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 Here’s the day it happened, as recorded in my 2005 calendar: Look at this historical document – Titanic opens; Malcolm Gladwell giving a talk; I was still doing woodcut block printing – … Read more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

Lola, the cartoonist's companion

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any photos of my supremely helpful cat Lola on the blog, so here you go: Lola loves to sit on paper, so when I break out the sketchbook to start working on my monthly cartoon for EARTH magazine, she sidles right up and stakes a claim. Fortunately, I … Read more

The routine

It’s that time of year for me… summer’s here, and I’m winding up my duties at NOVA in preparation for some travels. We leave Sunday night for two weeks in Turkey, followed by my regional field geology course in Montana (also two weeks), followed by some family time and mountain climbing in New Hampshire (three … Read more