May 2005 Archives

With so many of my blog entries I usually post images, especially those that are about my ceramic work. I have decided that most of my images need to be part of my blog in some way. Because of that decision I will most likely end up having the images reside on the blog's domain, as opposed to my personal domain. This series of decisions could end up changing things a lot, or hardly at all, depending upon how far I take it. There are methods that integrate directly into MovableType, then there are some that are external. I have spent some time in the last few days looking at the different options, coming up with many I hate and a few I like. This could be a very big step for my blog, in moving towards where I would like to see it as an expression of myself. There is a sample of something similar to what I would like to do at http://www.disturbingthoughts.net/gallery for now (link is likely to expire in the near future if I scrap the use of this utility). I would really like some feedback on the concept and the tool itself. For me it doens't seem to be close enough to the blog itself, which is something that could be changed with styling or with using a plug-in to the blog.

Here are three of my latest terra cotta clay works. I started from a single large ball of terra cotta (about 8 pounds), started working it, then realized it was a bit clumbsy and broke it in half. The first half became the bowl. During the creation of it I removed quite a bit of excess clay, this became the cup (after reworking the clay that is). After both the bowl and the cup were clear I set to work on the last piece of clay. As a whole the ball of clay became the jar, which is to this point the tallest of any of my works.

I have been thinking about things to blog about for the past few days (since my last entry) and I have been dismissing most of the things I wanted to blog about because I was afraid of the nature of the content and the public nature of this blog. If I have to self-censor in order to feel comfortable writing blog entries, am I really being myself?

I have wanted to write about my more personal interests which few know about, but find myself stopping merely because I don't know how everyone will react or the exact scope of my blog audience. Where does that line exist between being able to be myself and being overly critical because of some possible future effect of this blog on my professional image? Truthfully, I so no correlation to it, but I am always woried about how I am percieved.

In addition to the blog issues, there have been relationship issues lately where my silence about things have led to bigger problems. Shouldn't I be able to be myself around my best friend, the one who I feel knows me better than anyone? I worry so much about pissing him off or him being upset with me. The other night he just wanted me to leave him alone for a while, but somehow because I felt that I had caused some great relationship-ending transgression, I couldn't give him that little amount of time he wanted. In that situation there were tons of things on my mind I wanted to talk to him about and express to him, but I was being reserved because of an uncertainty in how he would react. It was mentioned that this doens't show a lot of trust, and I have to agree, if he and I are to trust each other as much as I think that we do, I have to not worry about his reactions, and just be myself around him. Thats easier said than done (several times over).

For the first time in over a year I have fax service again. My new fax number is (866) 502-9243. That is toll-free to all US and Canadian residents.

I decided ths morning that I needed a fax number when I realized I needed to fax something and the only way I could do it was via Windows Fax Services. I only wanted outgoing fax service this morning, but that isn't an option, so I ended up with a full-service fax account, might be useful, might suck, we shall see.

GITI Says:

Its all over and everything is in except for a few grades. Bring on the sandy beaches, cool breezes and boys of summer.

It would appear that one Dr. Judith L. Presler decided to begin her summer vacation a little early. The PHIL3060 (Plato) exam and final meeting was scheduled for 3:30 on Thursday, May 12, 2005. At 3:45 it was confirmed that Dr. Presler had decided not to attend, so pretty much leave the exams with the secretary and exit quietly. I am soooo glad I got up in time for this today... Next time, im using FedEx.

Either way, the semester has been concluded and all is well.

Ramping is the increase of heat inside a kiln. A Ramp Rate is the speed at which this occurs, it is messured in Degrees Farenheight per Hour.

to calculate ramp rate:

Final Temprature (or estimate) of chamber - Original Temprature of Chamber
__________________________________________
Time to Complete (in hours)

for example, the kiln completed firing yesterday at 1947°F, after 6 hours, 48 minutes. here is the calculation for ramp rate:

(1947 - 85)/6.8 hours = 273.82 °/hr.

