Alan Silverstein's personal links page

Under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow
Last update: December 18, 2025 Email me at ajs@frii.com                                   

Personal quicklinks	Google, maps	wind, FC, NHC	fire, 2, heat risk	Facebook, photos	JC FD
J, TV, D, G	Jcam, CORE	roads, sat, sun map	WCG, AQI	Col, E, KUNC, BBC	trip rep, P
FTCU, Fid, SMC, Z	FZROX, FXNAX	CSU, WS	KP, Banner	Gmail, Fmail, library	putty
temp, htm	jpg, png, txt	SFNLS, SpaceX, X	Connex, Pulse, SL	Covid resources	RBI

Favorite links... ("link rot" happens, these are not guaranteed to work; and not repeating any quicklinks above)

Web Search Engines
Fort Collins
Financial (my essays)
Weather-Related
Lake Powell
Rockhounding
Geography/Hydrology
Outdoors and Backcountry
Travel
Off-Planet
Ham Radio
Humor
Miscellaneous Stuff
Net-Related

Web Search Engines:

• Qwest phone book
• Switchboard -- locate people, businesses, etc.
• Search AllinOne MetaSearch
• Deja News -- search Usenet news articles
• Nerd World Media Internet Subject Index -- divides searches into knowledge categories

• Fort Collins for Progress Events Coordination Committee -- Google group, includes email addresses
• Colorado property for-sale lookups
• Friends of Traditional Dance -- includes schedule
• CFOOTMAD Calendar -- Colorado Friends Of Old Time Music And Dance, Denver

• Look here for some essays and tools from me.

• IRS -- Tax Information for Individuals
• -> Forms and Publications
• Colorado forms
• IRS interest, penalty, and tax brackets -- cute "dashboard view"
• How to Get Clients to Spend More Money -- excellent essay by Allan Roth on being a tightwad versus spendthrift in retirement
• What's Your Retirement Income Style? -- nice summary of RISA; "Let's stop bickering about the 'right' way to generate retirement cash flows."
• Glossary of financial derivative terms -- big; part of a class?
• TurboTax Free Tax Tips
• The Deal With Gift Tax -- university infographic
• HPAA Finance pending messages

• Fort Collins weather report and forecast -- come here first!
• Colorado state weather info -- pretty good choices
• Local aviation status -- mostly for wind
• Western U.S. Snowpack/Precipitation

• Houseboating 101 (at Lake Powell, on the Wildwind) -- my compendium
• Neat Hikes at Lake Powell, Utah -- my compendium
• Google Photos 340 uncaptioned from 250629-0709 trip
• Proposal for New Formal Names in Glen Canyon
• Lake Powell Water Database
• Lake Powell photo from space shuttle, overhead, up is northeast (106 Kb)
• Lake Powell photo from space shuttle, oblong, east, closer (195 Kb)
• Lake Powell photo from aircraft, Rincon area, south (179 Kb)
• Wildwind 2 houseboat owners -- private site
• Cathedral in the Desert -- cool photo album of downclimbing into it in spring 2005
• Cathedral in the Desert -- similar photos, different arrangement, albeit with some anti-Lake propaganda

