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Brad's Blog
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Jan. 2, 2006
While I was off doddling on the ski slopes today, this
came in from Linda Lander in Australia, and her life is more interesting
than mine, so I'm giving her the entry today (she should start a blog of
her own, as well.):
Happy New year. I thought I'd write and tell you about the first day of the new year. It got to 44 degrees celcius here with winds up to 100km/ hour. Very exceptional weather though not unheard of. A bush fire started on the highway about 10 km from here and it quickly surrounded our town of Junee (population 4000) We lost 5 houses and 30,000 hectares and lots of sheep, cattle and horses. One of the boys that my son went to school with was fighting a fire on his farm and was hit by a fire ball, he has burns to 60 percent of his body and was flown to sydney for treatment, it does not look good for him.I went up to work to see if I could help and it was chaos with full emergency operations in force. It is good to know however that we can operate in those conditions. I stayed up there for a couple of hours , but all I could really do was serve drinks and try to keep the evacuees calm. We had around 60 people up at the hospital but there were several 100 from around town at the bowling club.I have come to the conclusion that the people I know to be substance abusers are the ones who are unable to cope in an emergency. Anyway when I got home the wind had changed and was blowing towards our house. I have paddocks on three sides of me and a house on the other. I suppose we weren't in as much danger as some around town, but it was pretty bloody scary anyway. Makes you think about what you have planted in your garden, I have three large melaluca trees close to the house which are very volatile.I went and invited my near neighbors down as their husband was off fighting fires, so we had extras as well as their 5 dogs and a horse here. The fire was closer to their place but it didnt get them, or us luckily. The closest it got to here was just down the gully about 500 yards away. There were helicopters with fire buckets and fire bombing planes flying straight over our house. It is now under control but still burning up in the Bethungra hills which is rugged country but not as many houses and people to burn.We mostly have grass and farmland around here. There are other bush fires burning all over the state. Anyway on a nicer note I have an appropriate poem for you. Its one all Aussie school kids learn by Dorothy Mackellar.
I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
Of rugged mountain ranges
Of drought and flooding rains
I love her far horizons
I love her jewelled sea
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me.
All through the fires yesterday there was an australian
flag flying across the paddock from us, at one stage the fire fighters
were standing underneath it with their hoses spraying the fire, it's still
there.
Bye Linda.
Jan. 3
I started working on the beginning pottery video today.
I'm undecided between leaving in the amateur filmmaking and reshooting
for a more professional look. I generally side on the folksy approach,
but even though the material presented is good, I'd hate to have anyone
not like it based on production values. Of course if I applied that
standard to my cartoon, I'd have to give it up. Life is full of compromises.
Jan. 4
Jan. 5
This is the last day of Christmas. We have a pottery
candlering with 12 candleholders on it that we light for each of the days
of Christmas. They're all burnt down. The tree is still up.
We usually burn it on Epiphany, but we also can't resist giving it some
water, so it's still very green.
In the pottery today besides some regular pots I assembled
a couple more funky sculptures. Assuming I can sell any of these
next summer, it's beginning to look like my style is evolving from my pottery
work--throw a bunch of fun forms and assemble them the next day.
Jan. 6
Happy Epiphany. We lit off a few fireworks.
Set about in the Christmas tree. The tree didn't burn, as predicted.
It will someday.
I glazed another couple kiln loads today, and, following
yesterday's thought, made four more sculpture bases and a bunch of parts
to continue this sculpture series. I keep thinking, lawn sculptures,
but I guess they could be inside a house that's large enough to warrant
them... As it is, our living space is cluttered enough to preclude
most decorative art.
Jan. 8
Most of us seem to do best with a balance of excitement
and "space." Excitement is the spice of life, and space the quiet
place to digest it. Today was a "space" place for me, as everyone except
Grandma is gone, so I've had it slow. My wife would love to have
some space, but her time has been preoccupied lately by the deaths of friends,
and her many other pastoral connections. For me, a lot of my excitement
is just a bit of well played music, a beautiful sunset, or an unusual bird
or flower. Of course in the gray days of winter some of those things
can be in short supply. Currently, in spite of 5 inches of snow in
the mountains last night (good for my excitement junkie ski bum son), it's
just wet and around freezing here. The best thing I can note today
is the green grass appearing, which almost seems ominous in January.
