to open the blinds or not to open the blinds

365 days and counting

2012-01-03T23:21:00.000-08:00

A year ago today, my Mom passed away. She was pretty awesome. There is a depression in the couch, where she spent her final months watching my dogs play and listening to our sounds. She didn't weigh a hundred pounds, but the spot is changed forever. I spent the day reading and listening to music, sitting in her spot. I contemplated doing something to commemorate the occasion, but realized that I don't want to commemorate the occasion of her passing. It represents a soft period at the end of a very sad sentence. A sentence that should have lasted longer - been part of a paragraph. The paragraph should have continued into a beautiful story. Children's voices would be heard laughing and squealing as their grandmother chased them around the yard. Descriptions of sunshine and bike rides would unravel on the page punctuated by quiet moments of beauty and stillness. The description of a woman at peace with the world, satisfied at last and content to spend her days soaking it all in, would meander across the page, like the way she rode her bike uphill. Instead, here I am, writing on this blog for the first time since 2010. The last post was a desperate mantra. Something along the lines of we'll be alright. I told myself that for a long time before I realized that to be alright was not to be the same. I'm still figuring it out. I'll never get to be the same. I can be better.
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My Mom was a kind woman - tough, and kind. She worked hard all of her life to be better and do better. She didn't give up without a fight and she fought until her last breath. Her death was not a peaceful parting from this world. She battled to live, not because she was afraid of death, but rather, because she wanted to live. She had a lot to live for, and a lot to see.
My mom liked to make jokes when things got bad. In 5th grade, I got pretty beaten up in a skateboarding accident. I was nervous about what kids at school would say. She told me to tell them, "you should have seen the other guy." It was a funny way to respond when somebody said you looked beat. She would throw that joke around occasionally. She looked beat after she died, lying there in bed, small and pale. I imagine her now, smiling and making a fist at me - "you should have seen the other guy!" That would look really bad. That guy is probably still nursing his wounds a year later - walking with a limp and complaining any time the barometer drops.
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I miss my mom. I miss her every single day. She was good person to have around.

March 30, 1958

2010-12-30T00:39:00.000-08:00

Shit. What is there to even say? I guess there is a lot, but it all seems like a very bad dream. The holiday season has been intense. Knowing that this has been my Mom's last thanksgiving, Christmas, and will be her last New Years, is tough. There is so much to acknowledge, and process, but it just seems so surreal. My mom has had cancer for a few years now. For almost a year, my Mom has been in a state of decline. It has been slow and merciful, until right around thanksgiving. Since then it has been merciless and aggressive. Her condition worsens daily, which is notable because I didn't know that the living suffered this way. Her liver is shutting down. She is constantly in pain. She weighs 90 lbs, and has almost zero body fat. She eats less than 400 calories a day. I try to make her comfortable. I try to back off from taking care of her when my sisters and aunt are here, so that they will feel the love of caring. I feel like a failure. I feel embarrassed to have problems when my mother is suffering so much. I feel selfish. I wonder if other people feel guilty in these types of situations, and I hope that nobody has ever been in this situation. This fucking sucks.
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My mom is going to die in my house. I want that for her. I want her to know that it's alright - that it won't ruin us. I want her to know that we're going to be alright. I want her to be sure that we're going to have children, and lovers and successes and failures. I want her to know that we're going to cherish our memories of her. I want her to know that our successes are her successes, even after she's gone. I want her to know that her life means so much to me; and that her death means. . . I guess I don't know what it means yet. But I know that we will be alright.
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I want my mom to know that my children will know who she was. They will know that she liked to ride bikes in the sunshine. She liked to work hard when it was worth it. She didn't stop pedaling on steep hills, but would strafe side to side until she reached the top. When we got to the top, she would marvel at the beauty of Mount Hood in the distance, and her children, so healthy and radiant and near. We would tease her for riding twice as far as us to get to the top of the hill, and she would smile, happy to have made it. Our children will know that their grandmother was a kind person. That she would have loved to show them what it meant to be a grandchild. She would have spoiled them terribly, and I would have been annoyed, but I would have complained very quietly, and I would not have pressed the issue. I and my children will celebrate her birthday, March 30th, 1958, for the rest of my life.
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Things are rough here. But we're going to be alright. I love my mother.

Aljon Reyes, ladies and well, ladies.

2010-12-10T11:32:00.001-08:00

Time for a new roommate!

2010-10-29T01:06:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking all night long about how to address the situation before me. Truthfully, I'm clueless, and I don't expect a revelation anytime soon. I do know that this is a shitty situation, and I don't want to talk about it. But in order to answer the questions that I'd rather not answer when I meet up with my friends, I thought it best to tell it here. My Mother has been battling cancer for a couple of years. She has a type of cancer that attacks the blood. It is aggressive, unrelenting and apparently deadly. Doctors have been very aggressive in dealing with her treatment. She has participated in several studies, and through her effort, we might someday find a cure. Unfortunately, I spoke with her tonight and she informed me that the doctors had nothing left in their bag of tricks. She's being released from the hospital in Seattle and will be moving in with us at my home. We have a room for her, and I'm excited to spend more time with her. We don't know how long she'll be with us, and we're not sure what the future holds. We do know that everybody is concerned, and that we all love her very much. So, I thank you for your concern, and I appreciate that you care. Please stay positive and hope for the best.
cheers,
E

Kiln is loaded

2010-08-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Firing for four days
Pouring molten bronze on Tuesday at 6pm
You're invited

2010-08-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

oh the horror

2010-08-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in awhile. A lot has been happening, but I'm not allowed to talk about most of the really interesting stuff. Instead I'll just give an account of my morning.

7:09am : Got out of bed and yelled at the dog for barking in the back yard.

10:06am : Got out of bed and climbed into the shower.

10:11am : Got out of the shower and put my underpants on.

10:16am : Left the house to go to the hospital.

11:04am : Doctor Brock gingerly placed two 4 inch long pieces of foam, soaked in some sort of numbing agent in my nasal passage.

11:17am : Doctor Brock repositioned the broken bone in my nose, using a stainless steal tool and his very strong hands.

12:11pm : Arrived at work 11 minutes late.

Aside from that, I've had a nice summer. My job is pleasant, the weather has been nice and I like my friends. I've played some music, and ridden my bike some.

I bought a kiln and am in the process of constructing a studio at the house. I'm converting said kiln from 208v 3phase to single phase 240v and running the necessary wire and plug to run it.

I will post pictures of the first batch of pots.

Smith

2010-05-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

Last week was rough. I was so glad to get in the car Saturday morning and drive away from it all. Todd is the only one of my friends that likes to camp. Others say they do, but realistically, given the choice between hiking up a huge crag and going to bed when the sun sets, or staying in town, they'd rather hit the bars and sleep in their own bed. I appreciate that as well, but I don't want to do it all the time. Also, I've been really into rock climbing lately and having used my REI dividend for a new rope, I needed to take it out for some action.

We got a late start and I was worried that we might not get a spot in the Bivouac area at Smith Rock. The cool kids call it the bivy. As we drove up

and over Hood, however, and the sun began to shine, I wasn't worried at all. Instead I was just happy to be doing something awesome. The drive was beautiful, with blue sunny skies and beautiful clouds. We stopped in Terrabonne to check out the local climbing shop, where I picked up a new locking biner and a cheap hat. A german guy was hanging around trying to get a ride back to the park, so we took him with us. He had been in the states since October and had travelled across the country climbing at all the major spots. Smith was to be his last stop before heading back to Germany this Wednesday. Shaking his hand was like lifting a stone.

We parked and quickly set up our tents to secure a spot in the bivy. Luckily the crowd hadn't arrived and we managed a good spot near the cliff. Smith towered above us across the river. I was feeling really excited and completely overwhelmed. As we loaded up our gear, refilled our water bottles and started towards the crag I was feeling pretty great.

The park sees a lot of traffic, but it was clean. There were hikers, young and old; mountain bikers politely passing with a calm "on your left"; and there were climbers everywhere. The rock is formed of tuff, which is volcanic in origin. It's red and brown and looks amazing in the afternoon and evening sun. We hiked a couple of miles and found a nice secluded spot where I could hike up and set up an anchor. Without a bit more gear we were relegated to top-rope climbing, which was fine because Smith offers plenty of great beginner and intermediate top-rope-able routes. I showed Todd how to set up an anchor, tie in and belay. Then, before we knew it, we were ready to pack it up and head back for dinner. We hiked the rest of the loop up and over, past Monkey Face and back to camp. By the time we arrived, the sun had set and the temperature dropped considerably. We quickly ate dinner and hit the sack.

The next morning, a breakfast of oatmeal and peanut butter provided the fuel for several hours of climbing. We hiked a bit and found a large boulder that wasn't overpopulated. It's called Rope A Dope Rock and offered easy access to anchors and some fun, short routes. I set the anchor and rappelled down, then Todd tied in and had a go. After an unsuccessful attempt at the Crack, I convinced him to try my shoes. Sure enough, with a little bit better traction, he sent it. It was a step up from the previous day's climb. I tried a route called Sting Like a Bee. It had a really cool flake undercling and a reach over shelf near the top. Thankfully Todd proved to be a competent belayer. I fell more than a few times but eventually finished the route. We climbed a few more routes on that face before a short hike and, unfortunately, the journey home.

I can't wait to get back!

Worked on the yard

2010-04-19T11:15:00.001-07:00

We did some yard work this weekend, finally. Flowers, a raised bed
which will hold herbs and leafy greens, and I pulled about 400lbs of
concrete anchors out of the ground. It's awesome that when they
removed the fence, they left the concrete down there. Also awesome:
they did it twice. We have a lot more landscaping to do. It should be
fun.

Louie is in the house.

2010-04-12T10:59:00.001-07:00

Tiffani's birthday is this month. She wants a puppy - badly. I've wanted another dog for awhile now. We attempted to pick up a new dog on my birthday. After thinking it over for a few hours we decided that we wanted to go pick him up. We were bummed to hear that he had been adopted in the meantime. The sadness we both felt at missing the opportunity to raise that cute puppy affirmed that we were indeed emotionally prepared for the adventure of puppy-hood. So Saturday, we adopted a dachshund/terrier mix. He's adorable. I took him to the vet this morning and all is well. The vet confirmed that he is indeed a dog, and that he is a healthy one at that. He runs and clumsily falls all the time, annoys Gus and shits the size of his head. I'm sort of beginning to think that half of his body is made up of his bowels. I was up every two hours last night to let him out to pee. It was a bit rainy, but every time we went out, he was quick about it. When we got back inside, he laid down in his crate and went right back to sleep. The dachshund in him has him creeping into the darkest corners of the house. Right now he's under the ottoman grumbling in his sleep.

Gus is nervous. He doesn't know what's happening. He paces and bites harder than usual while playing. I'm really hoping that in the long run, this is good for him. I think he'll get used to it as the routine becomes more, well, rout

ine. In the meantime he's gaining a bit of weight from all the positive reinforcement we're throwing his way. So it goes.

Happy dog

2010-03-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Soda Firing - Kiln Log plus notes

2010-02-25T13:55:00.000-08:00

2-18-10 Soda Firing

NOTES

The kiln was stacked rather densely. 5-6" posts through out the botton and center. A one-inch gap between the shelf columns was maintained. We staggered the height of adjacent shelves with a height differential of at least two three inches. The bag wall was stacked with two large planters, lip to lip, and two large pieces side by side. Replication of this without said large pots could be accomplished by increasing the height of the bag wall approximately 18 inches. Much of the work was unglazed. Some pieces had underglaze decoration. A few pieces were glazed with Shino and a few with Woo Blue II.

