sail as experienced by a sailor, or mariner, three hundred years earlier.

And then, with the introduction of steam powered ships - which transformed naval tactics (and he adapted to that), - which was followed, in short order, by the invention of the screw propellor (courtesy of John Ericsson) and the ironclads (the Monitor - complete with revolving gun turret - also coming courtesy of the genius of John Ericsson), which utterly transformed and revolutionised naval warfare, - Farragut (not a young man, by then) effortlessly navigating and bridging and pioneering and mastering the use of those changes in combat - bringing it - in the space of a few short years - to a form recognisable to us today, or, at least to what would have been recognisable in the mid twentieth century.

The chapter in James McPherson's excellent (actually, superb) history of the American Civil War on the early naval battle between the Merrimack/Virginia and the Monitor is gripping.

Actually, I hadn't realised that a whole class of ironclads were built, based on, and named after, the Monitor, in the navy of the Union, and that the proper noun became a simple noun - such as when describing how "four monitors" accompanied a fleet of several wooden hulled ships during the Battle of Mobile Bay.

Or, that the Confederates also attempted to build more ironclads, based on the design of the Merrimack/Virginia. Or, that ship, and boat design - such as river craft - were so brilliantly experimental (and effective) during the civil war.

Fascinating stuff.

And the literacy - the quality of the prose and mastery of the written word of contemporary accounts and letters - is very impressive.

And I also read (well, re-read) an article in The Atlantic with the title "The Myth Of The Kindly General Lee," which reminded me of why I now have a lot less respect for this soldier than had the case formerly.

Anyway, for what it is worth, Lincoln has long been a hero of mine - even as a child, I greatly admired him - and nothing I have read in the years since has caused me to revise that opinion.
 
Last edited:
shadow puppet said:
CT done in 5 minutes. No dye. That was so much easier than an MRI. Yay.
Click to expand...
CTs are cake. Even MRIs are not bad. The one I hate is the PETscan. I’ll have my annual next month. You have to roll out of bed and go straight to wherever you’re getting it done, cause you can’t eat or drink anything beforehand, and you’re supposed to do any kind of activity. Even walking from the car is a lot. 🙄 So they insert the radioactive dye and then put you in a dark, quiet room for an hour to make sure your body is totally relaxed. Then the scan…which takes 10 minutes and you can go get breakfast, coffee, and your morning pills.
 
Alli said:
CTs are cake. Even MRIs are not bad. The one I hate is the PETscan. I’ll have my annual next month. You have to roll out of bed and go straight to wherever you’re getting it done, cause you can’t eat or drink anything beforehand, and you’re supposed to do any kind of activity. Even walking from the car is a lot. 🙄 So they insert the radioactive dye and then put you in a dark, quiet room for an hour to make sure your body is totally relaxed. Then the scan…which takes 10 minutes and you can go get breakfast, coffee, and your morning pills.
Click to expand...
Sounds brutal, hopefully your results are good. They had me go through an MRI with contrast dye and I was in the machine for 45 minutes and I did not do well with that because they had all these weighted vests on me, I couldn't even fidget a little bit or the tech would tell me to stop, he even got frustrated and asked if I was okay, I clearly was not.

In the end though they got everything but when they inserted the dye (like 30 minutes in) it did not gave me the same rush as the stuff they force through your veins for the CT scan.
 
Alli said:
CTs are cake. Even MRIs are not bad. The one I hate is the PETscan. I’ll have my annual next month. You have to roll out of bed and go straight to wherever you’re getting it done, cause you can’t eat or drink anything beforehand, and you’re supposed to do any kind of activity. Even walking from the car is a lot. 🙄 So they insert the radioactive dye and then put you in a dark, quiet room for an hour to make sure your body is totally relaxed. Then the scan…which takes 10 minutes and you can go get breakfast, coffee, and your morning pills.
Click to expand...
Came here straight from the election stealing thread and read the first sentence as “CTs are fake.” 😂

Hope your scan goes as smoothly as possible, and that the results are 👍👍👍.
 
Alli said:
CTs are cake. Even MRIs are not bad. The one I hate is the PETscan. I’ll have my annual next month. You have to roll out of bed and go straight to wherever you’re getting it done, cause you can’t eat or drink anything beforehand, and you’re supposed to do any kind of activity. Even walking from the car is a lot. 🙄 So they insert the radioactive dye and then put you in a dark, quiet room for an hour to make sure your body is totally relaxed. Then the scan…which takes 10 minutes and you can go get breakfast, coffee, and your morning pills.
Click to expand...
Tonight at storytime I noticed that my daughter's new rainbow PJ reads: Radiating Positivity.
It would be the perfect motto of Positron Emission Tomography.
The tech is pretty fascinating, you have an 18-Fluoro isotope that splits and spits positrons with a 110 min half life.
Once the positron hits an electron - matter and antimatter cancel out each other forming a neutron.
The excess energy is emitted in the form of two gamma photons that go almost perfectly in the opposite direction.
You have a 360 detector that registers both hits and using a computer, based on the hit delays you can localize the positron in space.


Radiating Positivity.

1632542067089.png
 
Headed into the city, where I visited the French bakery (for the bread - a campagne baguette and rye bread) that I had asked them to put aside for me when I phoned them yesterday, and the farmers' market, where the German stall (the best organic stall, these people have the proverbial "green fingers") had put aside eggs (organic, free range), tomatoes, cucumber, onions, carrots, leeks, garlic, potatoes, parsley, peppers, chilli peppers, spinach, and salad greens - all produced by themselves - ready, in a box, waiting, for me. To my inexpressible joy, they also had honey.
 
I’m going to do something today. I don’t know what, but I’m gonna do something. We’re getting a little stir crazy again. Maybe we’ll go somewhere to take pictures of flowers and test out the new macro effect on the new iPhone.
 
Alli said:
I’m going to do something today. I don’t know what, but I’m gonna do something. We’re getting a little stir crazy again. Maybe we’ll go somewhere to take pictures of flowers and test out the new macro effect on the new iPhone.
Click to expand...
That feature does interest me. Not going to replace my 105mm Nikon Macro lens and D750, but at times could be handy.

Here its the end of the day, so almost MOTD time. Been packing a bit for tomorrow as I'm off to the New Forest with a couple of friend for a few days. Not been away since March 2018, so looking forward to it.
 
Apple fanboy said:
That feature does interest me. Not going to replace my 105mm Nikon Macro lens and D750, but at times could be handy.

Here its the end of the day, so almost MOTD time. Been packing a bit for tomorrow as I'm off to the New Forest with a couple of friend for a few days. Not been away since March 2018, so looking forward to it.
Click to expand...

Enjoy your few days in the New Forest.
 
Recharging and sampling the sonic offerings of some iPod nanos from my little collection sitting like snacks in a bowl atop the microwave! They still work great in an old Altec Lansing 30-pin speakerdock / FM radio that's also parked there, so I continue to use them now and then, and occasionally reload one or another of them with different music I had bought from iTunes over the years.

Anyway that's been a fun wrap-up of a bunch of odds-and-ends from today's chores list. Saturday afternoons often seem a good time for mulling over the low-priority stuff that tends to keep falling down the to-do lists during the week. Still one more iOS 15 upgrade to apply to newer gear, but it's just a backup iPhone and not often used, so that's probably going to anchor the bottom of next week's Saturday afternoon options.
 
Back
Top