WWTBAM Bored

Labradorite!

I looked this up (after I bought the bracelet, of course) to make sure it isn't secretly radioactive, as it looks like it could be, & found its supposed to increase my psychic powers. Stay tuned on that part. I was at the Christmas fair because one of my favorite vendors sent out an e-mail about not being at some of the fairs I usually find them at, but would be at this one-day fair in a church in Jamaica Plain. For a citizen of Somerville, a trip to JP is almost like taking a trip to Labrador. I bought a lot of stuff from favorite vendor for others, for this party I attend every year where I only see many of the people at that party once a year, at that party, but have to buy every one a present (sigh). I wish they'd just tell you to bring yourself & food to share, but the person giving the party is heavily into the presents exchange thing. But it was at the neighboring booth I discovered labradorite. Will go well with all my abalone stuff.

ghostjmf wrote:Labradorite!

I looked this up (after I bought the bracelet, of course) to make sure it isn't secretly radioactive, as it looks like it could be, & found its supposed to increase my psychic powers. Stay tuned on that part. I was at the Christmas fair because one of my favorite vendors sent out an e-mail about not being at some of the fairs I usually find them at, but would be at this one-day fair in a church in Jamaica Plain. For a citizen of Somerville, a trip to JP is almost like taking a trip to Labrador. I bought a lot of stuff from favorite vendor for others, for this party I attend every year where I only see many of the people at that party once a year, at that party, but have to buy every one a present (sigh). I wish they'd just tell you to bring yourself & food to share, but the person giving the party is heavily into the presents exchange thing. But it was at the neighboring booth I discovered labradorite. Will go well with all my abalone stuff.

I had never heard of it but can see why you like it. How strong is the labradorescence in your rocks?

Silly question -- if you lose the stone, do you need a labradorite retriever to find it?

BJ: Labradorescence is strong, strong, strong.


SpacemanSpiff: I wish I had a labradorite retriever at my disposal right now. Bracelet broke. I have all the stones but one. It was in a place in my car between passenger's seat & shift/e-brake column. I tried to scootch it out & it scooched "away somewhere" instead. I have taken everything apart that I can take apart & cannot find it, even though there are no holes in the floor of my car.


Nice person who made bracelet says they will put it back together for me, but they don't have any more labradorite to fill in for missing stone. What's worse, this is the unpolished-rock kind, which is hard to get, it turns out. There's an official term for it that they told me which I forget. And its very bad weather today in which to continue taking car apart, but I will, bit by bit. And will look for unpolished labradorite rocks of just the right size on the web.


(The "psychic powers of rocks" stuff that comes up whenever I google labradorite (or any gem stone) says that this stuff will bring you good luck. Which I need. Not if you lose it, I bet. Of course, the floor of my car needs good luck too. Maybe its holding on to it.


Seriously. For areas I can reach into but can't see into, where I currently feel no stone, maybe a mirror arrangement will work, except I need a small enough mirror.

As the jeweler warned me, hard to find one to fit; I can find laboradorite on the web, if I buy a whole batch, but without the holes drilled. Sigh. Back to hunt-in-car.

I'd check the pieces you do have to see if they respond to a magnet. If so, most auto parts stores used to carry pretty strong magnets on a swiveling, telescoping handle. These allowed one to retrieve, for example, a nut or washer that had fallen into a hole in the chassis. This way, you're not counting 100% on seeing it, as you can move it around the area and (literally) see what sticks.

I don't know if these tools are still around, but I don't see why not.

Web isn't telling me anything about the magnetic properties or labradorite or feldspar, which labradorite is. So I will test at home. One problem I can foresee, though, if it is magnetic is that the "brain" of the car, which sits these days under the front passenger seat (what?, you say; not in the driver's seat?) might not take well to having a strong magnet waived at it. Still, the speakers, which sit nearby, contain very strong magnets & don't seem to render it non-functional.


One irritating thing about an episode of Scorpion (what? only one irritating thing?) is that one of the supposed geniuses (admittedly, the psychiatrist, not one of the others) didn't know this (that speakers contain a strong magnet) & wiped a drive or whatever they were rescuing by putting it into the door well near a speaker.

ghostjmf wrote:Web isn't telling me anything about the magnetic properties or labradorite or feldspar, which labradorite is. So I will test at home. One problem I can foresee, though, if it is magnetic is that the "brain" of the car, which sits these days under the front passenger seat (what?, you say; not in the driver's seat?) might not take well to having a strong magnet waived at it. Still, the speakers, which sit nearby, contain very strong magnets & don't seem to render it non-functional.

I tried to look up the properties, too, but didn't quickly find anything definitive. The tool thingie is strong enough to lift a nut or bolt, but nowhere near the range of supermagnets.