The experiment for this firing was the use of a sandblaster to introduce dry soda ash as cone 8 fell. The sandblaster functioned well. Improvement can be made to the container for the soda ash and the hose that draws the material into the gun. The hose tended to move to the side of the bucket and suck air. Perhaps some sort of bell housing at the end of the hose would keep the opening towards the bottom of the bucket.

The soda ash was introduced by sliding the 3' nozzle into the kiln and firing the gun. We varied the depth of the charge by sliding the nozzle back and forth, further into the kiln. In hindsight, this was most likely not productive enough to counter the cost of the effect. By Spraying deep into the firebox, we blasted the far wall with enough pressure and accumulation to create a basketball-sized crater approximately 1/2" deep. An aura of soda residue nearly twice the diameter and not nearly as dramatically eroded was evident surrounding the crater, which I believe is the result of firing soda from far away. This suggests that spraying from far away not only disperses the wear on the firebox, but also allows the hot air to attack and volatize more of the soda ash, more quickly.

We were short on time, so our initial charge was 5lbs. We sprayed and closed the damper to 1/2 for 10 mins to allow the soda ash to circulate and accumulate. After 10 minutes, we opened the damper to full and cleared the ware chamber for 3 minutes before introducing another 3lbs of soda ash. Again we closed the damper for 10 minutes to allow the soda ash to work. After 10 more minutes we cleared the chamber for 3 minutes and sprayed a final 2lbs. At that point the damper was left at full open and we continued to attempt to maintain heat for the last 30 minutes of the firing.

LOG

7am
A small fire was started in the firebox to begin heating the kiln and also to build a coal bed. All ports are closed with the exception of the bottom left mouse hole. The difference between the bottom and the top of the kiln is fluctuating between 100 and 150 degrees - hot on top. The damper is closed to 1/4 at 8am in an attempt to hold a bit of the heat and perhaps even out the ware chamber.

9am
stoking begins at the stoke port. The bottom left mouse hole is closed to 1/2. All other mouse holes are OPENed to 1/2. At 9:30 the propane/PRIMARY ports are opened to 1/2.

10am
The coal bed is lower than we would like. Having so much air from the mouse holes has caused the coals to burn out and/or cool. We noticed a substantial decrease in temperature gain between 10am and 10:30am. From 7am to 10am, we had gained just over 1000 degrees. From 10 to 10:30 the increase was a mere 79 degrees. PRIMARY ports are closed to 1/4 on the left and 1/2 on the right. Mouse holes are closed with the exception of the center hole, which is left at 1/2. At 10:50 the damper is opened to full open, and the center mouse hole is closed. Temperature gain picks up almost immediately. Wood consumption doubles.
By 11am the ware is starting to show some color. PRIMARY air is opened to full.

12:30pm
Damper closed to 1/4 to try to even out the ware chamber. Cone O8 is falling on top and Cone O14 is down on the bottom.

1pm
BioDiesel - the center burner is lit. ((1 pencil lead thickness of fuel // slow drip of water)) Within 20 minutes the right burner was ready to light. ((1 pencil lead of fuel // slow drip of water)) 1:35pm 3rd burner is lit. PRIMARY air is closed to 1/2 on the left.

We made the mistake of slowing everything down during the lighting of the fuel. Stoking should continue as before to maintain and increase temperature gain. During the 35 minutes that it took for us to light the burners, the temperature gained 9 degrees. Yes - 9.
Beware of the flames shooting out of the burner ports when the stoke hole is opened.

1:45pm
Fuel mixture is 1 - 1.5 pencil leads thickness with a fast drip. The increase in water prevented the fuel from creating large amounts of smoke, although temperature gain was modest. Damper is opened to full.

2pm
The ware chamber is mostly even heat. Cone O4 showing soft on the top and the bottom.

3pm
Somehow we caused the kiln to stall. We didn't change anything except crew. Notes indicate a steady stoking pattern of approximately a silver dollar thickness of wood every 10 seconds based on smoke. Coal stirring was happening every 30 -40 minutes, but probably should have happened every 15 -20. Mouse holes are opened to 1/2. Temperature remains constant until 7pm. No gain.

7pm
During the previous four hours, we had noticed that the temperature rose during lags in stoking, for instance while I filled the bio-diesel container, nobody stoked, and the temperature rose nearly 80 degrees during the 5 minutes that I was on the ladder. Frustration was building at this point and with time running short. I opted to shut everything down for a few minutes to collect my thoughts. Burners were shut down. No wood was added. Temperature was 1911 degrees; 40 degrees cooler than at 3pm.

We had been trading off the stoking and it really wasn't consistent for a couple of hours. People were coming and going on the kiln yard and a lot of conversation was happening. When asked if the coal bed had been stirred, we would look at each other for the answer, because we really weren't in sync.

Just after 7, I asked that nobody discuss the pyrometer, or tell me the temperature. I asked one of my teammates to chop wood and the other to take readings and notes on the half hour. I took over the stoking for the remainder of the firing. I began by focusing on the fire itself. When It was bright, I added wood; first to the stoke hole to pre-heat. The door to the hole was left open during the pre-heating. I would throw the whole bundle of wood into the firebox and immediately stir the coals then rearrange the wood in the firebox and load up the stoke hole again. When the fire was clean on the inside of the chamber, I shoved the preheated wood in again and immediately stirred then rearranged. The time between stokes was probably less than 5 minutes but that time was filled with the task of stirring the coals and the firebox to allow as much air circulation as possible. AGAIN I was looking for a bright flame in the firebox and not lingering smoke. By 7:30 I was ready to turn the burners back on, but I did so with trepidation. Rather than turn all three on, I turned on the two outside burners and at a very low setting. ((1 pencil lead thickness // drip)) The burners were left at that setting for the remainder of the firing.

8pm
By 8pm the flames coming from the top of the chimney were righteously active. Cone 5 was softening on top and Cone 8 was down on the bottom.

At 8:30pm Cone 10 was soft on the bottom, but Cone 8 was still standing on top. At this point we began adding soda ash as outlined above.

Once soda introduction began, the rhythm changed. Soda was added at 15 minute intervals while rings were pulled every 10 minutes (since we had more rings than we had time this made sense and occupied the crew)

9:45pm
Cone 11 was completely down on the bottom and Cone 12 was looking dangerous, so we opted to stop the firing. Burners were shut down and all ports were closed. We pulled the last ring and cleaned up the yard. The damper was closed all the way, but when flames began exiting the ware chamber and licking the roof of the shelter I decided to open it as much as was necessary to prevent a catastrophy.

Conclusions

The results of the firing were close to what we expected when we shut down the kiln. The top of the kiln was cooler, while the bottom was hot. Ash build-up on the lower pots was beautiful but ran off the pots and fused many of the wads to the glassy flow of soot, soda and ash. In the center of the ware chamber, the pots were beautiful. Glazes melted, a healthy dose of soda ash was evident and color had developed. The pieces at the top of the kiln were cold and dry. The directionality of the soda and the heat was evident as some pots were juicy on one side and very dry on the other.
In future firings, I believe it would beneficial to add soda ash in smaller increments. The initial 5lb burst was an unfortunate necessity due to lack of time, and the amount of directional accumulation is, at least partially, the result of that. Additionally, if using the sandblaster, it is completely unnecessary to insert the nozzle any deeper than the spray port. As I stated before, I believe that if the nozzle is just barely inserted into the firebox, the soda ash will combust more thoroughly and spread more evenly.

Soda FIring

2010-02-19T00:58:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning with ten minutes to get to campus to fire a kiln. Arrived, fired all day. Stalled at cone 8. 3 hours passed without any temperature gain. Turned everything off and started over. Got part of the kiln up to cone 12 and part of it stayed at cone 8. I'm going to make t shirts that have cone packs where everything is down but 8. Cone 8 has been my nemesis for the last 12 hours. Overall, the firing was enjoyable. We sprayed soda ash into the kiln using a sandblaster. 11 pounds in all. It was dry and we witnessed some very juicy results rather quickly. We fired for a total of 15 hours using wood and bio-diesel as fuel. The kiln will cool slowly and we'll unload on Monday.

After the firing, I got in the jeep and realized that I'd left the lights on for 15 hours. The battery was completely dead. I tried to roll start, but without any luck. My phone was dead and so I had to walk to a nearby business that was open where I asked if I could plug my phone in. I called roadside assistance, who were kind enough to keep me on hold for 24 minutes only to tell me finally that they couldn't find anybody to come help me. It was 11 pm by this time. I called Tiffani, woke her up and she thankfully got out of bed and came to give me a jump. The jeep wouldn't jump so I rolled it to the bottom of the hill and locked it up.

Some ginger tea and a sandwich has me feeling much better. I'm off to bed. I'm so excited for Monday morning's kiln opening. Stay tuned for pictures, unless it's a terrible mess.

Hello 2010

2010-01-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

This year, I decided to skip all of my traditional new years' superstitious activities. I usually keep a few bucks in my pocket overnight, among other things. I almost always have a few resolutions, such as put out a record or ride 2000 miles on my bike. This last year has been a tough one, though and I decided to "wing it" in 2010. No resolutions, no mystical meals, not a single plan.

So far so good! I woke up feeling less sick than yesterday, and spent 6 hours working on the bathroom. I've been sick for what seems like months, so it was tough to spend that long working, but I accomplished a lot. This project, the bathroom, has changed drastically from the time we started to now. Initially, I was just going to shim the shower so that it drained properly. Upon pulling up a bit of the floor to formulate a game plan, I discovered that the floor was completely rotten. I proceeded to pull the linoleum up, strip out the second layer of linoleum that had been glued to a "subfloor" that was sitting on top of a layer of vinyl tile, probably from 1963. Newsflash! - when you trap a piece of wood between two layers of plastic and introduce warm water, bad things happen. So I pulled the entire floor out, layed down a new subfloor, cut the bottom 6 inches of the wall out and replaced it with mold resistant drywall. I layed down a moisture barrier as well as a layer of hardi backer. Tiff painted the walls and now we're ready to tile. We're doing a subway tile with gray grout. We picked up some new stuff, a new sink and cabinet from Ikea. We're pretty excited to have received some christmas cash which is making the project a lot more fun than it could have been. We flirted with the idea of constructing a tile shower, but we decided that it wasn't realistic since classes start again in a few days. Spring break, we'll start work on that.

2009 was a rough year, but it was good too. My Mom got cancer AGAIN. She also received a bone marrow transplant and kicked cancer to the curb. Tiffani and I bought a house. Clearly the best thing about 2009 was the addition of Gus to our family. Who knew we could love a dog so much? My school work took a dive, I spent most of the fall with the flu and rode my bike less than I hope to. My youngest sister lived with us for a few months which turned out to be something of a disaster. Now she's 18 yrs old and on her own. Best of luck to her.

Gotta run to the hardware store for a few supplies. Farewell 2009.

Or, to put it another way. . .

