Well, when you get your pc working again could you try to give us an approximate release date for the next updoot? It's fine if you can't, I'm just always eager to see what turns this story takes.
Edit: So, because I got bored, I decided to do some quick inventory on the geology of the area. Because we live on the side of a volcano most of the land is made up of obsidian, which is an igneous extrusive layer stone. I was going to ask if those white pillars we have were made out of a flux stone that could have come from an adjacent sedimentary layer, but they could possibly be made out of dacite, alunite, or stibnite, which are almost white stones that form naturally in igneous extrusive layers. Please correct me if this is not the case and some other stone was used. As for ores, we have a decent assortment of the orthodox ores: hematite (iron), native copper (copper), galena (lead and silver), native gold (gold), and native aluminum (aluminum). In addition to that, the igneous extrusive layers have a multitude of ores that can't be refined in dwarf fortress, but we could probably refine with a little bit of extra effort should we find them. These include: cinnabar (mercury sulfide, which can easily be refined to mercury), brimstone (a natural crystaline form of nearly pure sulfur), realgar (arsenic sulfide), orpiment (arsenic sulfide), cobaltite (cobalt), pyrolustite (manganese), and hornblende (titanium). In addition to this, turquoises and all forms of zircon can be found. Tetrahedrite, microcline, and a large amount of trashy gems can also be found in all types of stone layers. If we get a chance, we should try to acquire some of these usually untouched lesser ores for !SCIENCE!, as well as try to locate one of the stone layers surrounding the volcano to see if we can find other ores as well. I would also like to ask Diggy to try to save these minerals and send them to me if he is to find any of them.
Akituh Ponders Geology! (after trading, of course)