Cats are smart. That's a commonly held belief by many, especially those who live with them. Scrappy and Princess, our two feline housemates, each forked out the $18 fee and aced the Mensa Home Test (https://www.us.mensa.org/join/mht/), but neither has managed to pass the supervised admission test, mostly because curiosity always gets the best of them and they end up staring out the window at the whimsical air, which inevitably leads to cleaning and napping. Maybe they're just not genius-smart.

The job of editing for a business to business publication doesn't come with a huge array of perks, but there is one great one. We enjoy pretty free run of the trade show and education resources available to plant people. I've spent most of this week in production geek nirvana, studying vibration analysis with Update International at a training session in the Chicago area.

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ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS: INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY INITIATIVES | KEEP CURRENT ON ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT

The Ultrasound World VIII Conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida, was the largest gathering yet, and there were plenty of great reasons to be there. The presentations were excellent, and UE Systems (www.uesystems.com) brought together just the right mix of information and individuals. Here are some of the highlights.

It's been a rather quiet week here at Plant Services. Most of the team is at the Ultrasound World VIII Conference in Florida learning about leak detection, electrical testing, mechanical inspection and software. When they're not sitting in on short-courses and tutorials, they're doing "work-related" relaxing on the beach. But I'm not jealous (Sarcasm).

There has been a new addition to the Plant Services family. J. Stanton McGroarty, CMfgE, CMRP, is now senior technical editor. He was formerly consulting manager for Strategic Asset Management International (SAMI), where he focused on project management and training for manufacturing, maintenance and reliability engineering.

Metrology is an infratechnology, underpinning all other technologies, said Jeff Gust, chief corporate metrologist at Fluke (www.fluke.com), which hosted its very first press summit this past week. Fluke, at is core, is a metrology company, explained Gust. "And to advance any technology, you must measure it," he said.