2009-11-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

Riding Bikes

2009-11-18T00:53:00.000-08:00

About 24 miles on the bike today has me realizing that I've been a terrible environmentalist lately and even worse, a non-cyclist. I love my new vehicle. I bought a jeep this summer. I've wanted one since I was probably 6 or 7, when I first saw Terminator. Sarah Conner at the end, in the jeep, having her picture taken ingrained in me that image of a vehicle with no top and no doors and rugged - something you could take anywhere. M.A.S.H. was the next major influence in my love of jeeps. I used to watch it when I was aloud to stay up late. Sometimes in the summer, I had to go to bed at 10 o'clock. I knew it was bedtime when the first lines of the M.A.S.H. theme song came on. I would lie in bed and listen to the dialog, understanding nothing, and wishing that I was sitting next to my dad watching one of his favorite shows. That being said, it's a sorry excuse for spending hundreds of dollars on gas, spewing greenhouse gasses and tearing up any "unimproved" road within sight. Not to mention the mud puddles. . . It feels great to ride. It will not feel quite as great tomorrow when the lactic acid re-introduces itself, but then, that's what recovery rides are all about.

go ride your bike! it's only cold for the first mile.

Forge

2009-11-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

2009-10-31T15:35:00.000-07:00

Brockton, Mass

2009-10-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

Had my years supply of fast food yesterday in Airports. First a quick Wendy's hamburger in the Portland Airport, then after an uneventful flight to Chicago, and a really terribly windy landing, a cheeseburger from McDonalds at the Midway Airport. I had a beer in the airport that was made in Chicago. I think it was called "315". It was wheat-y. The flight to Providence was kind of lame. I was seated next to a family with a baby. I had purchased a copy of Fahrenheit 451 in Portland and I finished it on the takeoff from Providence. Right about the time I finished the book, the dad started snoring next to me. Lame. Luckily I had headphones and a bloody mary. Arrived in Providence, got the car and drove to Brockton. Traffic was bad, but I made it safely to Mike's place. He was up still, which is impressive cause he is a teacher. By the time we both fell asleep at close to 6am, I think he had been up for about 24 hours. A few beers, some good tunes and lots of talking eventually led to a Ramones documentary and some restful sleep.
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Eggs, potatoes, black beans and some veggie sausage with toast for breakfast plus two pints of coffee had us on a motorcycle flying through the autumnal bliss of east coast and 65 degrees. Stopped into the Fuller Craft Museum to try for a sneak at the new Warren MacKenzie exhibit. No luck on a walk through, but we watched as they put up the fonts and set out some of the most beautiful pots I've seen. Most surprising to me was the scale. I didn't realize that some of those pieces are so large. I like big pots, and to me MacKenzie's work seems perfect at any scale, but I was really surprised and delighted to see large beautiful shapes. I wanted very badly to pick them up and turn them around. They really becon the veiwer to interact.
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Scary music and trick or treaters. Horror flicks in an hour. A Yankees win and good company tonight. Fragment sentences and kids in the street. Brockton, Mass.

Not 100%, but whatever

2009-10-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Spent most of the last week feeling crappy. Body aches, sore throat etc. . . Tiffani most definitely had the swine flu. I slept for 15 hours last night and 13 the night before. When I woke up this afternoon, I took my temp and it was a bit under 98.6, so I guess I'm healthy. Problem is, I still feel bad. Oh well, it's time to get on with my life! Just walked Gus around the neighborhood and broke a serious sweat, so I guess I'll be taking it easy.

The show at the MK Gallery is coming down this weekend. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to show some of my work. I think over all the show was a success. I don't think anybody sold anything, but we received a lot of positive feedback.

I mixed up some clay bodies last week in ceramics. I'm going to go to school today for the first time this week and slake them down. I mixed a grolleg porcelain body, a woodfire body and a 50/50 fireclay/ball clay mix. I may have already mentioned this. . . Did I mention my brain isn't working properly? It's not. Now that Gus is walked and I'm exhausted, it's time to head to class. Less than two weeks before I head to Boston for the MacKenzie exhibit. Man, am I excited!

Tuesday is half full

2009-10-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

Woke up late. Gus is about out of food, so he and I made a trip to the pet store for some grub. Next, Tabor for some frolicking on the hillside. He seems a little sad. I think he is fed up with the school, work, art schedule that has me leaving the house around 8:30 am and arriving home around 9:45 pm. I'm pretty sure Tiff is fed up too. Luckily she has Gus, and Gus has her. He still gets to go to the dog park nearly every day to play and poop. I'm going to try out the new max line today. It says online that the trip from my place to campus should take 40 minutes which is 5 minutes less than it takes me on my bike; I'm skeptical.

I've been very busy, the sculpture club budget was due last week. I wrote it up, submitted it and it was accepted! That's pretty exciting news. We've already had our first event of the year, and now it's time for our first meeting, a bowling party. I'm trying to organize a team sculpture competition for the Spring. I'm not sure if I've bitten off more than I can chew here, but it seems daunting.

I'm going to start mixing my own clay. It's expensive to buy premixed clay. I can easily throw more than I can afford. Plus, I'm not super excited about our options at school. Georgies has a few bodies that I've tried and liked, but I think I'm paying mostly for water, and I've got plenty of that falling outside. . . First up will be a very simple mix of Fireclay and Ball clay. It's a combination that Peter Voulkos used at the Bray. He threw big and his forms are spectacular. I hope that the clay body will inspire me, or at least enable me to step it up a bit.

Fall is here, it's cold in Portland. Its raining and very windy. I'm already looking forward to Spring.

All the leaves are brown, leaves are brown

2009-09-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful sunny day in Portland and I'm about to climb into an allergy pill. Sunny and warm and windy as hell. It seems like all of the musty summer goodness has been unearthed and is being shuttled around town by the pesky winds.

Unexpectedly got the day off work. Woke up at 7am to feed Gus and then went back to bed. Slept until 9:45! It's been a nice little morning. So far my duties have included: Pet the dog, drink the coffee, play the guitar and search the internet for information on casting basalt - in order of most to least important.

First day of ceramics was last night. Made a few things, including a tea pot that is part of a group project. This is a first in Kowkie's class. She had us make the parts, and then we'll pick different pieces from different peoples pots and assemble them. I think it's a pretty cool idea. Whatever I end up with, I think I'll try to recreate it for a real project.

This week is the last week of summer before the term starts at PSU. I'm excited to start classes, and a little nervous too. This seasonal transition always hits me a little harder than the others. I remember most vividly this transition when I was a kid. I was always bummed that the light didn't last as long and that the air began to encourage layers. Meh. I'm glad that it's hot this week. One more week of driving in the jeep with the top and doors off, in relative comfort. This week also will see the sculpture club installing our first show at the MK Gallery on campus. I have a piece to include and as the date approaches, I'm noticing that I'm feeling nervous about my contribution. The word "anachronistic" keeps swimming around in my head. I've never shown a piece of sculpture outside of a classroom setting. I'm sure it will be fine. The chances of somebody looking at my work and then hitting or shooting me is pretty slim. It's not that good.

Oh! I think I just heard something. . . yep, it was the dog park calling Gus. I'd better help him out with that.

Saturday camping trip?

2009-09-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

Rolled out of town around noon. Meant to leave much earlier. Picked up Kyle in McMinneville and headed west on a two lane road. Within 20 miles the road was dirt and logging roads split off every couple hundred yards. We took the jeep up into the hills and after a while of driving came upon a puddle that was pretty large. I accelerated into the puddle and made it to the bottom, before water rushed into the cab. It was much deeper than we thought. Managed to keep the engine running and Kelly got out and pushed while I threw it into 4-wheel drive. For a couple minutes, we thought we were going to be there for awhile. With Kelly's help and the 4wd, we got out of the puddle. As I was backing out of it, I saw some plastic floating near the surface. It turns out the water had knocked a bunch of stuff loose under the hood. The jeep kept running though, and we were able to take everything that was hanging, completely off. Made it past the puddle by driving around the edge. It almost pulled me back in to the center. A little while later, covered in mud and feeling pretty excited about things, we decided to head to the beach for a some ocean time. It was sunny and warm on the east side of the mountains but by the time we hit the west side, it was in the 60's. We were still wet from the puddle and the wind was chilly. We stopped in at a roadside bar and had some really fantastic fish. They'd probably caught it earlier that day.

Woke up early this morning pretty groggy. It had rained during the night and we were in for some more cold driving back to Portland. The sun finally came out shortly after we passed Clackamas, 3 miles from home. Fun trip. Short, but fun.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,m,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

2009-09-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

yeah, yeah it's been awhile. Bought a house. Painted a house. Painting a house(not our house) worked a lot. Kayaked not enough. Bought/buying a jeep. Going camping Saturday. Sunburn on the farmer's parts. Listening to music. Sunglasses. Eating out too much. Wishing I had more money. Liking some people that are my friends. Disliking some people that are my friends. Wasting time occasionally. Throwing pots. Sculpture exhibition coming up. Driving two hours every day this week - bleh. Gus is barking a lot in his or my sleep, I can't tell which. Friends are in dire straights, relationship-wise. Other friends have been together a long time and love one another madly. My Mom does not have cancer anymore.

Sunny Friday Homework Avoidance

2009-06-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

I'm presenting a powerpoint Tuesday on clay formation and geological history of the area surrounding Helena, Montana. I'm working on it now, which seems a little paradoxical since I'm blogging. I feel so sleepy when I try to do school work. I wish I was an exercise and movement sciences student. Isn't all of their homework, running in place and punching the air while shouting "YOU CAN DO IT!"?

Tiffani and I looked at a couple homes today. We're in the market. We've made offers on a few houses and none of out offers have been accepted. After only 6 weeks of looking seriously, we're getting to the point where we don't get our hopes up just because we make an offer. I'm trying not to picture the house with the new colors on the walls and our furniture. I'm not imagining my pottery studio out back in the pole barn I intend to build, or deciding which southeast corner of the yard I'm going to build my catenary arch kiln. No, I'm just sitting here avoiding my homework, wondering why Gus insists on sprinting into the laurel out back every time a squirrel runs across a telephone wire. There aren't any telephone wires in the backyard of the house we just made an offer on. There isn't any laurel either. Luckily the person that is flipping the house planted a dead asian pear tree. . . weird, I know. I'll dig it up, first thing. But I'm not doing that this time, imagining all the great memories we'll make in our new home. No, I'm just chillin, waiting until it's late enough to start drinking; cause it's friday!

Gonna kayak the middle fork of the White Salmon river tomorrow. It's solid class III boating. It will be a step up in both Todd's and my paddling skill level, assuming we make it successfully down the river. I'm very excited, the weather should be great and the river is running at runnable levels. Maybe we'll even shoot the waterfall.

Not a bad way to spend a day

2009-06-19T14:52:00.001-07:00

At work today we continued construction on this rock wall. The stones
were harvested from the wall in the background.
Lots of chiseling means lots of hammering, which in turn means lots of
fatigue. The fatigue feels good, though since the payoff is so
immediate. It's cool to see it come together.

Ah the boring life

2009-06-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

I realize I haven't posted anything in awhile. Sorry. I've been boring lately with the exception of a nice little kayaking trip. I rented the parts I don't own and Todd and I headed to the Clackamas. About two thirds of the way down the river I broke my paddle in the middle of a class 3 rapid and had the pleasure of testing my "combat roll". Don't worry, I have a roll. We finished out the day and drank some beers. I'd like to go this weekend, but it looks like I'll be in Seattle. Holla if you'll be there and we can grab a coffee.

peaches

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2009-06-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

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New boat, and cheap!

2009-06-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

Sedation dentistry still sucks

2009-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I skipped work and went to the dentist. It had been awhile since I visited a dentist and I admit that I was terrified. I tried to ride recklessly through every puddle of broken glass on the side of the road, but to my dismay, I arrived safe and sound. They were waiting for me and as I entered the front door, the mailman was taking their outgoing mail. I hoped like hell he would simply toss me in his bag like a rogue letter addressed "return to sender". I walked back to the back and the nurse was very nice. She asked if I was on any medication or whether I had taken an allergy pill that day. I said "no, but I took a 24 hour pill last night, maybe we should post-pone." It turns out that wasn't a problem.