• How to Get Permission to Rockhound on Private Land -- a webpage I created
• Collected Information on Rock Tumbling -- a website I created; includes information about my 31" truck tire tumbler (grinder)
• Chris's Granite Paradise, Chris Brown's (non-profit) YouTube channel, based in Fort Collins, CO; amazing sculptures from stone countertop remnants
  • 12-minute video by Chris from us rockhounding on section 11
  • 40.5-minute video by Chris about my tire grinder
  • 12-minute abbreviated version of previous
  • 4.5-minute video by me, edited by Chris, of dealing with slurry
• Colorado Mineral Collecting Locations
• Rock Collecting Pouch Directions
• Fort Collins Rockhounds Club -- our club page
• Fort Collins Rockhounds Club on Yahoo -- members-only Yahoo site I maintain (obsolescent)
• Chris Brown's granite slab sculptures -- 3.5 minute professional Channel 7 Denver video by Major King, about a Fort Collins club member's odd hobby
• Rockhounding in Colorado -- a short list of places to rockhound
• Wyoming Rocks -- a semi-commercial guide + blog site
• The Fossil Hunter -- places to rockhound
• GemData -- show dates under here; other good stuff too
• Rockhounds Information Page -- lots of links
• Minerals by Name -- really cool
• Lortone, Inc home page -- they make tumblers and stuff; simple page, but includes their email address
• University of Nebraska State Museum notes -- lots about Ashfall
• Dinosaur Paleontology
• SAFE against the "Fossil Preservation Act" -- the loyal opposition spouts off (ick)
• Periodic Table of the Elements -- in graphical form
• How Are Diamonds Made And Formed -- interesting website
• How to hunt for meteorites -- nice summary to revisit or share
• 23 Amazing Sites For Free Gemology Courses & Resources -- another interesting website
• Nanoparticles in Some of The World's Oldest Rocks Found to Hide Clues on Life's Origins -- greenalite in 3.5 GYa Australian jaspilite
• Earth Science, Geology and the Formation of Diamonds -- brief blurb about Earth sciences, with many links
• USA's Oldest Rock? A Simple Question with a Complex Answer -- fun GSA article, March 2025, includes Wyoming Sacawee gneiss

• Nice UTM to DDD converter
• USGS viewable topo maps
• Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
• Landscape Explorer -- "Explore past and present landscapes from the Great Plains to the Pacific coast."
• USGS Water Resources Information -- lots of cool stuff
• -> Real-Time Hydrologic Data -- neat map, click on a state
• -> Colorado data in particular
• -> Poudre River Fort Collins
• Glendo Reservoir, WY -- current data, WY state parks
• More Colorado stations -- state Division of Water Resources
• -> Kersey station -- select, back, select again if needed, as each new day they force you to a top screen; then reload, then stop
• Interactive map of streams and rivers in the United States -- cool river geomapper/tracer
• USGS Streamer -- similar but different
• Colorado river flow data -- very nice site, but requires PC (sigh)
• Water Resources for Colorado -- cool USGS maps and data
• Colorado Geologic Map -- nice and interactive, but ages only, not rock types
• Geology of the South Pass Area -- 2-page PDF brochure
• Mapblast -- on-line map access
• Xerox PARC Map Viewer -- very cool, though just simple line drawings
• Geographic Information Processing Resources
• Tiger Map Server Browser -- very cool, but slow, low-res
• MountainClimb -- Mountain Summit Benchmarks: Geological Survey Markers -- I contributed a few of the photos used on these emblems
• Global Warming & Climate Change Myths -- 197 arguments and rebuttals!
• Discover The Fun Of Backyard Geology -- a cute and relatively short webpage on the topic
• Ancient Earth Map -- cool interactive high-level Earth viewing over time
• RealLifeLore -- YouTube channel with excellent explanatory videos, including Why Wyoming is VASTLY Emptier Than Colorado

