kbobam

Here is an example of the little notes I put in front of me to remind myself of things. As you can see, they vary in importance at any given time. If I were to completely forget that today is 'trash day' it probably wouldn't be the end of the world. On the other hand, going to sleep and forgetting that I have something cooking on the stove could be kind of bad. The 'freezer' note falls somewhere in the middle. This one usually gets put out because I have a warm bottle of soda I put in the freezer to chill quickly. It's very irritating to lose track of time and wind up with a Coca-Cola ice cube, although not a disaster. What I haven't figured out is whether my need for these notes indicates that my brain is fading, or if the fact that I make a point of using them shows that I'm in fine shape.

Like the green color. Any uranium in that glass?

Every time I put twenty bucks of gas into the tank, right about at 19.65 the numbers on the pump start looking like dates. And even though that's when the pump slows down as it finishes, I'm always struck by how quickly those numbers go by. ( :

Alan, those are crazy nice even if they don't glow. But they look like they would.

I thought the same thing when I first saw it! It's actually a very strange and kind of interesting visual illusion! (And to be completely honest, when I first saw it, it looked so 'wrong' that my immediate reaction was to exclaim out loud a far less polite version of "What in the world?") What was the name of those prints that were popular a few years ago, where you had to relax your eyes and get into a 'meditative' state and suddenly a completely different image would appear? If you use the same sort of technique, you can alternate between the 'crater effect' and seeing the bubbles in the transparent red glass as they actually are. ( :

How strange. For the very first time I just made a point of taking a picture of a marble and posting it, and it didn't even occur to me to post it here until later. I guess this is probably because I've shown this particular marble here before, and my reason for posting it on a non-marble group was because the subject of uranium glass had been brought up. Not an overly inspiring photo, but I'm feeling guilty, so here it is. Since I just replaced my old black light bulb the other day, I'm going to include a picture of the new one in case anyone is interested. This is what's currently available at your local BOB store (by which I mean 'Big Orange Box') for the bargain price of five dollars US. And they're probably about the best UV light you can get for viewing your marbles. The more recently developed LED black lights emit a slightly different frequency range which won't show off your 'glowers' quite as well as the good old fluorescent tube technology. ( :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77STRH0fB8I

Well that's a term you don't hear every day! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_fallow

This glossary reference http://www.americant...om/glossary.htm is really amazing! Have you posted it prominently elsewhere? It's kind of 'hidden' in the context here. ( :

It sure would have driven me crazy! I'm still hoping to find my first arrowhead. It's sort of a 'bucket-list' quest of mine. For anyone interested, I was surprised to find that there's a lot of information out there if you do a 'how to find an arrowhead' search. A whole bunch of useful ideas I never would have thought of. Hasn't helped me yet, but I'm not giving up! ( :

That is so you.

Could have eaten this when it was given to me, but decided to save it for later. Every once in a while I make a good decision. ( :

I like those too. They're simple, yet they really have something! Kind of like the Bananas, that way. ( :

Me, too! Thanks very much, Dave! I can see that Agate Addiction heading my way already... ( :

Thanks for the agate info! Not sure where my mental block was exactly, but now I feel like I can see the whole picture and it all fits together. ( :

I could use a little 001 instruction on that word 'agate', if anyone's up to it. Like an explanation of all the different ways the word is used. Let me ramble a little here to more clearly explain my confusion. An agate is a rock, or gemstone if you prefer. Presumably these rocks have been made into little balls at times. I'm assuming marble people would call these marbles, and rock people would call them mineral spheres, but don't really know. There are quite a few marble companies with the word agate in their name. How did it get to be so popular? Assuming that these companies are producing glass marbles. So are they just saying in their name that they make marbles that look like rock? When kids used to refer to 'aggies', was that a fairly 'general' term, or was it more specific? If someone refers to a 'handmade agate', does that mean it could be either of two definitions? 1. A marble that looks like a kind of rock, that's made without the benefit of fancy machinery. 2. A piece of a certain kind of rock, that's been carved/ground/polished into a sphere without fancy machinery. If you made it this far, thanks for listening! ( :

These are all good looking, but I'm really liking the 'negative space' (probably not the right word) look of the two in the upper right. What are they? I'llhavethat1's pic from color of the month thread added for discussion -- steph

Thanks! Glad you guys survived what I hope is the last of this season's snow. I remember watching the weather the morning after what was being called an 'ice storm', and the big chart they had showing accumulation in a dozen places put Bel Air in the number one spot. I'm sure you were dancing around that morning getting ready for work chanting "We're number one!" ( :

So I'll just post it here. Originally I was only taking a picture of this grassy stuff. I uncovered it while raking up a couple inches of old wet leaves, and as sometimes happens with plants that start their lives under oppressive conditions, the colors were outrageous. But then I got smart and remembered that marbles make everything better. ( :

Cool! Are these micro-marbles, or is that a pretty darned big shell?

I was waiting for others to 'fess up, but I guess that's not going to happen! I do this all the time. Sometimes it's a 'direct visual' like the example here, and other times it's more 'conceptual', like the commercial I posted recently with all the cute animals. There was no doubt that the two who were vigorously scooping up dirt were digging for marbles. Okay, maybe some doubt. But it was the first thing I thought of! ( :

They may be a lot smarter than we think. Excellent point! But pretty scary!

A quick on-topic off-topic tidbit...

It can only get better from here?