Friday Glow Blogging: Creamy Fluorite

This week’s glowblog entry is a creamy brown piece of fluorite from Ohio. Activated by long-wave ultraviolet light, this piece stands in contrast to the more brightly colored blue fluorite, such as what may be found in England. It’s also interesting in that Ohio and Kentucky do produce large amounts of fluorite, in …

This site has been upgraded from MovableType version 3.14 to 3.15. The announcement of this upgrade mentioned that it was somewhat urgent for sites to upgrade quickly to remove a fairly big security hole. Imagine my surprise when I could not find any instructions for upgrading from the prior version to the …

No one’s going to be surprised in July when it’s (much) hotter here in Kansas than out in California. On the other hand, no one’s complaining that it’s 64 degrees in Lindsborg at sunset, while out west, 2 hours earlier in the day, it’s only 58 degrees in Palo Alto. Also, thinking about …

One of a few nice pieces we picked up at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show a few years ago, this is a fine specimen of crystal calcite that was originally collected in Florida. It shines with a soft blue glow when illuminated with long-wave UV …

This is just a quick note to let folks know that I’ve updated my California Mudslide posting with a new aerial photo of the area. Taken by Doc, the photo shows the entire town and the hillside behind it. What happened almost appears inevitable after seeing the image of the …

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! …

We took a nice Sunday drive earlier today and headed over to Kanopolis Lake. Located 15 miles west of Lindsborg, it’s a popular recreation spot, though mostly deserted as we expected this time of year.

What we didn’t expect was to find that large areas of the lake were frozen over. And if presenting …