All the Pages Are My Days - the first 12 years
the (archived) online world of Mike Rodriquez 2002-2012
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 lighting.
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 mudslide from the air.
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! … Read more
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 a … Read more
Here’s a picture of a pond northeast of Lindsborg. I took it late last year, near sunset, and forgot about until now. I like both the golden colors and the way the trees are reflected on the water. It’s worth noting that winter trees, lacking their summer greenery, make for interesting photographic subjects.
Rich red calcite combine with creamy white barite to form one of my favorite mineral combinations. This is one of the famous Franklin specimens, and is seen illuminated by shortwave UV lighting.
We saw the sun for the first time in a week today, and with the extremely cold, dry air, everything looked crisp and bright outside. Towards sunset, we once again headed towards Coronado Heights, thankful for the 4-wheel drive capabilities of our vehicle as the road was a bit icy. Did I mention it was … Read more
Update: Doc took this photo of the La Conchita area from a plane. It clearly demonstrates that the hill behind the town has slid in the past and will likely continue to do so in the future. Thanks to Doc for the link to this image of the southern California mudslide that wiped out about … Read more
I came across some dramatic satellite photos, with before and after shots, that provide stark evidence of the destruction caused by the recent Asian tsunami. At first, things don’t look so bad, but starting about 1/3 of the way through the series one suddenly realizes that there was more destruction over a larger area than … Read more
I spent some time today managing my digital music collection, adding tags such as artist, album, date and so on. I have a variety of mp3s of live concert recordings. As such, I get no help from the online CD information services like CDDB and freedb as they are only aware of commercial releases. Adding … Read more