• Rocky Mtn NP timed entry permits -- Log into recreation.gov first!
• Neat Hikes in Death Valley National Park -- my compendium
• Death Valley Hiker Association -- unofficial but fun
• HP Alumni NoCo Hikers -- trip pictures
• Locations, Altitudes, and Ranges of Fourteeners (14000-Foot Peaks) and Subpeaks in the United States, Except Alaska
• Spreadsheet Summary of Colorado Fourteener Subpeaks by Main Peak
• Thoughts on "Just What is a Fourteener?"
• Yellowstone River Access Points, Forsyth to below Sidney, Montana; an Excel => PDF spreadsheet I created
• Locations in Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado)
• Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado) Backcountry Campsites and related information
• Directions to the Honaker Trailhead -- Near Goosenecks State Park, Utah
• How to Make and Use "Candle Cup" Fire Starters (Portable Kindling) -- my webpage on the subject
• How To Install a Plaque on a Mountaintop
• Paddling and kayak info -- great site
• Backcountry Home Page -- hiking camping backpacking trekking; lots of good links
• Medicine Bow Nordic Association -- links to info about Wyoming skiing
• Rocky Mountain National Park -- unofficial home page, rich info and links
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Grand Canyon River Running
• Ancient Bristlecone Pines -- a treasure trove on the subject
• Lava Beds National Monument
• America's Roof -- 50 states high points
• Colorado Mountain Club -- lots of links
• Smoky Mountains -- interesting commercial site
• Abbey's Web -- a tribute and memorial to Edward Abbey
• Western Environmental Issues -- includes SUWA
• Cascade Designs -- makers of Thermarests
• Buffalo Mountain, CO -- Facebook posting of my best mountain goat encounter ever (7/2020)
• Snowy Range Lakes -- a compendium I created
• There's A Reason It's Called The Snowy Range, It's Stays Snowy In The Summer Too -- a well-written article where I was interviewed and they used my photos, after I posted them on Facebook to the "Wyoming Through the Lens" group
• Snowy Range summer 2024 -- (3:25) excellent drone footage in Wyoming by Tom Doolin

• Expedia -- like best
• Kayak -- meta-browser
• Travelocity
• Internet Travel Network -- on-line fare lookup, but defers showing prices until later, annoying
• Allegiant Airlines
• United Airlines: The Friendly Skyline

• 2017 Eclipse Quicklinks,
  Solar Eclipse Advice,
  Solar Eclipse Reminders -- three brief webpages I created before the August 2017 total solar eclipse in the US
• Humanity's Launch Window -- an essay I wrote
• Red Planet Bound -- Humans, Mars and the Solar Ecosystem by Evan Plant-Weir, Mars Society
• Current position of the ISS -- pretty fun real-time map
• Heavens Above
• -> for home
• -> for Bullfrog
• -> for Dougs Cathedral
• NASA ISS/shuttle viewing -- for Fort Collins
• NASA TV
• Ecliptic Enterprises -- awesome RocketCam images
• NASA's Visible Earth
• NASA "blue marble" images -- incredible
• Comets Currently Visible
• Sky & Telescope Online -- wonderful, colorful, slow
• -> Weekly News Bulletin
• General Astronomy Information -- lots of good "pamphlets"
• The Planetary Society Home Page
• Hubble Space Telescope Public Pictures
• JSC Imagery Services -- zillions of space photos
• The Nine Planets -- a multimedia tour of the solar system
• NASA Shuttle Web -- flashy, but very cool; real-time too
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Apollo Lunar Surface Journal -- incredible transcripts from the Apollo missions
• University of Iowa Automated Telescope Facility
• Guide to the Solar System
• Comets and Meteor Showers primer
• Astronomy, Science and Physics Guide for 2020 -- a nice compendium of many links
• Astronomy Resources for Kids -- nice collection of links within one month's generic blog for a playground equipment maker!
• Telecommunications satellites and space exploration -- relatively brief and clear summary in a blog entry

• Yaesu VX-170 Modifications
• Loveland Repeater Association
• Radio CallBook Server Summary -- daily license changes
• Amateur Radio Examination Opportunities
• Colorado Connection Repeater Sites -- with uplinks to related info
• Ham Radio Newsline -- periodic updates
• ARRL -- general site, many links
• Meeting People with Ham Radios -- kind of a dating site, recommended by a reader
• Welcome to the World of Internet Amateur Radio -- general site, many links
• Ham Radio Showcase -- general site, many links
• Ham radio equipment mods
• ICOM -- radio manufacturer
• Kenwood -- radio manufacturer
• HRO -- Ham Radio Outlet, equipment vendor, big
• AES -- Amateur Equipment Supply, equipment vendor
• JUN's Electronics -- equipment vendor
• Amateur Radio online magazine -- looks like an equipment dealer
• Boston Amateur Radio Club's file archives -- includes mods
• Compaq ARC -- a company amateur repeater club
• Radio Study Guides -- suggested to me, under AppliancePartsPros.com
• The History of the Telegraph - Communication at its Best! -- suggested to me, looks like an interesting site, lots of links out
• History of the Radio -- suggested to me, looks like an interesting site, lots of links out
• Radio and TV Broadcasting Resources
• Amateur Radio Resources: Scanners
• Police Scanner Resources & Learning

