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Brad's Blog
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Nov. 2
Nov. 3
I spent most of the day packing pots for this weekend's
Folk Festival, which starts on Saturday. It's a good thing I thrive
on sensory overload--there are a total of 8 stages, and when I'm not performing
I go around to all of them and take photos for the Folklore Society website.
It's practically aerobic exercise, particularly since my lungs aren't totally
over my cold yet...
Nov. 4
As the Folk Festival happens, I become a kind of sampling
machine--listening to one or two songs from a performance, taking 2 or
3 pictures, then moving on. Towards the end of the day I slow down
a bit, if there's some music that really touches me. Even though
there are familiar genres such as blues, folk, and celtic represented,
each performance has its special flavor. I got to wondering how my
solo performance fit in. For my set, which I selected over a month
ago, I did a mixture of originals, classical pieces including the Pachelbel
canon, blues, a Swedish harmonica tune, and a tin whistle piece.
There wasn't a large crowd, but that's not unusual for solo performers
at the festival. Among specific comments afterwards, a classical
cellist acquaintance said she loved my voice, and offered to play cello
if it would work. On reflection, I thought this a bit humorous, since
I only had about 4 songs with vocals, the rest instrumental... Then
a blues musician said he liked the Swedish tune the best (not mentioning
the blues I'd done). They weren't exactly left handed compliments, but
they had a touch of that about them... Reminds me of some lyrics
I wrote a long time ago: "She said she loved me for my money, but that
was when I was poor, she said she wanted just to hold me, then she walked
right out the door..."
Meanwhile in the real world, it started raining this
afternoon, and in Spirit Lake it's rained over 2 inches and is still coming
down. The night crawlers are out for the first time in months...
This is good, if soggy...
Nov. 5
So today was the concert with my new musical group at
the Fall Folk Festival, playing for 45 minutes, including a set of tunes
from early Nashville musician Uncle Dave Macon. Considering we've
only played together about 4 times, we did well. If we stay together
for 6 months or more, it ought to get really good... The festival
itself seemed a bit more crowded, with jams lingering both nights, a sign
that folks were happy to be there, and my pottery sales were better than
last year as well. I looked through the hundreds of photos I took
to find one that was "best," but they all have their points. Within
a couple days I'll get them posted to the folklore society webpage.
One real surprise of the festival,
and something that both made the festival good, and weird, was that with
the election coming up in two days, you would have expected a lot of hand
shaking candidates there. But at the door there was a small sign
that said, "Please, no electioneering" or something to that order.
And there was NONE. I never saw a political button or red-white-and-blue
hat or anything, except for a musical group called the Raging Grannies,
who held up signs promoting solar power. I do think folk music without
politics is a bit emasculated (if it's possible to be "a bit" emasculated,
and I'd rather not speculate on that...). On the other hand, the
politics of the 60's is not something most of us want to relive (part of
why our wars have been relatively wimpy in the last 40 years). Since
the media is flooded with campaign ads, it was a relief to not confront
the election there, but still it was weird...
Nov. 6
The weather today was like the strongest March gale,
with May-like temperatures. Along the way we had another 1.3 inches
of rain. It was a record warm day locally (61 in Spokane), in spite
of the drizzle and totally gray skies.
Meanwhile I glazed a load of pots, combining an old bucket
of white glaze with the new problematical one, hoping it will result in
a more satisfactory finish (and you thought ceramics was a science...).
Then I put away the leftover pots from the weekend sale,
and have been working all evening on putting up photos from the Fall Folk
Festival. I took hundreds of photos, and condensed it to about 180 that
I used on the 4 relevant webpages. I suppose you mostly would have
had to been there to enjoy most of the photos... But you can look,
from this link...
There
are a lot of pictures of friends, but none of me...
Nov. 7
Another day, another 1.5 inches of rain. The coastal
areas are making the national news with flooding. There's a bit of
flooding here, but aside from the wind and rain (one pot blew over in my
outdoors stand from 40 mph winds), it's all good for restoring ground moisture
and reservoirs... The largest bowl I make was sitting out as a birdbath,
empty, when the rain started a few days ago. It overflowed the brim
today.
Meanwhile I started throwing pots today--a few orders
have come in to keep me motivated.
And all this rain has helped in the porch leakology
department. My wife suggested we just catch the leaks in a gutter
and run them out the side. As there are two main leak points, this
is a good idea. One of the gutters is already up and running.