Yesterday's firing went great. The kiln declared Cone 04 at 1947° F after firing for 6 hours, 48 minutes. I opened the kiln about 2 hours ago, and unloaded it, nothing broke and I have verified that the pieces will hold water. Has anyone noticed that the last few blog entries have sounded like scientific reports?

Images coming soon.

The first firing of the kiln was concluded at around 7:00am this morning after the kiln reached a holding temprature of 1944 degrees farenheight. That is about 4 degrees above the normal specification for Cone 04, but I guess thats what the kiln's "intelligent" controller decided was required for reaching the proper saturation in the time it needed to finish firing, I guess it did its final ramp too quickly and needed to compensate. The stoneware pieces came out bright white and the terra cotta pieces are a standard terra-cotta color. I removed the pieces from the kiln at approximately 85 degrees. A full load has been added to the kiln this time and I am running an new firing for the pieces that DIDN'T go into the kiln last night. I am being a little adventurous at the moment with the kiln, I am ramping a little faster tonight than I did last night. I'm hoping that nothing goes wrong with doing this. Last night I ramped at roughly 197 degrees per hour, tonight I am going for closer to 265 degrees per hour. The total run time for last night was supposed to be about 10 hours, and the kiln reported to me this morning that she took 9 hours, 28 minutes to complete. We shall see how long it takes to run this firing, and whether sounds of exploding stoneware is heard or not, I am hoping for not.

The kiln is up to over 1700° F and rising. There is now an orange glow coming from beneath the lid. I have never really had the whole pyro spirit until now, this is so awesome! Maybe if im lucky I can get this bitch up to Cone 6 fully and go to a white light under the lid. :-D

WHOOOHOOO!!!! FIRE KICKS ASS!

Cone 022 reached! This is the first formal cone level, from 022 we count backward to 01, then we start and 1 and go to 10. That is assuming that the goal is a Cone 10 firing. My goal currently is Cone 04.

My new kiln has arrived and is already up and running. I took a few pics during the early stages of firing (before any formal cone level has been reached). As you can read from the electornic display, the kiln was at 353° F when I took these pics. For the first firing i'm only doing Cone 04, or roughly 1950° F.

Whole kiln, just getting heated up.

The main control panel. This replaces the typical cone-meter and backup pyrometer setup that was previously used. I like this method because it gives better control over the kiln than the older mechanisms, plus there is very little chance of over-firing because there is no relying on a "cone" to melt and fall over and hit the off button.

Front view of the beast, it isn't pretty, but she is so HOT! (2232° F max)

A friend sent this to me, decided to share it with the blog.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends on your frame of reference.

Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Captain James T. Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Social Worker: It crossed the road to be able to understand both sides.

An accountant: It looked in the file and that's what it did last year.

A consultant: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Our consulting firm, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), we helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Moses: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Machiavelli: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.

Colonel Sanders: I missed one?

For the first time in several years I now have opened a web hosting account with an outside provider. DreamHost. I opened the account because it was a good deal and thought I could find some usefulness for it, plus Chris and I had been playing with the idea previously.

So far nothing has been done with the space, except for a little bit of playtime with the one-click installation stuff. I installed Wiki as well as WordPress and some other toys to play with. So far nothing really impressive, but it is kind of cool to have all of these things at my fingertips like this. It is so simple to go in and have the server to self configure for these applications.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to revise my naming system for my server/workstations. My old straight-forward naming system is boring and sometimes redundant. My externally hosted site is on khan.dreamhost.com, which I consider to be a cool name. Other motivations for this feeling are the 30 or so servers owned by Mozilla Foundation which all have unique and distinctive names, even though it seems like half are named after some type of sexually arounsed anphibian....

Anyway.. back to the topic at hand... my new vacancy area. The space is fully equipped for Perl, PHP and other technologies, which makes it perfect for anything I could want to do. One idea I had, at least for the summer, was to have a GITI development area for migrating all modules to v2. Since I am not doing anything this summer I can actually work on GITI and enjoy what I am doing. At the end of the summer I don't know what I would do with the space (or the extraneous domain that came with it).

I fear moving something that already exists to a new host because of the long time since I trusted someone external with MY websites/domains.