• My huge collections of aphorisms ("fortunes")
• Canonical List of Fulldeckisms -- humorous insults
• Canonical List of Answering Machine Messages -- humorous recordings
• Semi-Canonical Collected Light Bulb Jokes
• Classic Puns -- a random collection
• Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
• Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full?
• Various Limericks -- a personal collection
• You Know You're a Rockhound When...
• Dumb and Funny Questions and Statements Made by Tourists
• Numbers of the Beast
• My "press release" when I was laid off
• Some of my canonical humor collections, also posted here for historical reasons
• The 6 best smart-arsed answers of 2006
• Snappy answers to some stupid questions
• Twelve Commandments For Seniors

• BPH: Dealing with AUR and catheters -- sharing personal collected information, background, and advice
• Biological sex is not as simple as male or female -- from Science News, Feb 20, 2025
• The Cognitive Bias Codex -- incredibly rich and complete(?) graphical representation of all known cognitive biases
• Camp Taji, Iraq, huge IED explosion video -- 1:20, happens around 0:28; of interest because I know a person who was riding in the second vehicle (and survived)
• Linode.com documents
• America's Health Care System is Broken -- How do we fix it? Medicare For All; a nice Powerpoint slideshow by a Fort Collins doctor, converted to PDF (< 3 Mb), unfortunately meaning animations are lost, you just see the final form of each slide
• Fort Collins street sweeping -- zone 8 east
• HP Alumni Association
• Utah 3D -- cool wrap-around images
• Alan's Company and Product Reviews -- although nowadays I tend to just use TripAdvisor more
• "JetPunk" travel quizzes -- fun stuff
• Thoughts on the HP Way -- saved postings from about 1987
• My homepage on Comcast
• --> How to manage it
• --> How to upload to it
• Science Made Stupid -- hilarious abridgement of the famous book; the Periodic Table of the Elements is under Matter & Energy
• Human Gateways -- a collected list of human "knickpoints"
• 10 things every Perl hacker should know -- by Chad Perrin
• Vectors Site -- by Greg Goebel
• Judy library -- on SourceForge
• libJudy Summary
• Science News Online
• Denver Museum of Nature and Science -- including IMAX
• Usability is Not Graphic Design -- excellent article, apparently this link is dead, but perhaps you can web-search for it
• My patents are: 5758084, 6654760, 6671694
• U.S. Naval Observatory Master Clock
• Caltech Clickable Map -- my alma mater, and a fun demo, many links
• Gillis home page -- my sister
• "Assembly of a lesser god" -- An article; "Belief and worship are powerful tools for organizing thought and behavior. If others get control of those tools, they can make us dance like puppets. But if we.re careful, we can learn to pull our own strings."
• B29 flight photos and story (3.3 Mb PDF), July 2014, by Mike Berry.
• Wegrich "glider book" from 1930
• Veterans Legacy Memorial webpage for Jack Silverstein
• Apology for being wrong about Trump

• Under the Hood of the World Wide Web -- an educational article I wrote around 1994, in the early days of the WWW; resuscitated and annotated in 2020, still mostly relevant, otherwise of historical interest
• fast.com speed test
• speedtest.net
• Ping Test from Multiple Locations -- Website, Server & Network Speed
• Privacy Analyzer -- See what data is exposed from your browser -- fast and relatively brief
• Router security checker
• CheckLink -- check website validity
• isup.me -- test if a site is really down or it's just you
• Within Two Worlds -- beautiful video that seems to require decent LAN and CPU speeds to view smoothly; at least 25 Mbps?
• View from the ISS at night -- another beautiful but slow video
• VoiceNation Online Toll-Free Phone Directories

This page is printed on 100% recycled bits.

Experimental video link (note, AVI is not supported):

This also works but appears not to give a screenshot: Download MP4 video.