Because it had been so long since my last visit, my mouth was a wreck. I brush every day. I think about dental floss daily. I had 8 cavities. A couple of those were actually old cavities that had bad fillings. Nonetheless, my face feels like a had a fist-fight. The cool thing is that they knocked me out. No, literally I was sedated. I remember vaguely the lovely feeling of sedation traveling up my arm to all the right places, and then I remember clumsily attempting to load my bicycle into the trunk of Tiffani's car, flopping into the front seat and trying to talk. We went to Jamba Juice, cause Tiff said she thought it would hit my spot, but really I think she was craving some comedy. When she handed it to me, not only could I barely hold onto it, but I couldn't get my lips to grasp the straw. You try sucking on anything after both sides of your mouth are shot full of numbing agents. Very confused I flopped down on the couch and slept for what seemed like minutes. The pain in my face is what woke me up. I called the dentist to see if I was aloud to take anything for the pain(thinking advil) and they wrote me a prescription for Vicodin. Tiff brought it to me and I took some, the pain went away and I slept most of the rest of the day. I woke up at some point, had some conversations, played a video game I think and then went to bed. It's all a daze.

Today I managed to wake up in time to go to work, went worked very little on account of having to return some trees to Sauvie Island and went to school. The face still hurts, but I'm dealing alright thanks to my advil substitute.

Half a sunburn

2009-05-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't written a song in months. This is perhaps longer than I've ever gone without something new. I guess I don't have much to say. The thought of playing guitar is not very appealing to me. Some snippets of lines have been gathering in notebooks and sketchbooks, but without an impetus to create I'm finding myself resigned to waiting this dry spell out. I half hope that I'll feel like playing guitar soon. I've even been tossing around the idea of selling a guitar to buy a kayak.

The weather here in Portland is amazing lately. I have half a sunburnt arm. We went kayaking yesterday and I ran out of sunblock after applying it to most of my body. It's pretty burnt and the fact that it's such a small part of my body makes it all the more apparent.

My mom is undergoing the procedure that she has been waiting for. It seems like she's been waiting for so long, but I guess it's only been about 4 months. If all goes well, she'll be healthy and happy in Boise in less than 100 days. That would mean that Leisa gets to go home too. That would make her so happy.

Sunny summer sunshine

2009-05-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

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Kayaking!

2009-05-09T18:30:00.001-07:00

Leisa swam through her first rapid today. We were on the Sandy River at Oxbow Park. It was small and fast. She kept her head when she flipped over. She counted to 15 before she pulled her spray skirt. The T rescue didn't arrive in time and she had some trouble pulling her spray skirt. Once she got out of the boat, she managed to hold on to her boat and paddle. After she managed to get her boat out of the river and collect herself, she had to hike back up to the eddy where the rest of the group was waiting. She was feeling pretty shook up, but she finished out the day.

The weather was fantastic! We got to the river by 9:30 and the sun was shining. I was practicing my high brace and probably 3 minutes after getting into the water I was sitting upside down, slapping the bottom of my boat, waiting for a T rescue. It came, I righted my boat and tried to warm up in the sun. The water was probably 35 degrees. . . Funny thing about kayaking is that when you watch people do it, people that know what they're doing, it looks fluid and effortless, but when you're on the river and paddling it's one way then the other then flipped. The effortless part seems to be the flipping and emptying your boat after it fills with spring run off.

I had the opportunity to roll my boat in the current. I was trying to surf in a hole and managed to flip. I noticed that I wasn't really moving downstream and all the current seemed to be keeping me in place. Rather than wait for the T rescue, I tried to hip snap. First time didn't catch but I opened my eyes and got in position so that the second time I could try a sweep roll. It worked and I righted myself. It felt good to know that I have something in my toolbox for a situation like that. Overall, I'm feeling pretty jazzed about being on the water. I know that I need to spend some serious hours just paddling, but that seems like a positive experience for the near future.

Noseplugs!

2009-05-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

We're headed to the sandy river as part of our kayaking seminar. It's important to practice wearing noseplugs. I've only ever used mine out of the water.
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Seattle is nice so long as you're not in a car.

2009-05-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

We had a fun show on Friday night at Chez Rios. 3 bands, 60 people 850 square feet. Okay, maybe it was a bit larger space, but it felt pretty well attended. We played a sloppy energetic set. I drummed harder than I have in a long time. Tuesday, Leisa and I are starting a whitewater kayaking seminar. I'm really excited. two pool classes and then a river trip, two weeks in a row!

Saturday, Tiff and I dropped Gus off at a friends house and drove to Seattle to visit my Mom. She was feeling pretty down about the possibility of her transplant being delayed yet again. Then early Saturday morning, Mom was admitted to the hospital with some serious stomach pain and dehydration. We arrived safe and sound, despite some really crappy traffic to find Mom and the sisters, boyfriend and a family friend all crammed into a small hospital room. Spirits were a little low, but it was good to be surrounded by family. There was a little concern about the fact that Mom was scheduled to be alone for a few days. That isn't really ok, given her state. Tara and I juggled our schedules and figured out that I can stay until Tuesday and then she can come up and take over until Thursday. Last night after Mom was released from the hospital we went to the grocery store. She isn't supposed to eat anything processed or with skins, or under-ripe, or dairy, or wheat. . . the list goes on. I made her a chicken stock and some carrot ginger soup. I think we're well stocked with safe food for a couple of days. At least we'll have some overlap, so that Tara doesn't have to scramble to present something good to eat as soon as she arrives. Right now we're sitting at the clinic. Mom is completing her insurance paperwork with a Tolstoyan glimmer in her eye, and I'm wondering how she carried that much wood up the hill.

Not sure what the plan is for the rest of the day. We're here at the clinic for another 3 hours. I'll be completing some homework, she'll work on the insurance paperwork and then who knows. Maybe we can find an all male revue for her. That might be fun, for her.

Fw: IMG00039.jpg good morning

2009-05-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

Gus

2009-04-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

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Cold coffee means summer is coming

2009-04-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

Just strained a batch of cold press coffee. It's delicious, I'm having some now. First math test of the term is tomorrow and I'm about half way to being ready for it. Luckily, it's raining so I'm not working, which means I've got 4 extra hours to study today.

I was thinking about changing my course of study to Bachelor of Science, rather than art. The difference would be that I'd take science courses rather than language courses. I would need to take 20 credits of lab science in sequence. If I stay on the BA path, I'm looking at 24 credits of Spanish. I think it's really good for the brain and the world to know other languages, but I'm really having a hard time getting excited about the class. I need to buckle down and do the work, then see how I feel about it.

Leisa and I are taking a whitewater kayaking seminar together. It starts next week. I'm a little bummed that it conflicts with a bronze pour, especially as I just took over responsibilities as "event coordinator" for the sculpture club. I should be there. I'm going to see if I can farm some of the responsibility out for the next couple events. The seminar, however, is guaranteed to be a blast and we get to float two rivers(not sure which).

Gus is doing great. Better each day, with the occasional thick headed naughtiness that makes him such a good all around dog. Lots of personality, good natured and lots of fun. I took him to Delta Park last week. That place is huge. Just fields and fields and paths and streams for him to explore. He made it as far away as 75 yards, but always made sure I was within eyesight.

Tiff and I are looking into buying a house here in Portland. We're pre-qualified for whatever that's worth. Been looking at houses in the 160-180 range, which surprisingly offers quite a variety of homes.

better get to the studying.

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2009-04-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

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SUNSHINE!!!

2009-04-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining and band practice starts in an hour. Gus is in the back yard barking at squirrels. Tiffani is sitting on the couch eating pastries and drinking coffee with our good friend Michelle. Later today I might build a fence. Even later than that, we'll go have cocktails for Tiffani's birthday celebration.

Dave and Tami are in town. We had cocktails last night for his birthday. I forget that people think it's alright to shout "CHUG CHUG CHUG" at the bar. I mean, really? They had a room at the ACE Hotel. That place is awesome.

Yesterday I took Gus for a run on my bicycle. He sometimes freaks out about people on their bikes, but he was just fine. Later, we hit up the dog park, where he was a very good boy.

We weren't able to pour bronze this week after all. I arrived at class on Tuesday to find our investments already poured. Apparently the burnout kiln shut down prematurely and everybody had to scramble to address the situation. We try to pour the bronze when the investments are at our around 500 degrees. If they aren't hot, they'll pop when the hot metal hits them. When the kiln shut down, the investments were in danger of cooling. It's a bad idea to reheat an investment so they just poured them. I was pretty bummed, but they turned out alright.

My Mom had her gall bladder removed yesterday. Really, it just takes up space. That means that her transplant will be delayed - again.

Worn out

2009-04-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

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A day at the park

2009-04-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Gus and I just walked all over the neighborhood, had coffee and hiked up Mt. Tabor. We also spent 45 minutes at the dog park where he did an excellent job of playing nicely and coming when I called him.

Gus and I are definitely figuring some things out about one another. I know that he hasn't had the opportunity to meet a lot of dogs, and because of this, he tends to freak out when he sees dogs across the street. It's been embarrassing to have to restrain my dog on the side of the road while he barks and jumps and whelps, but I can't just let him go. If I were to let him go when he's like that he would probably be injured by the passing cars. The funny thing is, he isn't aggressive towards other dogs. It's like he just can't believe that he's seeing these dogs and absolutely MUST say hello.

We got him from a friend of Leisa's. The previous owner didn't have the time to take him for walks or to socialize him. I'm not even sure how long he was with them. On easter, we were sitting at the table having brunch with some friends and Leisa was talking about how they wished he would run away, and about how they kicked him and threw his food on the floor. They had even locked him out of the house hoping he would leave. I couldn't believe it. I called the guy up immediately and said I'd like to meet this poor dog. I picked him up and brought him to the house. He explored the back yard and I introduced him to our home. Next I walked him to Mt. Tabor dog park and met up with Kelly A. and his dog Harlan. Harlan showed Gus the ropes and they ran around the dog park together, saying hello and sniffing a lot of ass. Surprisingly, Gus wasn't timid. I was concerned that his lack of socialization would have made him fearful of other dogs. Not the case, he wasn't aggressive either. He did really well. I was so surprised and concerned when later, he freaked out when a dog across the street walked past.

He is a bit of a leash puller. I have been pretty serious about making sure he walks beside me and not in front. I bought a gentle leader head harness. It wraps around the base of his skull and has a loop that goes over his nose. When he pulls, it takes all of the pressure off of his chest and places it on his head, which means he stops pulling. I can't believe the difference it makes. Rather than just pulling on the lead, he actually looks around now and seems to enjoy the walks.

He can sit, lay down and shake now. He's so smart, and a bit naughty. Now if I can just keep him off of the couch at night. . .

Gus

2009-04-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

This is our new pal GUS. Full name is Gustav Jesus Jensen-Davis. He was an easter miracle. He's mostly black lab. Might have some pointer in him. . . He's a good dog that hasn't been in the best situation up 'til now. We're hoping he'll be happy with us, and we're hoping we'll get used to the allergies soon. He doesn't poop or pee in the house! He is a squirrel chaser, but I think we can deal with that. If anybody wants to help me patch holes in the fence out back, lemme know. Cheers!

