Lava Lamp 101

For years now I'd admired those cultural icons of the seventies...those dinosaurs of the disco era...those wonderfully nostalgic Lava Lamps. I can remember as a young child... marveling at the mystic bubbles rising and falling inside the conical shaped glass and found myself pondering for hours on just what caused this phenomenon. Well, the other day a friend of mine gifted me with a Lava Lamp that was old and cloudy and no longer wanted...Wow, the Lava Lamp gods had finally smiled upon me!

I eagerly grasped my spectacular new Lava Lamp and promptly whisked into my house. It was an older lamp, red goo and lavender water, in the business of bubbling for years and rather cloudy with age so I reasoned in my head that "Hey, I can just change it's water and...voila...brand new, crystal clear, groovy red Lava Lamp with a new lease on life."

Actually, it turned out to be the lamest logic known to man...and witch. I changed it's water...set it upon it's base, turned it on and proceeded to wait....and wait...and (yes you guessed it) wait some more. Nothing...absolutely, positively nothing, nada, zip, zilch. The lava just sat there in a liquid pool on the bottom of the lamp. "Hmmm, now what do I do?" I thought.... I think I broke it...no, it couldn't be broken...you can't break goo can you?

My next epiphany was my trusty laptop with internet access...much to my joy I found a page explaining just how to freshen up tired old cloudy Lava Lamps! I read on...my mind alert, my bum on the edge of my seat, eyes squinting to see the words...And then all of a sudden I came upon it... I found the cherished Lava Lamp secret of the ages...rubbing alcohol. Yes, I said rubbing alcohol. It seems that if your tired old lamp won't bubble (or you just plain screw up like I did) use rubbing alcohol, it makes the water less dense and therefore a better medium for the viscous red goo.

Who knew, I thought to myself. So tonight I find myself following the instructions I printed out from the Lava Lamp guru and I'm going to replace one third of the volume of water with said rubbing alcohol and ishkabibble...it's going to start sending globulous blurbs of lava in it's predictable trademark style....in theory, I haven't added the alcohol yet...I'll keep you posted.

Earth Day 2009

April 22nd is Earth Day and I thought it would be interesting to look up a bit about how it all came to be....The next few days I will also be talking a little about different ways we can all make our planet a little greener and bring awareness to a few common topics such as green house gasses, global warming and carbon footprints.


On April 22, 1970, the Environmental Teach-In held a nationwide day of environmental education and activism that it called Earth Day. The event was inspired and organized by environmental activist and U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin. Nelson wanted to show other U.S. politicians that there was widespread public support for a political agenda centered on environmental issues.

Nelson began organizing the event from his Senate office, assigning two staff members to work on it, but soon more space and more people were needed. John Gardner, founder of Common Cause, donated office space. Nelson selected Denis Hayes, a Harvard University student, to coordinate Earth Day activities and gave him a staff of volunteer college students to help. The event was wildly successful, sparking Earth Day celebrations at thousands of colleges, universities, schools and communities all across the United States.

An October 1993 article in American Heritage Magazine proclaimed, “…April 22, 1970, Earth Day was…one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy… 20 million people demonstrated their support… American politics and public policy would never be the same again.” Following the Earth Day celebration inspired by Nelson, which demonstrated widespread grassroots support for environmental legislation, Congress passed many important environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, as well as laws to protect wilderness areas. The Environmental Protection Agency was created within three years after Earth Day 1970.

In 1995, Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton for his role in founding Earth Day, raising awareness of environmental issues, and promoting environmental action.


No matter when you celebrate Earth Day, its message about the personal responsibility we all share to “think globally and act locally” as environmental stewards of planet Earth has never been more timely or important. Our planet is in crisis due to global warming, overpopulation, and other critical environmental issues. Every person on Earth shares the responsibility to do as much as they can to preserve the planet’s finite natural resources today and for future generations.