Hello Martin and everyone, A Very happy belated birthday to you! It sounds like there is a lot in store, changes and such, for when you retire. You know, I've never met a bored retired person. EEveryone I know who has been busy in life has been just as busy, if not busier, when they retire. So much to do and enjoy, I guess. I hope things fall into place for you and you feel a peace about your future decisions!
Mel -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Martin G. McCormick Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2014 11:00 AM To: Just Chat; Where Anything Goes ... Almost! Subject: Re: Sprights and other electrical disturbances We were talking about foulgerites at the last amateur radio club meeting and you can touch them. They are probably prickly like volcanic rock since they are glass made of fused sand so, unless you stepped on one in your bare feet, they are probably not particularly dangerous. I am guessing that they need to be handled gently both to protect your hands and to keep from breaking off small pieces. There are different grades of glass out there. The glass made of exactly the right kind of sand and melted in controlled furnaces and allowed to cool slowly is very durable. They make laboratory and cooking vessels out of that and it is really hard to break. Cheap glass like they make beer bottles out of along with other cheep glassware will sometimes break if you look at it wrong, just kidding, but it breaks easily. That stuff comes from poor quality raw materials and is not handled well as it is made. You sometimes find air bubbles in it and it sometimes will just break when nobody's doing anything to it. Foulgarites are just whatever sand happened to be under the lightning bolt when it struck so it wasn't made with too much patience. In another life, I might have been a glass blower because it is really interesting stuff. example, that it is technically not a solid but is a super-cooled liquid? Where I work, we use fiber optic glass that is so pure that you could fill the Pacific Ocean with it and supposedly see all the way to the deepest part. This glass will carry your internet and phone traffic about 50 miles before it has to be amplified again. Well, today is sort of bitter-sweet. I am turning 63 in about an hour if you want to be really picky. My birth certificate says I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma at 9:50. In 1951, that would have been Central Standard Time as Oklahoma and many other states in the Midwest and South didn't observe Daylight Saving Time. Since we do, the official time that actually matches is 10:50. I just don't know where it has all gone. Most of it has been really great and I don't have anything to complain about especially when I think of how so many others live in this world. I will either retire on January 2 of next year or I am looking at a couple of other jobs but the chances of those are fairly slim. Any way you cut it, I will be leaving my present job around the end of October and it is kind of scary. I hope I am not making a big mistake. Until later, Martin ======================================== The Just-chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/just-chat> You can find an archive of all messages posted to the just-chat group at either of the following: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/just-chat/index.html> or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> You may subscribe with your RSS reader at the following URL: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