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2009-04-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

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Wired bike party at the park

2009-04-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

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2009-04-05T00:41:00.000-07:00

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Spring

2009-04-04T10:18:00.000-07:00

We had a great week for spring. Started off by visiting my mom in Seattle. She bought us a really nice hotel room for my birthday. It had a view of Union Lake and the Space Needle. It was really nice. We had a short and very dramatic scare when my mom decided to pass a gall stone. Called 911, watched my mom writhe in pain. . . pretty lame. Luckily she started feeling better within minutes and we played poker. After Seattle, we came back to Portland for a short night in our own bed before driving to Sunriver. Sunriver is a little community that draws predominantly white middle class tourists. It's about 20 minutes outside of Bend and has a golf course and overpriced stores and boating opportunities. It's a pretty nice little place to visit for a couple of days. Sarah and Kelly were our partners in crime along with their awesome dogs. We stayed for two nights and visited some cool caves, rode bikes, ate good food and sat in the hot tub. It was very relaxing despite the fact that Kelly and I pretty much waited hand and foot on the ladies.

Now Spring Term is one week shorter. I've got a 17 credit load and am dissapointed to be missing out on a Ceramics class. It just wouldn't fit into my schedule. This term it's sculpture, math, spanish, pop culture studies and rock climbing. I'm excited to pour bronze three times! Also I am planning on participating in a kayaking seminar in May. Should be great. Oh! It's 10:30, gotta get a move on. Band practice in half an hour and I've neglected my coffee. . .

Snippet

2009-03-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

We're enjoying Spring Break! Spent a few days in Seattle for my mom's birthday. Leaving for three days in Sunriver in just minutes. . . Cheers!

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2009-03-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

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30

2009-03-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

Al was kind enough to inform me that my brain activity actually started to decline at 27. Thank goodness I didn't realize it then! He also have me this lovely gift which I intend to sample immediately.
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AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

2009-03-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

Here in a few hours I'll pick my little sister up from school and drop her off at the airport so that she can visit her scum-bag-dope-peddling boyfriend before traveling to Mexico with a friend and said friend's family. I don't know why, but she seems to pick the lamest friends. They're "funny and sweet and nice" according to her. They also get their families evicted from their houses, get sent to other states to finish high school because they can't get their shit together and they drop out of high school to sell pot from their mother's couches. I don't understand why she makes those choices; she's otherwise very bright, witty as hell, emotionally stable(a miracle in my family) and fun to be around.

I dropped Tiffani's car off this morning to have the bumper, I cracked, replaced. I Just got a call saying it was going to coast $60 more to fix because I'm missing a piece of impact foam. If I can sculpt an Crank Brothers Eggbeater bicycle pedal out of foam at 8X it's normal size, I think I could sculpt a piece of impact foam. Furthermore, I could do it for less than $60. However, if I did, I'd call it art and sell it for 10X that amount. . . Topsy turvy topsy turvy.

Guy at the coffee shop is eating a bagel and reading High Times. I'm surrounded by stoners and drunks. Just now I exited a city bus 60 blocks prior to arriving at my destination. The cause: two drunk guys that smelled so terrible, were so dirty they had a sheen and (i think) had just pissed themselves as a joke. Seriously, douche number one says, "give it a squeeze" holding his finger out for douche number two, who laughes hysterically but sounds more liking he's suffocating. He squeezes the guys finger and almost instantly the bus is filled with a considerably more pungent cloud of slimy scent. Not a flatulence smell, but rather a urine smell. I pulled the cable to exit just as 19 or 20 other people reached for the cord or their noses. As I shoved my way out the back door, los dos douches exited the front, wheezing. Behind me, as I headed towards the coffee shop, I overheard one of them say something about getting another bottle of wine. I'm assuming it was MD2020 or Thunderbird. How awesome if they were drinking Pinot Noir.

2009-03-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

So, the song I was talking about is finished and has been submitted, mastered and burned to a disc, then given to Dan Jones for his 40th birthday. A bunch of us were fortunate enough to have been invited to participate in this awesome birthday surprise. Saturday night we all descended upon the Wandering Goat in Eugene. Dan knew that he was having a birthday party, but not that he was going to witness a bunch of friends playing his songs. It was a really great night. There was delicious beer and food along with a lot of really great songs played by people that really love that guy. My favorite of the night was most definitely Brian's and Kelley's family band "Orson Wales", rendition of Walking Blue. It was so earnest and beautiful. I am pretty sure most people thought it was the "best" song of the night. Brian played Vibes and Kelley sang and played the shaker. Overall the night was a tremendous success and ended with a drunken jam session.

Sunday, I awoke to find that Tiffani had successfully navigated and piloted our vehicle to Portland in the night. I rushed to the studio to complete my sculpture final and finished just before the studio closed. That meant that I had Monday to work, study and catch up on some cheesy television via the internet. Finals week is nice when I'm feeling prepared. No class, except for finals and I get to sell a bunch of books back, which means maybe I can buy Tiffani something nice for my birthday.

On that note, I had better get to campus for my first final.

Fried chicken

2009-03-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

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Wood fire! ! !

2009-03-07T04:54:00.000-08:00

It's 5 am and I just returned home after a shift firing the wood kiln at school. It was fairly uneventful, unlike two years ago. That time, I was just finishing my shift. I went to throw one more log into the firebox, and as I let go of it, I heard a very definite "clunk". Not a sound I was hoping to hear. As I peered into the firebox, my heart sank as I realized I was looking at the ceiling slowly collapsing. We were at or around Cone 6 Which is well over 2000 degrees, but trying to get to Cone 10 (2350ish). With a bit of panic and a fair amount of pragmatic dynamism we formulated a plan to prop the ceiling with a piece of very heavy duty angle iron, while two of us used Raku tongs to remove all of the firebrick on top of the firebox. After removing the firebrick, we replaced the kiln shelf that acted as a ceiling for the firebox, and replaced the firebrick. This all took place in about 20 minutes. I remember at one point looking down at my shirt, through sweat dropping off of my brow, and wondering if my smoking shirt and pants might catch fire. When we finished, we checked the temperature and were heartbroken to realize that we had lost over 200 degrees in the ware chamber. The heavy duty angle iron we had used to prop the ceiling which had been straight as an arrow initially, was now shaped like a banana and bloody red hot! The temperature loss in the ware chamber was later exacerbated by the fact that in rebuilding the firebox ceiling and roof, we had lowered the temperature of that space significantly! The firebox at the beginning of the ordeal was probably over 2300 degrees and when we finished it was most likely 1500. . . Bummer, seriously. We ended up taking all of the work out of that kiln with crusty half fired glaze, flaking off, ash encrusted but unmelted and loading it into a gas fired kiln. The end result was not what we were hoping for but offered some decent surfaces. My work then was so bad. Talk about some ugly handles! It's funny to think that I've gotten so much more comfortable and confident in my throwing in such a short time. Two years from now, I'll be blogging about how silly my work is now. Such is life, right? BTW, I've got some work from the kiln here at the house. It is glazed in my celadon -ish glaze which is based on Leach's 1234 celadon. I talked about this a bit before and my tests turned out pretty good. I ended up using a base as described before with Neph Sy as the feldspar. The glaze doesn't have the timeless luscious soft stone look of chinese celadons, but it is a very classy crackly greenish transparent glaze that I'm positive I'll call juvenile in two years. I'm going to post the pieces on ETSY, which is a online art and craft sales venue. It's very cheap to post items for sale and they take a very small commission from sales. It will take me a couple of days, but they'll be there. If you would like to purchase some pottery that I've made, I'll donate all of the proceeds to a few different cancer fighting charities. I won't even keep the cost of clay.

Oh yeah, when I left the kiln, we were looking at Cone 11 down on top and cone 11 soft on bottom! In english, this means that the firing was a success as far as temperature goes. I was stoking twigs and small rounds in 6 inch diameter handfuls as fast as I could organize them into a stoke-able unit. I based my pace from watching fingers of flame escaping from just above the heat-swollen arch. I subsidized my handfuls with split lumber whenever necessary. When those fingers turned to jazz hands, I surrendered subsidy. My goal in adding the twigs and small rounds(1 - 2 inches) was to create a reduction atmosphere(lack of oxygen in a kiln affects the color of glazes as well as the color of the clay body) as well as get some sustaining heat. We stirred the coals every thirty minutes in order to release ash into the ware chamber. We checked rings every 3 hours and when I left we had a very delightful astroglide(think of the sexy swimsuit models in sports illustrated) sheen(rings are literally rings of clay which are pulled from the hot kiln to assess the quality of ash buildup - ash travels from the firebox to the ware chamber and covers the pots, then melts and forms a glaze). Cones(indicate temperature) were checked hourly so that we might figure out what our ramps looked like(ramp = rate of heat increase).

I messed up. I didn't actually load any of my own work into this kiln! I was joking about this tonight. This is the third firing I've worked without having any work in the kiln! Bummer. I'm totally entitled and invited to load work. I have, probably 30 pieces of bisque-ware sitting ready, but I dropped the ball on getting it loaded. . . What a douche I can be. C'est la vie right? Is that french? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I should let you know that the recording from last post turned out pretty good and while the purpose of said recording must be veiled in secrecy in case a very specific individual ever reads this blog(unlikely), I look forward to mixing the recordings on Tuesday. If you want to hear and know, what this is about, drop me a line at my email address and I'll send you an explanation and a copy of the song I recorded. I didn't write the song and it's a great song. I did not butcher it too badly. At least the drumming and bass playing is great! Brian and Rob helped out there.

Jesus, it's 5:35 and I'm exhausted! Did I mention that, now I've been awake for 23 hours? It's true. I'd better grab some beauty sleep so Tiffani can stand to look at me tomorrow.

Cheers

-oh yeah, check back for a link to my etsy page and help me defeat cancer for people everywhere!

Trouble sleeping and motivating, but good things are on the way

2009-03-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

It's a very busy time, and for some reason I'm feeling an acute lack of motivation. I studied today for a couple hours. Did some light(very light) cleaning and am getting ready to head to not one, but two studios. The pottery studio should have some work for me to pick up, assuming the kiln has been unloaded. I tried to unload it on Saturday but it was still about 600 degrees when I got there. After I check in there, I'm headed to the recording studio to lay down some tracks. That might be really fun. I'm having trouble sleeping at night and having a hard time waking up when I do sleep. It was going so well for about a week. Now I'm listening to a recording of Naum Gabo, Constructivist Sculptor, reading from his "Realistic Manifesto". What a weirdo. I like his work.

I'm excited for the wood firing at PCC this weekend. I've got a Saturday shift from midnight to 5am. I like the late shifts. Something about chopping wood and stoking the kiln in the still of the night is a good thing. I have some pieces for the kiln and hope it all goes well. I've worked 3 wood fires at PCC and not one has reached cone 10. I have been told that they managed to rebuild the kiln and it has been getting great results.

There is a Anagama kiln in Astoria and there will be a workshop there in April. I'm trying to figure out how I can attend the workshop and miss a week of school and work. . . It's not really a reasonable thing.

I guess that's it for now, I'd better hit the road to avoid a bit of the traffic.

Cheers

Golf

2009-02-25T01:06:00.000-08:00

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Good Friday

2009-02-20T18:39:00.000-08:00

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Turn off the T.V. and burn the newspapers

2009-02-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

so the stimulus package has passed. It's not what the president asked for, but it's huge. According to OPB, the rest of the world is pissed at America because our financial turmoil is indicative of a larger problem and nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that they are also in the shit pool. Everybody is blaming the U.S. for this very serious problem.

What a mess. Bush delivered us to the precipice and laughed his way back to Texas. Here we sit, waiting for somebody to take the initiative on getting us near a solution. Obama can do it, but right now everybody is so tense.

