Welcome back.

It has been positively too long since I've written a post. I guess I've been busy, stressed, out of town, and trying to get away. But a lot has happened indeed since our last episode. Read on, friends.

The best defense is a good offense.

You can all now officially refer to me as Master Stu. ... I successfully defended my thesis for Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering, entitled Immobilization of the Spine: Analysis and Design of an Orthosis. In it, I report the results of experimental and mathematical work on a commercial halo device, describe our group's novel design, and evaluate a mathematical model of the new device to show that it fulfills the design requirements.

I have to dye my hair and learn to surf.

Only a few short hours after completing my defense, I hopped on a plane to Los Angeles. My dad flew out from O'Hare, and we spent a long weekend looking for an apartment for me near work. I found this place in Canyon Country that I really like. So I guess I now have a new home, or rather I will in a few weeks.

Also while in the area, I had dinner with some friends from college who are at St. Jude now. I'm getting ever-more excited about starting work, though I'm not really looking forward to leaving St. Louis.

I really need to comment on one thing I saw in L.A., but this is not for the faint of heart. ...We were driving west on Sunset Boulevard, about two blocks from the coast. The street was lined with shops, boutiques, and cafes. People walked by carrying pastel-colored shopping bags with daity handles, wearing designer sunglasses and expensive shoes. Except one man. He was leaning on a trash can, hands black with filth. We were sitting at a stoplight as we see him reach shoulder-deep into the trash can and pull out a Starbuck's cup. Sitting the cup on the rim of the can, he reaches in again, pulling out another cup and pouring its cloudy contents into the first. My dad and I look at each other, wondering what he's about to do...wash his hands perhaps? No, he takes the cup, the one he just dug out of the trash, and drinks it! No flinching, no looking to see if there are cigarette butts at the bottom, just drinks it down.

Playing with magnets.

I've been working with dicom images in Matlab to quantify the artifact caused by various metals in MR images. ...Unfortunately, the ASTM standard for testing this is extremely vague, and their method does not particularly lend itself well to getting any useful data. So I've been trying to work around it both in image space and in Fourier space, but so far I'm still stuck. Though I must say it is fun to work with the raw images and make "pretty pictures" by trying to colorize the noise and the artifact (which happen to be of the same magnitude, and this is why it's so hard to get any conclusive data).

Cabin fever.

As a graduation gift, Kristin planned a trip to the Smoky Mountains. ...We stayed in a cabin with lovely country furnishings, a beautiful view overlooking a creek, and a relaxing jacuzzi on the deck, at the base of the Smokies in Sevierville, Tennessee. The weekend included a nice day hike to Rainbow Falls (pictures to come), a round of mini golf (though we were both well over par, I beat K pretty bad), good food, local shops, and a brief stop at the outlet mall. The drive was long, but made bearable thanks to XM radio.

All caught up.

That sums up much of what went on. This week I finish up my MRI project and write a paper for Materials. This weekend my friends come in from Chicago. Next week I finish my last final and prepare for the move.