Jan. 9
Okay, special guest reappearance of winter today--about
two inches of very wet snow, in a storm which may continue for two days.
I drove through it the 30 miles to my monthly pottery
meeting. It was an especially felicitous one, as last month we sold over
$10,000 of our various pottery in a one day sale. We took turns assessing
our parts in the sale and looking to improvement for next December,
when it will be expanding to two days...
Jan. 10
This storm has turned into a Chinook,
which if it means anything to most Americans, probably suggests a helicopter,
salmon, or RV. In the Northwest, where the term has roots referring
to a Coastal native population, a Chinook is a warm moist storm pushing
in off the Pacific bringing unseasonably warm weather. It's sort
of the opposite of a blizzard. Today it was 45 degrees, raining mostly.
In the mountain ski area, that translated as 20 inches of snow, with enough
wind to close the resort for the day. My son, who's trying to ski
daily this winter, went up there in spite of warnings of the road and resort
being closed, and found a few like-minded souls who climbed up and built
their own jump, for a good share of the day.
I had my own Chinook in the refrigerator,
today. Our refrigerator, a Westinghouse, is from the 1950's,
a time when the U.S. built everything to last. (We also have a couple
waffle irons from that era) Since then (when the first influx of
cheap goods from Japan arrived), countries have taken turns trying to produce
the shoddiest goods (but at the lowest price (;-).) Our refrigerator
was not much improved on the ice box that had probably been its model--substituting
the cooling coil wrapped freezer for the ice tray... If we were to
store ice cream in the freezer, only 2 half-gallons would fit, and they
would be mushy by the next day... Fortunately we have since gotten
an upright freezer and supplementary refrigerator, but we've kept the original
fridge that came with our house, because it's the only one of any size
that can fit in the space allotted. (I suppose we've also become
emotionally involved with it) So I was squirting in hot water around
the freezer compartment, to loosen the gallon or so of ice that builds
up inevitably. Although I've heard that ice decreases the efficiency
of refrigerator coils, ours seems more to like having the bulk of ice as
a backup to the coils, but occasionally it becomes necessary to clean it
anyway...
So it was a Chinook day, with more still on the way.
It could be worse. Seattle has had rain over 20 days straight, heading
toward a record of 32... But if you knew anything about Seattle,
you'd expect that...
Jan. 11
The wind's still blowing, the snow
down here is going. Up to 50 mph winds blew down trees in the area
overnight, but I don't think it was so bad here. Windblown snow develops
a tough crust that makes it bad for skiers. For once my son preferred
terrain that was already "skied out," as the crust was broken up...
I plan to ski tomorrow, although I'd like the wind to quit. I like
nicely groomed runs that have no surprises to my moderate abilities...
Meanwhile I am trying to relearn the
program to make the video. Using a complex computer program once
a year isn't a good idea. But I've got it started, and plan to finish
it by the end of January...
Jan. 12
A good day skiing is one in which I do not fall down.
Today was a good day (well, half day) skiing). Tonight I glazed about
a half dozen large sculptures, which I'll fire in two kilns over the next
couple days. If I remember I'll post the results here...
Jan. 13
Jan.15
So here are a bunch of sculptures that took up too much
room in the kiln. They're all made from wheelthrown pieces assembled.
The blue crystalline glaze consistantly ran on the kiln shelf, cracking
off chunks of the bases in cooling. My wife doesn't like the big
inverted bowl bases. I don't know if I like any of them, but someone
might enjoy them as lawn sculptures, which was my goal. The lower right
one has a planter space at the top where the hoop goes in, so is actually
utilitarian.
Jan. 17
One of those days again. I drive into Spokane for
the Library and music, and the Library turned out to be closed (taking
a substitute day off for Martin Luther King day, since budget cuts have
them all closed Mondays anyway). Then I had a long two hours to kill
until time for the music jam (one of the highlights of my week).
I get to the jam location, and there's no jam there. I'd glanced
at my weekly jam announcement email to see it was hosted by the same person
as the last time, but on closer perusal (after I came home), they'd moved
the jam from the complex rec room to her apartment. I was standing
behind the door when the brains were being given out!
Fortunately there's a jam associated with the monthly
bluegrass concert this weekend...