The other day, I was told that my sculpture is anachronistic. I want to be a potter. In this day and age, how is it possible that wanting to be a craftsman could be anything but out of time? Arrghh.

More Glazes, and New Band and an update

2009-02-12T11:44:00.001-08:00

I mixed up a base glaze of 1 part clay, 2 parts whiting, 3 parts silica and 4 parts feldspar last night. The simple formula is one that Bernard Leach used a lot and talks about in A Potter's Book. For those that don't know who Leach is, he was a Englishman who travelled to Japan in the early part of last century to study, became enamoured with pottery and devoted the rest of his life to it. He is perhaps the most influential potter the west has ever had. A Potter's Book, is one of the most widely read sources on pottery as a business and a way of life. He became lifelong friends with Shoji Hamada, a Japanese National Treasure, and contributed to, or had an opinion on every movement in clay until his death in 1979. His pottery at St. Ives was a destination for many up and coming potters, who would work in some capacity for varying lengths of time. Warren MacKenzie, one of my favorite potters, was one of those up and comers. Which reminds me that MacKenzie is having a show next year! In Brockton, Mass.

Now that I've meandered all through a very vague history of what informed my decision to use that particular formula, I will continue: After mixing the base glazes using different feldspars for each test, I applied the glaze to test tiles. I should note that I used Custer, Kona F4, Neph Syn, and Cornwall Stone. After coating all the tiles, I realized I hadn't added any Iron! I was trying to determine the effects of different feldspars in a Celadon. AHHH! So. . . I'm excited to see how my different base glazes turn out, sans iron. I'm going to call whichever base I like best, "my sans celadon". Embarrassing.

After class, I went to Dantes and caught a new band. Friends of mine including Dori, Jason Medina and Garrett, are in a new band called Trial Balloons. They sound like a mixture of 60's naivety and Scandinavian good taste in design. The songs are composed of long meandering guitar lines, solid and interesting bass, very good drumming and keyboards along with some damn fine singing thanks to Dori.

I visited my Mom this last weekend. She was in the hospital in Seattle. She had a lot of family around and seemed to be in good spirits, although she was a little sad after finding out that she definitely has to have at least another round of Chemo before she can begin the new treatment. We're looking at over a month before she can even begin the treatment she went there to receive. The great news is that I feel really good about the hospital she's at. The nurses are very nice, thorough and communicate with one another. Already they've surpassed the previous hospital in terms of knowledge, organization and communication. At one point a nurse came in and was just in the room. She could have come in, done her work and left, but she made a point of spending a few minutes just being present. It sounds strange, but that meant a lot to me. Thinking of my Mom there alone on those nights when nobody can be there, is sad, but knowing that the men and women that are there to help her get better understand how important it is to just be present is a small, very necessary source of relief.

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2009-02-07T18:15:00.000-08:00

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Planter

2009-02-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

Worked for almost 6 hours in the studio yesterday. I am still having my ass handed to me by porcelain. It's so great when it's fired and at leather hard, it can be incised with designs so easily, but it can be so finicky on the wheel. I realize that there are other porcelains that might be easier to throw with, but I've got to use what I already have.

5 1/2 hours of studio time and I used a little more than 75 lbs of clay. I'm trying to get up to speed with Isaac Button, who would use a ton of clay per day. Yes, a ton - literally. He was making identical pots too. I still have a long way to go before that happens.

One of my goals this term is to throw big, > 25 lbs. The pot below is my first attempt. It's a bag of dark brown clay. Lots of sand and pretty stiff. I pulled the walls alright except for about two thirds of the way up. I always seem to get a thin spot just below the lip. When I cut this in half, sure enough, there it was, quarter of an inch all the way up except for three inches below the lip. I tried a couple more times with similar results. I'm not sure what to do with the form once I get it into a cylinder. I wonder if I shouldn't leave it a bit thicker.

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2009-02-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

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This Week: Porcelain, sculpture, line blends and lots of mugs

2009-01-31T19:14:00.000-08:00

It has been a bit of a crazy week. I have felt a little sick and missed some class. I didn't have a lot of work this week due to finals at the high schools. I read Clay and Glazes for the Potter by Daniel Rhodes. It's a good resource with a ton of information. I mixed up a base glaze Thursday and did a line blend using cobalt and manganese. I'm hoping to find a decent purple glaze that isn't shiny or flat looking. Somewhere in the middle at cone 1o; interesting and engaging, yet purple. Who knows if that is even possible. I don't like purple blinds or couches much less purple pots, so I think this could be a good exercise. I used a matte base glaze which is very high in alumina. I'm excited to see the results.

Today I went to the studio and finished up a piece for my sculpture class. It's a mixed media piece. I need to pick up some lumber and glue to create the large wood portion of the sculpture. Tonight I'm watching a burnout kiln at the foundry at PSU. I'm not sure why we watch the kiln overnight, but 2am to 10am that's where I'll be. Maybe I can get some welding done! I've got a whole bunch of mugs to glaze as soon as I do some more glaze tests. I want to find a white glaze that is translucent, flashes black in specks and doesn't run. . . I had better shoot for a nap.

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Porcelain, life-flight, Obama and America

2009-01-21T22:39:00.001-08:00

Leisa and I picked up some porcelain at Georgies yesterday. I took 50 lbs of it to the studio today to give it a go. I made 24 oz balls out of a bag(25lbs) and began throwing. After almost 45 minutes, I had 7 poorly thrown cylinders, and 13 lbs of failed attempts. It turns out porcelain doesn't like to be manhandled. I wedged the 13 lbs back into airless shape and let it rest for a bit before revisiting. In the meantime, Kowkie gave a pretty good demo on spouts and showed me how she works with porcelain. She has a much more cooperative and deliberate approach. She reminded me that a predetermined course of action goes a long way with porcelain. It's so soft that when you change your mind about something mid pot, you've got your work cut out.

We're working on applying for a variance for Leisa. That means she might be able to attend David Douglas High instead of Marshall. She's excited at the prospect of attending there. She's interested in Ceramics, which makes me happy. DDHS has a really great program.

My Mom was life-flighted to Seattle on Monday. She is now undergoing treatment for her cancer. I hate cancer. Not as much as she hates it, but a lot.

The inaugeration yesterday blew my mind. I listened to President Obama and was overwhelmed with hope and joy. I realize that it is a very tough time, and that this uphill battle in America cannot be an easy obstacle for the country, but I really feel like if anybody can inspire us to take the necessary steps, it is him. With that in mind, I signed up for the Worst Day Of The Year Ride. It's a simple indirect thing. I feel like encouraging and supporting a charity that advocates for alternative transportation options is a small way of contributing to the country's well being. A lot of people are struggling in this country. I'm not rich and I certainly don't have my shit together in many ways, but I do have a bit of time and with that in mind, I'm looking for ways to help. If you have anything in mind, holla.

Long time coming.

2009-01-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

After nearly two years, I've finally manufactured a crankshaft for my treadle wheel.
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3am, still awake. . .

2009-01-08T03:08:00.001-08:00

It's just after 3am and my mind seems like it's hooked up to a car battery.

Went to bed 4 hours ago and took my art history book. After quite a few pages, I had to stop because my mind was wandering. A few minutes later I picked it back up and again I had to stop.

I have to submit my term proposals for both Ceramics and Sculpture on Monday and I keep thinking about all the things I would like to accomplish. I was thinking I might get off easy in the Ceramics class because I'm taking it just for kicks, but Kowkie, my instructor is really challenging me. K has been around since I started school. She was the lab tech in the Ceramics studio during my first term. I ended up taking my work study hours in that studio, so we spent a fair amount of time together. I asked a lot of questions and she generally answered them without getting too annoyed. She is a very good potter, with a cool style and a firm grasp on the balance between good art and social commentary. Richard Notkin said once at a luncheon, "Don't count on the commentary to carry the piece. It won't." K seems to understand that. Her commentary is concise and the forms are comfortable and engaging. She has been a big influence on me. Now that she's teaching in this class, I get to see a different side of her. It's also very interesting to hear and see yet another point of view and process for doing the things we do with clay.

Sculpture is pretty open ended this term, with the requirement that we have to present a term plan and cubic drawings of our proposals. A cubic drawing is a 6 sided drawing of an object. If you fold it into a cube, it should give you an idea of what a sculpture would look like from any side. This can be difficult to do. Sometimes my brain gets stuck on certain sides. The front is always the first thing I think of. At some point that should go away and it will seem more natural to think in terms of three dimensions all at once. That is my hope. I'm thinking about incorporating wood into one of my projects this term. I have some sketches that I've been working on. Now it's just a matter of planning and realizing them. The class is Sculpture/Welding, as in sculpting with steel. Emphasis on Sculpture, but also on Welding. . . Hard to weld wood.

The bad news and the new year

2009-01-05T10:58:00.001-08:00

I am taking a ceramics class at PCC this term. I had to sign up for the beginner class, since it fit my schedule, which means no credit, but really I just want access to the kilns. I'm not sure what my focus will be this term. I was thinking about soda firing if the kiln is up and running. There were some problems with getting to temperature last winter. I feel like I should try to incorporate more of my sculptural ideas into my clay work, which is generally more functional in nature. It can be difficult to get out there in a beginning class setting. Experimental firings are hard to come by when you have to conform to certain rules set in place to facilitate safety and consistency. I've been inspired lately by the work of Brian Harper and Adam Welch. both of whom have a very rustic and aggressive style. The quality of their surfaces makes me weak in the knees.

After a couple days of really feeling bad, I'm preparing to leave for the first day of winter term. I visited Boise for about a week and while it should have been a fun trip, it was a little lackluster. Tiffani contracted stomach flu and was throwing up every 45 minutes for about two whole days. When we got back, it was still cold in Portland. Rang in the New Year at the Gardiner's house which was nice. This weekend I had the good fortune to play music with my old friend Dan McClure and a Valiant Arms practice to boot. We were given a bed frame and treated to an art opening by none other than Diane Rios. Also showing at that same art opening was Noelle McClure. The show is a collection of old and new prints by two very talented printmakers. Following the opening we had dinner with friends and Tiffani drank a lot of wine.

Unfortunately, while all of these wonderful things have been happening, I've been worrying about my Mother. She has cancer again. The doctors are trying to send her to Seattle for treatment, since it is essentially the place to go to beat cancer.

I have a 17 year old sister who would be mostly alone if my Mom leaves town, so it's looking like we'll be inviting her into our home. We've been sorting out details and planning for getting her registered at the closest high school, finding bedroom furniture and preparing mentally for the addition of some major responsibility. I'm excited to have her here and think it's the best idea. Nobody should be forced to address having a sick mother without the support of siblings.

The residue of my mother's recovery remains in the days before the new year while the ugly head of it's relapse stares into 2009. As a family we stare back at it with a violent disgust or a quiet resignation to win again. My mother's rage is evident in her voice as she tells me about absentminded doctors and the lack of a healthcare system that could save her life without crippling her financially. I'm not even sure what to say.

Jamie

2009-01-01T00:17:00.000-08:00

Bloggerriffick
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Pictures from Boise

2008-12-28T13:51:00.000-08:00

We call this old man, my Granpa. I think he's my mother's father.

These two freaks are my younger sisters. They get their looks from their fathers. They're probably embarrased.

Enjoy!!!!!

