Cranial Meltdown Revived

Sapphire is September’s beautiful birthstone, and I have several lovely blue sapphire pieces available for sale in my Etsy shop. Sapphire is one of the few precious gemstones (the others are diamond, ruby, emerald, and tanzanite.)
Sapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum. Ruby is the red variety of corundum, and the term “sapphire” […]

This is the fifth post in the series of family stories I’m writing. This time, I’m going to tell a couple of stories about my brother Kevin. Kevin is currently living in Korea with his wife Pat and his five-year-old son Paul. Kevin was also a Marine (he and Kara signed up the same summer, […]

My brother Kevin suggested that this is what a total lunar eclipse should look like, so I thought I’d create it and post it for him. And Kevin, you’re the next family member I’ll be writing about!
(See yesterday’s post for series of eclipse photos.)

Question of the Day: Vote yea or nay: Should I write a […]

Fool that I am, I stayed up all night taking photos of the lunar eclipse.
Enjoy!

Question of the Day: What silly things have you stayed up all night to do, even though you had important things to do the next day?

Amazonite was named for the Amazon River in Brazil. Amazonite has been found in Brazil, but not in the vicinity of the Amazon River, for which it was named.
Amazonite is a variety of microcline, which is a potassium feldspar mineral. It is a greenish aqua blue stone that is related to such gemstones as moonstone, […]

Vince and I spent yesterday in Santa Cruz. We were planning to go hiking in the redwoods, but we ended up spending the whole day walking along the coast, then we got sushi at Mobo Sushi - the best darn California-style sushi in the world! (I get the vegetarian Crop Burning and Guido rolls - […]

This is the fourth post in my series of family stories. It’s time to tell a story or two about my sister Kara. She currently lives in North Carolina with her 4 year old daughter Michaela. Kara served in the Marines for several years, and recently worked as a preschool teacher. This fall she is […]

I’ve chosen iolite as my next gemstone to discuss simply because I don’t know much about it myself, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn!
Iolite is a fairly affordable blue gemstone. The iolite I have seen available ranges in color from a light periwinkle blue to a deep violet-blue color. I’ve […]

This is the third in my series of family stories. It’s now my lucky brother Michael’s turn. And boy have I got stories about him!
Michael is 1 year and 9 months younger than me. When my parents brought this strange creature home from the hospital, I couldn’t pronounce “Michael” so he was “Buckles” to me.
To […]

View from Diablo looking east over the Central Valley toward the hazy Sierras.
I don’t generally blog about what I’ve been up to, but since I took photos this weekend, I thought I’d make an exception.
I went hiking on Mt. Diablo with my friend Chris on Saturday. Mt. Diablo sits between the Bay Area and the […]