One other thing that many people don't realize is how far the passenger seat can move on its rails. If you're searching towards the front, move the seat back until it stops. There is typically a release lever on the front bottom right (as you're sitting in it) of the seat. Similarly, do the opposite when searching towards the rear. I've seen cars where the seat has nearly a 12" range. This can expose the 4 corners where the rails are bolted to the floor. Those connections are often depressed below the level of the carpet, so they are likely places to find your stone.

ghostjmf wrote:One irritating thing about an episode of Scorpion (what? only one irritating thing?) is that one of the supposed geniuses (admittedly, the psychiatrist, not one of the others) didn't know this (that speakers contain a strong magnet) & wiped a drive or whatever they were rescuing by putting it into the door well near a speaker.

I enjoy Scorpion despite all the innacuracies. This guy blogged about 23 "problems," all in the FIRST episode:

New CBS Show Scorpion Riddled with Errors

You need to ask Santa for this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BYH ... EEOLD4V6MQ

labradorite appears to have no magnetic properties to speak of, per my refrigerator magnet.

I have already done all that can be done with moving the seats, please believe me. I've done everything but remove them from the car. Don't want to get into that, much as I love this bracelet. I will make one last pass with all possible mats removed before I will have to convince the jeweler it could still fit with one less lovely rock.

I will never again try to flip a valuable thing out of a crevice with the wrong sort of tool for the job.

I now know more about the floor of the inside of my car than I ever wanted to know, but still no pretty rock. I popped the plastic covers off both ends of the seat-sliders. I detached the driver's side under-carpet from the special plastic-insert hold-down posts that an Acura RSX 2002 has (even Acura doesn't put this on the passenger's side). Still no pretty rock.

Thanks to this thread I bought my wife a Labradorite pendant for Christmas. She loves it more than any other jewelry then I've ever bought her, including diamonds. Thanks for posting!

Wow!

I'll guess her's is one of the gem-polished ones. My stones are the unpolished "rough rock" ones I love even more. And finding just one (or a few) of the matching size on the net, with hole drilled for stringing, has proved not possible. I am going to ask the jeweler if they have some dulled-brass beads, to match the dulled-brass clasp arrangement on my bracelet, that they can put in next to the clasp on either side if they think the bracelet, minus one lonely lovely rock, will be too short for my approx 6-1/4" wrist.

edited because I misremembered my wrist size. But I just mailed the 1-short bracelet off, so reconsulted my measurement for benefit of the jeweler who will fix it.

ghostjmf wrote:Wow!

I'll guess her's is one of the gem-polished ones. My stones are the unpolished "rough rock" ones I love even more. And finding just one (or a few) of the matching size on the net, with hole drilled for stringing, has proved not possible. I am going to ask the jeweler if they have some dulled-brass beads, to match the dulled-brass clasp arrangement on my bracelet, that they can put in next to the clasp on either side if they think the bracelet, minus one lonely lovely rock, will be too short for my approx 6-1/2" wrist.

Yes, hers is polished. I'll keep an eye out for more at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in February.

Oh thanks, but it will be too late for me; I've already mailed it off to the jeweler to see what they can do with it short one stone.


I have considered taking up jewelry design, but realize that while I have the attention to detail needed, & have the artistic vision to pick out already-composed things that really "speak to me", I probably don't have the talent to compose such pieces from the parts. A lot of stuff I own is little bits of semi-precious stones delicately arranged with other little bits of semi-precious stones in interesting-to-me patterns (this big-rocks bracelet is far from that, though it does have well-thought-out spacers that make it more than "just a string of rocks", & an antique-y brass clasp, & I originally bought it for a friend who wears big & flashy stuff, then admitted to myself it was for me).


I at least should maybe buy the tools that would let me fix my broken stuff myself. My sister has a "hospital" full of my broken stuff waiting for her to fix it, but she's backed up with job duties & her own health problems now.

Nicest thing to me about labradorite is that it has lots of the attributes of abalone, which I have a lot of, but those of you who know abalone knows it is a very thin layer from the inside of the abalone shell. Tends to chip, eventually. If you have abalone stuff you have to live with knowing it can chip, eventually. labradorite has that same almost-fluorescent rainbow iridescence but as far as I can tell its through the whole rock. I love it.

Just for the heck of it, since I was already there, while in NYC this week visiting sister & cousin my sister & I went back to Beads of Paradise on 5th Ave. (Its one of my sister's favorite places, & all too near where she's currently located.) They didn't have unpolished labradorite either. Had lovely necklaces of polished pearly gray labradorite, very lovely but not what I'm after here.


Those of you who either are semi-precious-stone-loving people or are closely related to them need to go to this store with your wallets. Or maybe its smarter to just go without them, protectively. Necklaces & bracelets which would be the star of the show at any other jewelry display are just piled near each other here. And this was after the store had been picked through for Christmas. Considering what you would be getting, prices are astonishingly low. Notice I didn't say "low", I said "low for what you would be getting". Slurp. Drool. I can't afford to splurge there right now. Sob.


They have a great selection of loose stones too for the "string it yourself" crowd.

http://www.beadsofparadisenyc.com/


I an more than reluctant to buy stuff like this off the internet. I see pictures & say "yeah sure, it doesn't really look like that in person". In this store's case, the pictures aren't doing them justice. And they are probably only putting things on line that they have several of (like a lot of custom-made places do for on-line sales).