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2008-12-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

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So close to leaving Portland

2008-12-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

Having had many flights cancelled and rebooked and cancelled again, then rebooked the Portland airport feels like a bad wine hangover. Like somebody frozen and thawed over and over again. The vacuous parking lots covered in snowy slush and ten foot high piles of snow plow pileup along the runways, suggest an organism scrambling to get it's shit together. But people are relieved, smiling a little and generally feeling like they might just make it out of here. We were in line for over an hour, and a woman fell over. Folks didn't know when they could approach the kiosks and the people behind the counter seemed happy just to avoid being shouted at for the first time in days.

It's Christmas, and we're ready to board our flight. Being stuck in the house for a few days, with Tiff and my sister, who also has been delayed in returning home, is an opportunity to reflect and remember why I am with Tiff. We get annoyed with one another, yell a little bit, never really feeling mean and in the end it turns out that we still like each other - even when we're trapped in the house for a week.

We did venture out after our friends lent us some chains for the car. Driving around in the snow is so much fun. It's too bad that Tiffani hates being in the car in the snow, cause I can pull some serious cookies when allowed. We had a nice little gift exchange last night and I received some new clothes. I always get clothes, even when I want motorcycles and bike parts and video games. . . I do like the clothes.

2008 was a good year, my Mom beat Cancer. I started at PSU and passed a very difficult Japanese class. Tiffani has been very fit and happy, and I avoided death on the Hawthorne Bridge.

It's snowing a lot right now, and everybody is sort of staring out the windows of the airport at the flakes with a laser glare. Maybe if we all hate those flakes enough, they'll melt and we'll make it out of here.

Cancelled. . .

2008-12-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

Yep, looks like we're staying home for awhile longer.
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Snow!

2008-12-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to be headed to Boise this morning at 8am. Our flight was cancelled, and luckily we found out yesterday. We were able to book tickets on the flight today that leaves at 4:15. Our car is frozen solid. My truck is buried under drift and it looks like we're walking to the bus stop. I am so glad that it's only 4 blocks. We don't have snow clothes, or boots and the suitcase that Tiff is packing is 3ft X 5ft X 1ft! I don't know why we need so much stuff in Boise, but I guess all of our families' gifts are in there. The folks on the news keep saying the same thing, which is basically that it's cold. All Southwest flights before 2:45 are cancelled. I sure hope we get out of town today! Hopefully my next post will be from Boise!

Damn you Orson, damn you!

2008-12-18T15:10:00.000-08:00

I just watched Orson Welles' version of The Trial. It seems that shitty movie versions of great stories is nothing new. I hate this movie. You cannot change the ending of a story like this for the film adaptation without doing a disservice to the origin. GRRR! This is one of my favorite books. They added all this sexy bullshit and then change the personality of the main character and then the ending is a complete fabrication. Oh well. Not even the birthday is right!

I've taken another snow day and I'm hoping tomorrow is the same. I slept late today and had steak and eggs for breakfast along with coffee nudges and this movie, which I've been trying to make it through for a couple days. I haven't ridden my bike in over a week and I'm thinking that I might have lost the skill. . .

Cold Weather Update

2008-12-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

The freeze is here, and I don't need to talk about it aside from saying that I am thankful that I had a hundred pounds of sand in the car today. After work I was not going to make it out of the parking lot due to the ice. I poured that sand all over and made it out no sweat.

Been holed up watching bad movies, worse TV and eating what we have left in the house. Listening to a lot of cold weather music. Low, Bon Iver and the 1st Testface record. Good stuff all of it. Brrr. School was cancelled yesterday on account of the snow and it's looking like it might be cancelled Thursday and Friday. I don't especially need to go to work tomorrow either. I've read everything I have in the house and I haven't ridden my bike in a week. I gotta say, I'm feeling shut in. So it goes. Time for some hot chocolate. Stay warm out there.

Work?

2008-12-12T11:28:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it feels like my job is a complete waste of time. Sometimes it's great. Right now I'm standing in the hall to avoid being a disruption. In my youth I did this a lot, but because I was asked too.
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End of the term

2008-12-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

Yay
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Death in installments. Three payments made.

2008-12-05T11:52:00.001-08:00

I nearly died yesterday on my way home from school. I was riding my bike, approaching the Hawthorne bridge behind a "real cyclist", meaning he was wearing spandex, or lycra. . . As we approached the bridge, I looked up ahead and noticed that there was a man and his two sons walking our way. There was a lot of foot traffic in addition to the man and boys. We slowed as we made it up on to the bridge and were cruising along, when I looked past the cyclist to check where the boys were. They were probably 3 and 4 years old, so when I didn't see one of them, I thought to myself, "that's strange I could have sworn there were two kids with that dude." It couldn't have taken a whole second. When I looked back at the cyclist in front of me, he was stopped.

The Hawthorne bridge is a steel mesh bridge with nice wide concrete bicycle/pedestrian paths on each side. The concrete path is about 12 inches above the surface of the road way. This keeps the cars off the path, but it doesn't keep the people off the road.

When I realized the cyclist had stopped in front of me, I locked up my back wheel and hit my brake. Unfortunately, I was already too close to him and had to veer slightly to either side to avoid a collision. Worried about the boys, I turned left and ended up on the roadway. It all happened so fast, that I'm amazed so much went through my head. First I was worried that he had hit the kids, which was why he stopped so fast. Then I was concerned about running into his bike because it was much nicer than mine. Third I thought to myself, I'm glad I have a brake, because otherwise, I would be that douche bag on a bike without brakes that can't stop. The funniest part is that the fourth thing I thought, as I was headed into the roadway, was "fuck, I hope it's a small car right there when I land and not a cement truck." I might have thought "dump truck" I know the image in my head was a large vehicle. It wasn't a panicked sort of worry, but more of a resignation to the possibility that I might be in serious trouble.

The other time I've felt this sense of calm is when I was on tour once, and lost control of my car on a truly treacherous stretch of highway in North Dakota. I ended up looking out the driver side window at the headlights of a semi truck carrying a load of pigs, though it could have been some other livestock. This time like that time, I managed to somehow avoid death or serious injury.

The cyclist hadn't hit the boys, and just rode away. The kids were being scolded by their father for jumping in front of the him. The cyclists behind me rode away. The woman in the red toyota who had just screeched to a halt just inches from me. Covered her mouth and hyperventilated while I walked back over to the sidewalk. The two teenage boys that had been standing on the bridge right where it all happened looked like they might have shit their pants. The woman started her car, which had stalled from her slamming both feet on the brake and not deploying the clutch, and drove away. I rode home in a state of shock.

sheesh! That was crazy.

2008-12-03T00:14:00.001-08:00

Tonight we invested! No, not in the failing stock market, or our futures, or in love; we invested in plaster. In fact it was roughly equal parts plaster, water and sand. The funny part for me, was when I decided to attempt to invest not one, but twenty pieces in a single investment. Another part that I thought was funny, was when after attempting to coat the inside seams of my investment with plaster, I splashed my wax forms and my professor says something along the lines of "oh shit, don't get plaster on the wax! it's going to be another hour before we actually invest the wax and that plaster will have set before the next plaster is poured." my translation: "oh shit, you just fucked up!" Here, I back up a bit. I thought it would be interesting to attempt a direct style pour in a trough system. The idea is to gate four pieces to a 1" bar so that we can pour bronze into the trough and it will flow into each piece. Then I thought, "why not put them all in one investment? Won't that save time, material and heartache?" So the irony, for me, is that after deciding to do something that very possibly might not work, and risking a waste of probably 8 weeks of work, I messed up in the early stage of a very technical process in a way that could very well have been prevented if my professor had ever done this sort of thing. So I'm a little bummed out, especially because I weighed the wax today for each of my pieces. Before I say what the weight of the wax is, I should mention a few things. 1lb of wax is equal to roughly 10lbs of bronze. We pay $8 per pound, which covers the cost of the investment, the wax and the metal. My wax figures weigh nearly 5lbs. I still have to cast 8 more pawns, 2 queens and 2 kings. So, yes if you've done the math, I'm already on the hook for nearly $400 in material costs without including the rest of the pieces. Including those pieces, I'm looking at nearly $600 in materials. I could pay off a credit card with that kind of money! SO if you know anybody that wants to buy a $1000 chess set that weighs roughly 200lbs(did I mention that the board is made of steel concrete and a tree stump?) Oh, but the board might have termites. . . I'll replace the board if that turns out to be true, hopefully before they eat through your floors. . .

The investing process was really exciting. It was right up my alley. It was sort of like being behind the bar on a thursday night in a college town. Everybody had to be on, everybody had a job and everybody had something to gain by doing a good job. We were divided into groups and assigned to specific areas of the process. Time was of the essence so one person mixed the plaster while one group measured and provided the water, one group measured and provided the plaster and one group measured and provided the sand. A duo poured the mixture into forms constructed of chicken wire and tar paper. I was on the sand group. Out of all the groups, people would defect to maintain their piece during the process; as the plaster set, they had to hold their piece at the right depth in the plaster. Since I did twenty in one, we poured mine first and unlike everybody else, I didn't need to hold my piece at the proper depth(we invested it upside down). This meant that when we discovered that the mixture was setting very very slowly, I found myself hustling to fill 5 gallon buckets with sand, water and plaster while many in the class were stuck to their pieces. I was wearing a dust mask and sweating. Can I just say that panting into a dust mask is incredibly unpleasant. You know that thing you do when somebody attractive walks into the room? You breathe into your hand and try to determine whether you breath is offensive? As if halitosis would be so dull as to be discovered in the palm of one's hand. . . Well, panting into a dust mask reveals the nuance of one's halitosis. That's all, it's late. $1000 chess set.

Gated and ready to invest

2008-12-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

These will all be "direct pour"-ed. Fun stuff. Guess i'll have to finish the pieces next term. The final is Thursday.
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2008-12-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

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Design homework

2008-12-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

Been working on a styrofoam eggbeater for a couple days. Today we'll cost it with a super fine resin then paint it. The idea was to magnify an object which had dimensions of less than 8x8x8. This is 8 times it's original size. It measures 32 inches tall.
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Michelle, America's Bell

2008-11-28T00:07:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, but what I want to recognize is this; Jay Leno is a rerun tonight and the guest is Michelle Obama. The episode is from about a week before the election and they're talking about campaigning and issues. I don't usually watch Jay Leno; I'm more of a David Letterman guy. Seeing this episode and hearing Mrs. Obama speak, I am so impressed with her intelligence and charisma. She understands the issues in a way that seems so obviously necessary. She reminds me of Mrs. Clinton in the sense that she could very well be as capable of commanding the office as much as she is of providing the necessary support a successful presidency requires. She is articulate! She is brilliant! Mrs. Obama will lead America along side our President; I believe this to be true, and I look forward to her contribution!

I thought initially that Clinton was the best choice for the office because of her intelligence, experience and her spouse and his experience. Now, I'm convinced that the Obama family is the better choice because both Obamas are brilliant, the children will add a sense of innocence and spontaneity to the white house, and as a family the Obamas have so much to offer the country. Thank you Obama family.

Two am commute

2008-11-27T11:43:00.000-08:00

Foggy night riding can be pretty spectacular.
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Afterwards is always a little hollow

2008-11-24T10:58:00.000-08:00

Last night was the benefit show for the Leukemia/Lymphoma society. It was a tremendous success! Brian and Dave were Tractor Operator with me and we rocked some Pgun songs at the end of our set. Waking up today I found myself replaying the night in my head and wondering if it was all as good as it felt. It was. It definitely was. It started with a very out of tune soundcheck, and ended with Dave sleeping on the couch while I made bell pepper and corn quesadillas.