Jan. 18
It's my wife's 50th birthday today. Because of
the two hours I had to kill in Spokane last night, I shopped for a greeting
card for my wife. She didn't know what to make of the card, because
I've always made my own cards. The answer of why I got it really
lies in the second previous sentence, but I found some amusement in buying
a real card for her. The reason I was amused was that I opened up
card after card, and they all tried to imagine what your relationship might
be like, and put their words into your mouth, so to speak. Like other
card shoppers, when I finally found one that would sort of work, it seemed
the thing to do to get it. Later I thought about how weird
it is, some poor schmuck writing greeting cards for the Greeting Card Factory,
trying to imagine my relationship with my wife, so that I'll read his (or
even her) card and buy it. What are they doing in my relationship?
As I wrote in my card, I can't imagine this idea of buying cards as being
a successful trend (:-). But I've been wrong before...
Jan. 19
The final parts of my beginning potters video are falling
into place. It will be 3 hours long, on 3 DVD's. This has been
a harder struggle than my first set of videos, as I'm trying to think of
what's important to tell beginners, and unfortunately there's a lot...
As I watch the pieces I'm assembling, I know I sometimes throw in extraneous
info, but like the Modern Major General of Pirates of Penzance, I'm teeming
with a lot of news (though not of the hypotenuse)... If you know
of any beginners that might be interested, have them email me at newdvds@sondahl.com
to
get on a list to be notified when they're ready.
Even though this has not been a standard
winter, it resembles it closely enough that I have valued the DVD project
as a way to stave off cabin fever. We've currently got about 3 inches
of slush on the ground, enough to make one think twice about walking off
the plowed roads... Another winter storm is predicted for Friday (again
with 100 per cent chance of precipitation, but this lately the weather
service has been safe without hedging their bets.) The question here
is only whether it will be rain or slush...
Jan.20
Today was a continuation of yesterday, more work on the
DVD's. We did get 5 inches of snow which turned to slush...
Jan. 21
I went to to the Bluegrass Association monthly concert
tonight. I'm always surprised by the new permutations of musicians
that form and sound good together, possibly for one concert only.
The jams surrounding bluegrass events are fertile pollinating grounds for
new combinations of musicians. I guess I'm even caught up it in this
a bit, although I view my musical groups as more stable. Next month
the duo Sondahl and Hawkins will play for the bluegrass concert, with a
third fine musician thrown in, Terry Ludiker. He, like most of us, is in
several other bands, and it's not for a permanent association we're doing
this, but because I thought it would be worth a try...
Jan. 22
I've gotten caught up with nuancing the beginning pottery
DVD project, filling each disk almost completely. The problem is
that the software likes to freeze up at unexpected moments. Well,
either the software or the computer--the result is the same. But
I currently have 3 complete discs, so only need the covers and some other
supplies to begin manufacturing them.
Meanwhile church today was an interesting experience,
as a woman who is generally part of the "summer people" in the area spoke
on the mission she founded in Kenya to help street children, which has
grown in 13 years to house more than 150 boys. Their website is www.agapechildren.org.
I was impressed that she could organize such a successful enterprise.
It's just in one out of the way city in Kenya, but it sounded like very
worthwhile work. There's some lovely singing by the children posted
on the website.
Jan. 24
When we got a real house 2 years ago (our 4 room pottery
store with attached pottery studio had previously been our only home),
at first glance it appeared mostly ready to live in. But it had been
a smoker's house, and the smell pervaded the carpet, walls, etc.
So my wife has mostly been the impetus to remove all the old carpeting,
which left us with a particle board floor. Thanks to my mother's
annual largesse, we decided to put in hardwood floors. The whole
process has been hard (and we haven't even started installing it yet).
My wife looked at some pecan wood flooring that "looked like us" in that
it was a bit beat up looking right out of the box. Unfortunately,
it was also twice as expensive as white oak from another place, so we went
with the oak, and putting it in more rooms than we would have with the
pecan, since it was cheaper. Still cheaper was bamboo, which looks
pretty good, but I figured must be pretty much artificial with resins and
stuff, since bamboo doesn't naturally become stiff tongue and groove planks.
Bamboo is touted as the ecological alternative, since it grows a lot faster
than oak. So, basically I sold out my environmental principles to
get Chinese oak flooring. But it looks great, just out of the box...
