A decade of Lola the cat

Today is the 10-year-anniversary of the day I adopted Lola the cat. She’s been a faithful companion for a quarter of my life! Here’s the day it happened, as recorded in my 2005 calendar: Look at this historical document – Titanic opens; Malcolm Gladwell giving a talk; I was still doing woodcut block printing – … Read more

Monday macrobug: Katydid

Happy New Year’s Eve! Here’s a katydid seen on my porch back before it got really cold: Can you tell if it’s a male or a female? (Hint: look for the ovipositor!) This one’s out of focus, but I like it anyhow because of the character lurking in the background: Happy New Year!

News

Well, it’s been kind of quiet on the Mountain Beltway front this week – but I have a good excuse. Early on Friday morning, my son Baxter was born. The little guy arrived weighing more than 9 pounds (4.125 kg), and measuring 21 inches from beak to tail. He’s very sweet and wonderful. Lily and … Read more

Migmacatization

Evelyn put up a cat photo on Geokittehs earlier today, and it reminded me of anatexis, the process of partial melting. Anatexis is my favorite way to produce a migmatite. In this model, the light-colored (felsic) ginger cat is derived from the partial melting of another cat, partly dark (mafic) and partly felsic (ginger). Where … Read more

Dobsonfly

Here’s your macrobug of the week: a male dobsonfly we encountered last weekend, while making houseguests some pizza. What a beast! Envelope for scale: Adding a finger (not too close) for scale: A better perspective on the envelope, with a shirt button thrown in too: Lola looks intimidated as she contemplates this insect through the … Read more

Geology LOLcats 3

This morning, my cat Lola (a.k.a. “LOLa”) had squirmed herself in between the sheets, and it reminded me of something: If this pose inspires you to another LOLcat caption, you can click through for the original image file, unadorned. Modify it as you like, and give us a link to your creation in the comments … Read more

Geology LOLcats 1

Dana posted early this morning with an invitation to “LOLcat” with a geological flavor. Here’s the best I could come up with: If you’re not familiar with the LOLcat genre, you might want to take a look at a random sampling of LOLcat images for context. Yes: I have the day off today, and can … Read more