Eluvium played and was very good. His songs are constructed using guitar, piano and computer sounds. My friend Jessica says that she plays his stuff at Loyly, her Finnish spa, and nobody ever gets bored or annoyed by it. Laura Gibson played a short set. Much too short of a set since she is really wonderful. Every time I hear her sing I simultaneously fall in love with something and experience tender heartbreak.

Delorean played next and were very good. Kate, who organized the show, played violin with them.

Visual Artists were sketching the bands all night and the drawings were auctioned off for the fundraiser. Overall, the night was just great. We raised over $4000!

Menomena was awesome. I'd never seen them live. Their latest record is awesome, and I've spent hours listening to it. It was really cool to see them pull off all the weird changes all while the drummer struggled with some internal demons. He kept clutching his chest and grabbing his face. Very interesting. . .

Ok, I've gotta study for a quiz. Peace out. Check out Dave's blog for some pics. It's the one in the hot tub that says "run with the hunted".

Building an Army

2008-11-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

Eddy Merckx was called the Cannibal and is widely considered the greatest cyclist of all time.

I learned how to make molds using Silicone Caulk. I made models out of plastilina then created molds. I'm working with wax right now and looking forward to investing these in two weeks. It's looking like we definitely are not going to be casting any molten metal this term, despite the title of the class, which is casting. . . I started casting my concrete sections this weekend. That is a much less interesting and aesthetically striking part of the process, but still very important. I'll be continuing this work for the next two weeks and then I get to assemble the whole thing. Should be interesting to see if it works the way I want it to. I was planning on using a stump for a base of my concrete and steel form, but I just realized that my stumps have termites. I'm not really sure what that means aside from, I don't want to introduce termites to someone's house, regardless of the fact that the vessel would be a piece of art. Improvisation is exciting.

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Sometimes you clap because it's over

2008-11-14T00:18:00.000-08:00

This is the local band "eat skull" - give them some time to get over themselves

you might be asking yourself where the other drummer is, and also what is that guy doing? ? ? the answer is that he is playing his guitar behind his back and the drummer is playing drums on the floor surrounded by dancing crazy people!

These bands opening for the Dirtbombs are fucking terrible! Wow! I think the part about the first band that took them from bad to theruble which is cellphoneblogging speak for terrible, wa that they were so serious. The second band, eat skull, made the mistake of not getting me as drunk as they were.

Ok! Just watched the dirtbombs encore with one of their drummers on the floor killing it with his beats! The show was amazing! It mwkes watching two terrible bands perfectly acceptable! Fuck!

Al and I have to decompress over a beer closer to home before we attempt to sleep. What a great show! ! ! Agghhhhhhh!

We decompressed at the basement pub. I'm actually changing things up in the middle of a blog right now. You see, the first part of this post, including the pics, was from my cell. This part right here is after I arrived home safe and sound, although, I wanted to cry a little bit as I rode up and over MT. TABOR! Man oh man the Dirtbombs are a great band! I wish I didn't have to work in 6 hours. . .

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Weird writing get in my head!

2008-11-13T16:26:00.000-08:00

Maybe if I just nap for a minute with my head on this book, i'll be able to read and write Katakana. . .
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Weird Weather

2008-11-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

I had the craziest dreams last night about kids and music and all this weird waking sleeping stuff with the radio and a jealous butcher comp leaking into my dream. I have no idea what it was really about.

The ride to work today was beautiful. The sun is shining, the air is warm and the streets aren't that slick. I might be going to the Dirtbombs tonight, which would be great! The Dirtbombs are from Michigan and they totally kill it. Two drummers, Two Bass players and a great singer/guitar player.

If you have an opportunity to check out the band Weird Weeds, I recommend that you do so. I just remembered them from a Ferocious Eagle show in San Francisco. Deerhoof came to our show to see Weird Weeds, which pretty much makes it a Weird Weeds show, but Deerhoof still saw us play.

Weirdness

2008-11-12T11:29:00.000-08:00

It's really coming down today in Portland. There are flood advisories in effect and it's a dismal gray out. Yesterday was Veteran's Day and school was cancelled. I took the opportunity to try to find some rain gear. I have been getting soaked on my way to school lately and I figured that enough is enough. I ride 8 miles to school and by the 2nd mile, I'm not cold, just wet. The trick to finding the right rain gear is to find something that won't heat you up, but will keep you dry. The problem with a lot of the stuff out there in my price-range is that by the time I get to my destination, I've sweated so much that I'm just as wet as if I hadn't worn anything at all. . .

Bike Snob has been good lately, I read his blog everyday. Today he introduced a new system for dealing with the world, which basically breaks down to - take the anger away, and look at things that are messed up as weird, then you don't get mad. . . Or something. I'm thinking it's pretty weird that nobody in this school district communicates with one another. Hence, I'm sitting here for three hours twice a week without a student to assist, or anybody to help. Frustration would be my natural feeling, but I'm taking frustrating circumstances and applying Bike Snob's equation and now I just feel weird. Maybe more coffee will help.

I'm excited about the show coming up on November 23rd. It's gonna be a doozy.

I am proud of America!

2008-11-04T23:18:00.000-08:00

I'm exhausted! I can't sleep because I'm so damn excited! For the first time in my life, and mind you, I've voted a few times now for the office of the President, I've voted for the winner. Before now, I've felt cynical about the process and my options when it came to the office. So often the choice is made between the lesser of two evils. Tonight as I watched McCain's speech, I thought to myself, "Well, he isn't so bad." Then, watching Obama, my President, I felt elevated! I felt like I was capable of contributing to something important. I felt inspired to do better. I felt inspired to be better. The possibilities are riveting! My imagination is running wild with ways to honor this occasion when America finally honored the concept of Civil Rights and Equality, not by electing the first African-American President, but by electing the right person for the job; by electing the best person for the job. I am proud to be on the winning side, because for once, the winning side is better than the lesser of two evils. Barack Obama represents the possibility of America to affect positive change in the world. He represents a youthful optimism, a devotion to principal and a strength reserved for men free from the constraints of precedent. Barack Obama has proven that he can maintain his ability to inspire, as well as his demonstration over the last 21 months that he is not afraid of hard work. I'm concerned about the difficulties his Presidency presents, but I'm not afraid for us or him; I am confident that I voted for somebody who is not only capable of carrying out the duties of the position, but who is capable of thriving in the office. Barack Obama. Barack Obama. Barack Obama.

. . .

2008-11-04T12:51:00.001-08:00

I'm feeling pretty nervous today

Spend Regret Repeat

2008-11-03T12:31:00.001-08:00

I updated my website today for the first time in months. As I continue to think about this election and it's implications, I wonder why I really care. The fact is, I voted and have voted for president now 3 times. Not once has my vote been cast for the winner of the office and while I think most Americans are in the same boat, nobody seems too concerned with the system that continues to fail us. What is the point of voting when an electoral college disregards and overrides the popular vote? Anyway, if McCain wins, I get to move to Mexico. A group of us are talking about it. Frankly, I love the idea of moving to Mexico finding some land with rich clay deposits and setting up a folk pottery. Tiff thinks I wouldn't make any money. I don't think she's wrong, and I don't think that would matter too much. We spend so much of our lives worrying about money that we forget to enjoy the things that don't cost anything. We miss out on major events in our lives because the only way we could afford to go is to pay for it with a credit card. We irresponsibly spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on small purchases while we pine away for home ownership. How many magazines and pairs of shoes and boxes with knobs do we need? I don't think that this election, regardless of outcome, will solve any of those problems. The new American mantra, spend regret repeat.

And speaking of regreat - something I'm really genuinely concerned about is the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Both candidates say they're going to shut that place down. What happens when we shut it down and the men that we've been torturing and whose lives we have ruined are allowed to return to their countries? How does a nation make amends with them? What a terrible mess our country has made in the world. Why have we allowed our government to act this way? It is fucking absurd. I think it's time for some very serious discussions regarding dissent.

RED FANG VIDEO

2008-11-03T07:02:00.000-08:00

I pulled this off of Snider's blog. It's amazing. These guys might be the best band in Portland. Their live show slays. It also sleighs. I gotta get to work. Cheers

VOTE!

Pics from NYC

2008-10-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

It needs to be said that I didn't take these pictures, they were on the WWEEK Flickr page. Not sure who the photographer is for all of them, but Scott aka Super XX Man took the one of me playing, Rob and I on the subway, and the Valiant Arms splitting eardrums. The other pics are of the PDX contingent of CMJ out front of The Knitting Factory.

Sometimes college is lame

2008-10-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today I don't care for the education system. The highschool I tutor at is genuinly fucked up. They want me to assist students with little to no English with complicated language based algebra problems. Many of these students don't know how to borrow or carry much less distinguish a number from an integer. Furthermore, they are still learning to navigate basic English interaction.
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Then I found out that my credits from Oregon college of art and craft don't transfer because they're not accredited. $715 per credit and they don't help me graduate. What a fucking mistake. Sorry to sound so upset, but I am amazed at how frustrating these things can seem.
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Portland, oh Portland

2008-10-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

Today Tif and I went for a drive in my truck. It gets pretty shitty gas mileage so I almost never drive the thing. It's great for many utilitarian tasks, but the seats don't stay bolted into the chassis, the seatbelts probably aren't properly attached, and the center link is completely messed up so the steering is totally unpredictable. I know my truck and am not surprised by the crazy response of the steering wheel and I consider driving it an adventure. In addition the brakes are going out. But somebody on Craigslist was giving away a heavy duty desk, which after tacking some hardi backer to the top, I intended to use as a wedging table. Well, the woman with the desk never called back, so after a pleasant happy hour, Tif and I went for a drive, which I guess, brings me back to the first sentence. Great, I'm redundant. I'm redundant. I'm redundant. Err, anyway, we headed to the west side of the west hills. There, we admired some mansions, more mansions, nice cars, Aston Martins(which are not even in the same ballpark as "nice cars") - I might have seen a Rolls. . . and then I saw what, to me were a blessing, AND I was in the truck - a pile of tree stumps sitting on the side of a school. They had obviously chopped down the tree and taken the smaller pieces away and maybe were headed back for the larger chunks. I've been looking for some stumps for a sculpture installation I've been thinking about. When I pulled over and started tempting a hernia by wrestling them into the bed of my pickup, the nonchalant glances at my shitty truck by passers by, reassured me that folks assumed I was "the help". 500 lbs of stump later, I returned to the cab of the truck sweating, breathing hard and with scraped up forearms found Tiffani practically hiding under the dash. She was so embarrassed that she stayed there until I managed to navigate my unruly vehicle a third of the way down a very tall hill. They are great stumps. I can't wait to use them for something relating to compartmentalization and modular consumption.

NYC was fun.

Well, that's all for now.

Pickchers

2008-10-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

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A bit of travel within the city

2008-10-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

Dr Jones turned 35 today. We met up for a beer in hell's kitchen befor heading to Williamsburg. There, we met up with Jeff and his wife Ece(aycha), two very nice people! Also I met Scott from XX man. Also very nice.
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From there we went to a club in north slope and caught Laura Gibson's set, which was lovely. After, we went to a very good Italian restaurant where I had a delicious salad of dandelion greens, a poached egg and panchetta. It was finished with a sherry vinagrette. Next I had a folded pasta stuffed with sweet corn and mascarpone.
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Took a train back to time square and hoofed it back to hell's kitchen to call it a night. I'm looking forward to the shows tomorrow. Now it's time to rest.
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Happy birthday Dr. Jones

2008-10-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

Heading to Williamsburg on the L train
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