Jan.25
Another project to see us through the blah days of winter
is moving the pottery workshop from where it is to the next room over,
which is twice as big. I was tearing down the wall today that had
confined that room to being the same size as the current workshop.
Then I measured the spaces I currently use for throwing, storing pots,
glazing, wedging, and clay storage, and figured out where they should go
in the new room. I will gain some shelf space, and hopefully be able
to eliminate some of the crowding that has gradually swallowed my floor
space in the old pottery. I will also have a window which should
provide some north light on my wheel (north light has no shadows) as well
as an inspiring view of our 100 foot pines out the window.
However this project will probably wait on getting a
lot of the flooring done first.
Jan. 26 No piece of flooring is nailed down yet, but we
moved a lot of furniture and did a lot of other prep work today and last
night.
Then this evening I went in to Spokane for Duo music
practice, so that also explains a bit of the lack of progress. But
it was a nice day, none the less.
With the new instructional videos, I even got a call
inquiring about them today, so I'm happy that without any publicity (beyond
my website) people are finding out about them. I look forward to
shipping them (within a week), and also to finding out if beginners find
them useful...
Our new cat has gained the nickname of Dog, since he's
bigger than some dogs (such as one some customers brought in today).
He also likes to play fetch with balls (about as well as most dogs, in
that carrying around the ball is mostly what he likes). And he's the designated
extrovert of this outfit, like many dogs are. Whenever the showroom
door opens, he gallops there to greet whoever comes in. So far this
is mostly a plus...
Jan. 27
The flooring project got started this evening.
It's going well, but it takes a long time, and a lot of getting up and
kneeling down to do it...
For fun today I posted 2 videos to the latest popular
rage to hit the internet, a people's video center. These are large
files so don't click below if you don't have a broadband connection.
I purposefully focused on the guitar, as I figured guitarists would be
mostly interested in the fingerwork. Here are the web addresses if
you're interested:
Click
here for a video of "Almost a Kottke"
Click
here for video of "Huckleberry Mountain"
Jan. 28
I think I'll desist from further mention about flooring
until it's done. It's currently about 10%, clicking along like clockwork,
but the clock goes slow.
We got another 6 inches of snow today, enough so it's
beginning to build up again, as deep as any time this winter. More
snow is predicted the next couple days as well.
Today I'm finally releasing the 3 DVD beginner
pottery video set as well. Since I do it all myself, there are lots
of details, including making new covers and stickers to put on the DVDs.
Finally, the most interesting email I've gotten recently
came from Sasha in Serbia, who sent me a link to his
webpage. He speaks eloquently of making a life from the shards
of war, in spite of the challenge of a decimated economy. I wish
him well.
Jan. 29
January is a long month. My son, who skis daily,
organized a surprise rail jam at the Sandpoint library. A rail jam
is skiers (or snowboarders) doing tricks off rails. The original
rails were railings on stairs at ski resorts. Since then enterprising
daredevils have tried many other locations. There is a small creek
by the library, and his goal was to jump across the gap. Unfortunately
there wasn't enough hill to build up speed, so he landed in the creek,
one of the three times he tried it. Ahh to be young and adventurous
and carefree. This evening he has a big toenail which looks fated
to come off, which has happened to him nearly every year from jamming his
toes while landing difficult tricks. Ahh, to be young and in pain
from one's adventures... In my middle aged dotage I tend
to have the pain without the adventures...
Jan. 30
It was another Chinook day, with rain, snow, hail, and
strong wind, and temperatures rising to the 40's. Spirit Lake is
unusual in that the lake has a bottom sealed with muck, over extremely
porous gravel. It used to be you could see holes along the edge of
the lake where water was swirling down like a bathtub drain. Because
of the leaks, the lake tends to drop a few feet from Spring to late Summer,
eventually making parts of the lake hazardous for boaters, too shallow
for swimmers in some areas, and one end (the Mill Pond) dries up completely.
So the homeowners association spearheaded an effort to seal the lake, including
finally covering the whole millpond with a plastic-like material in hopes
of stopping the leakage. Unfortunately the rest of the lake has some
leaks as well, and for several years the lake has not filled up totally
even in the Spring. So I now say, with the confidence of the record
precipitation of the last month, that the lake will at least fill up this
year, since it has risen dramatically in the last month, nearly to full
pool already.
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