The other will take a little more effort. This is a case of thinking "inside
the box"--having an interior gutter. It won't even collect any leaves...
Nov. 8
I got a van full of bags of leaves today from a trip
to Spokane. It frequently happens that we value what others are throwing
away, in this case, for our garden. It's probably too late for the
carrots still in the ground, due to the cold snap a couple weeks ago, but
if I'd had the leaves on then, it would have insulated them from freezing.
As it is I'll distribute the leaves around the garden tomorrow, especially
over areas already manured. The bags we save and re-use as garbage
bags, usually enough to last all winter.
Nov. 9
It was snowing again this morning, large clumps up to
an inch across, but later the day warmed up to melt most of it. My
wife covered with leaves the carrots I spoke of as being too late to save
yesterday, and brought me one to show it didn't get frozen yet.
Lately in the pottery workshop I'm making lots of the
things with lids and knobs--I suppose because it's baking season, a lot
of casseroles and such sold at the Folk Festival last weekend.
Nov. 10
The only excitement today was replacing a video card
in my computer, after which it's become unstable and tends to freeze, even
after switching back to the old video card, which made wheezing noises.
So if things don't get updated, you'll know a new computer is probably
on the way.
Nov. 11
One lighthearted theory of why my computer is dying is
that at the announcement of the release of the new Windows Vista, all the
old computers are designed to go into random death mode, to assure propagation
of billions of dollars in sales.
On the less light hearted side, my computer is both business
and pleasure, and like a house of cards, delicately assembled, to be destroyed
in one draft of wind. I'm hoping to be able to bring a hard drive
from the old computer to the new, to make things a little easier...
On the weather front, we had 2.1 inches of rain yesterday,
and a large storm is scheduled for tomorrow. The snow is beginning
to build up in the mountains. Winter is soon likely, as annually
scheduled...
Nov. 22
I'm struggling to set up my new computer, rather like trying to rebuild a card castle with a different set of cards. The old computer's hardware isn't compatible with the new, so "workaround" is the key word here. Also there are lots of new programs to learn, including a new webpage editor, which seemed to make my post from yesterday vanish. Until I get the hardware to integrate my old computer's files, the new computer is lovely to look at but has little useful beyond web browsing. I use my computer for everything from manufacturing my training DVD's to making all the little cards that go with my pottery as well as accounting and creative pursuits.
At least faithful readers haven't missed much weatherwise--more rain and gloom, currently leaning more towards snow.
Nov. 23
Happy Thanksgiving! Ours included pumpkin pie, carrots, and frozen peas from our garden (and turkey etc.) . I think a lot of traditional Thanksgiving foods were just what was common in the fall from rural living. At least it's one thing that, for non vegetarians, gives most Americans a common experience. Only we didn't watch any football... We did play games including Scrabble and Careers, with a couple nieces who were visiting. Board games lack the vivid presence of computer games, but still both entertain and tickle the intellect. And pass time, which gets harder to do without technology, as we grow more dependent on it...
Nov. 24
After a bunch more frustrations and workarounds, I'm regaining most of my computer files while writing this. I guess I need to work on backing up things in a more accessible manner...
The local school gave me some buckets of glaze they didn't want. One of them fired out to be a black glaze resembling my black glaze. So I took a chance and combined it into my black glaze bucket. The risk is that they will not chemically combine in the way that they physically combine. The gain is $10-20 free glaze. So I took the risk, and the pots will be out in a couple days.
We've now got about 2 inches of snow on the ground, with more predicted. The lake has been hovering between having a skim of ice, and remaining open, with the fluctuating weather. The first real cold blast is expected in a couple days, but weather reports seem predictably unreliable around here. Meanwhile the 3000 lbs of materials I ordered 2 weeks ago, hoping to avoid traveling with them on cold and slippery roads, will arrive on Monday.
Nov. 25
The glaze mixing gamble was a mixed success. It looks like a nice smooth black glaze, but the glaze I added had some sort of thickening additive which extended itself to the rest of the bucket when added, and made it difficult to get a good even glaze on the pots dipped in it. That's life.
With the advent of snow and ice covered roads, and most of the pottery nearly frozen to the display cases, sales tend to drop around now. This means I mostly miss out on the holiday sales furor. The descriptions I read of Black Friday make it sound like the retailers are trying to invoke a feeding frenzy response among shoppers, like throwing some bloody meat to the sharks.
