pots

Before, waiting to go into the kiln: and after! I love it!!

I've seen lots of examples of squiggles like this, and always liked them, but it took all summer to get around to trying it myself, and I quite like it:

The kids have serious pottery envy, and several weeks back I let them make stuff with my clay. Last weekend, I took them in and had them glaze their pots, and here they are:

The reddish one on the left is Ave's and the other two are Max's. I got home from pottery too late last night for them to get to see them, but I think they'll be pleased.

These 2 pots were suppose to be shaped differently, and the glaze was suppose to go differently - but such is life in the pottery lab. I love the dark blue glaze, but it did not run down the sides as far as I'd hoped. Glazing is a lot harder than it should be. LOL The pots are sitting on a kick wheel, by the way. I always use an electric wheel, but the lab has 6 or so kick wheels too.

And this... this is my biggest pot to date:

Yes, flying cats... they're coming. Really. Soon.

DNC day 3

Yes, day 3 would be yesterday, and I skipped day 2. Day 2 I was a home sleeping and feeling right awful. But I do have some good pictures of the 16th street mall from day 3:

Saw other things which I didn't get photos of, like the Stop Bird Porn protesters. The last photo of a generic bad guy painted on a sign was part of the Anarchy protesters. Honest to god, there were as many riot police with them as protesters. So not an image I associate with Denver - swarms of police in vests and helmets carrying multiple firearms and batons. The first photo is a real guy all painted up to look like a metal statue. There were more buskers, more protesters, more police, more people yesterday than Monday. Saw some high falutin' people with security people, had to wait for motorcades, and generally had a good time people watching.

Today, everybody hauled off to the stadium. The train is running again by Pepsi Center, and I noticed the dumpsters were totally overflowing. Wasn't this suppose to be a green conference? Oh well, I'm just glad my train is running again - taking the D train added 20 minutes to my commute.

Tomorrow, I'll put up a couple of funny pictures of flying cats. ;)

DNC, day 1

Since everyone else probably has the good sense to stay the heck out of Denver this week, here are a few observations by me, who has to be here for work:

Random street trees have little signs on them saying “This tree was planted in honor of the South Dakota delegates.” I’ve seen Colorado, New Jersey, Tennesee, and SD so far. I’ll grab a pic on the phone later. Oh, and I haven't noticed any trees being planted recently. Middle of the night tree planting elves, perhaps

I was handed a button reading “Get it on! (The Agenda)” sponsored by Trojan. Lunch time update – they’re handing out little plastic rings that say “evolve” on them. Uh… okay.

8-10 special forces swat police force cops loitering about in front of Starbucks (will there be a caffeine riot?). Lunchtime update – they’re still there. In fact, there is a group (flock, gaggle?) of riot attired police nearly every block of the mall. They definetly outnumber any protesters at the moment.

Here are a few photos of the protestors I did see. The orange jump suits? No idea; perhaps they were protesting against the color orange. No slogan, no chant, no signs. The paper hat (cheapest protest attire/signage ever) has “Save our Country” scrawled on it with marker. Hey – he’s being green!

It may get more exciting in a few hours – Mayor Hickenlooper is hosting a big ol’ party next door at one of his restaurants.

I'm easily amused

Give a girl a cell phone with a built in camera, and the ability to email those photos, and all sorts of silly pictures can happen! Both of these pictures are of metal sculptures in a gallery on Wazee St. - I pass by the storefront about daily. Usually the 'art' is not of my liking, but I love the pig. The bag of money cracks me up - a recently retired partner here at work use to like to remind everyone that in a business, there really is only one bag of money. And there is that bag. :)

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school. Can't honestly say anyone in the family is excited about that. Summer was altogether too short!

Toast

After a hotter than average / drier than average summer, the rain came in buckets. Big endless buckets. Our camping trip to Chalk Creek was rained out. I was so bummed about that – the group we camp with had extolled the campsite and nearby hot springs to great length. Instead, we were stuck inside all day Friday (which we had off after all the overtime) and Saturday. We watch a LOT of Olympics instead. Saturday morning, we went to the best breakfast place ever ever – Toast.
Quite by accident, our breakfast had a front row and dry seat for the Western Welcome Week Parade. One of the parade participants:


Yes, a toilet. A toilet that sprouted feet and walked down the street in the pouring rain. It is part of a local save water campaign courtesy of Denver Water. Bringing up the rear of the parade?

Okay, this is terribly politically incorrect, but a bunch of blind people, in the pouring rain, bring up the rear of a parade? Sorry, but it made me laugh.

Ick

This overexposed photo is of a rubber gecko, stuck to my ceiling. Courtesy of Max and Owen. I get these icky lizards for the cat to play with, and until they get a bit dirty (linty) they're sticky. Apparently, sticky enough to adhere to my ceiling. YUCK!

Unrelated, the children and I rode bikes to Loelle's this morning (3rd time this summer). If it wasn't a completely hollow threat, I'd be swearing I'll never ever ride bikes with them any where ever again! First time the kids jumped out of bed and raced out the door. I wasn't even late to work. Second time, we left a little late, but it went well, and I caught the second of the 2 trains that get me to work on time. Today? Couldn't get them out the door, the ride took twice as long as normal, Ave wailed and carried on something awful, she scared a nice lady jogging on the path by not giving enough room "on the left" as she passed, fell because she was doing random 170 degree turns (side to side on the path), and my chain derailed so bad I thought I would have to walk it the rest of the way. Scraped the heck out of my knuckles trying to free the chain. Stomping on the bike petal finally did the job.

But, I will sort of forget how awful it was, and we'll do it again. Someday. In the far, distant future!