I did put up a few strands of little white lights around the display, and bought a wreath from the local garden club today. I'm pretty grinchy about the Christmas season, particularly the secular one. There's also a lot of anxiety tied to the change of seasons. Snow on the ground means you can forget the garden work now until April. It means relearning winter driving skills. It means figuring out which cars are the best on the snow, and parking the others. My son began daily skiing yesterday, which means he's around less to help watch the shop and Grandma. Well, that's also life...
Nov. 26
I'm waiting for two cars with two family members to return from skiing during a major snowstorm. They're late, but that's to be expected--we've had 6 inches of snow so far, and no end in sight. It makes me realize we could have a genuine winter here, with 3-5 feet of snow on the ground. I added two videos of my piano music today, accessible from the video link at the top or bottom of the page... These are songs I wrote about 10 or 15 years ago, then I pretty much quit playing piano, so I've been practicing piano again so I can at least perform the piano pieces I wrote back then...
Nov. 27
The snow's probably about 8 inches deep. I started the day downhill skiing on snow a bit bumpy for my tastes. From there I rode a packed bus down the mountain hearing from others on the bus how the same driver drove another bus off the road yesterday when pulling to the side to avoid a snow plow, which damaged the bus significantly. While on the hill I'd hear people talking about a search and rescue effort to locate a lost snow boarder, then towards noon I heard someone report the person had been found.
Later I met up with my son, who'd driven separately so we could haul 2500 lbs of clay from Sandpoint. At home I had to back down an icy hilly road into our back drive to unload both vans. And tomorrow severe cold is expected. Winter hit with a vengeance this year.
I took my camera to the ski mountain, but it was too dark, foggy, or snowy to get nice pictures. It's been a low photo month for the blog. The bowl pictured at the top of this month's blog sold last weekend...
Nov. 28
After some discussion, the main thing happening today is considering buying a new car. New, in this instance, means less than 10 years old. The goal is to replace our 1994 van which has 210,000 miles, with something similar only a reasonable 100,000 miles or so. The all wheel drive van is particularly versatile here, for skiing or hauling pots. We hope to keep the old one to use as a pseudo truck for hauling wood, leaves, and other valuable stuff. If we were to buy a van tomorrow, we'd have 5 vehicles, for 4 drivers (one of whom is at school in Illinois). So we also plan to part with a couple cars.
Therein lies the rub. We're usually the last owners of our cars. By the time we're done with them, they have enough things wrong that we'd feel bad for anyone else having them. So this marks a first, having a couple cars to dispense with in usable condition.
Besides the functional considerations, cars also carry emotional baggage. It's hard getting rid of old friends. Also they, like pets, in aging and dying repeatedly through our lives, are reminders of our mortality. Or maybe it's just winter...
Nov. 29
We did buy a "new" 1998 Chrysler Town and Country van today. I never walked on a car lot nor looked in a newspaper. I checked one on line site and found what appeared to be a great car in Spokane. I feel sorry for the car. Idaho is tough on cars. We've hit deer, tree branches, gotten rocks on windshields. And then it's really clean, too. We haul clay, leaves, garbage and lumber in our van. Good thing I didn't tell the guy, or he might have gone emotional on me. He probably had an inkling, though, since I drove there in the van it's replacing, and it had about 4 inches of snow on top and plenty of dirt in evidence.
Beyond that, I spent about 3 hours packing pots for the Clay Art Guild sale this weekend. I'm afraid I've got another couple hours to do it tomorrow. I've got to stick little ID tags with price and inventory info on each one. That's the price you pay for not sitting around next to your booth all weekend. Instead I'm looking forward to playing music, as part of the entertainment. Which I'd better practice some, mostly to keep my callouses tough enough to play for hours this weekend... (If you're not a string musician, you might not realize the importance of callouses to music, also fingernails...)
This upcoming pottery sale took another 3 hours of work packing today (besides glazing two more kiln loads to fire). It's the kind of work that makes one say "never again", but it's sort of like preparing little party favors for the big party--you hope that all the diddley little stuff will some how make the party a success. Last year it was the first big winter storm, yet it went very well over all. This weekend promises to remain cold but no more fresh snow, which is as good as one can expect for the first weekend in December.
After 130,000 views of my music videos, I had my second actual CD sale resulting from them today, from Scotland. I mention it in case you wonder why musicians find it hard to get rich...
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