CockyConure

I recently took down a website that I’ve been managing for the past 13 years. It wasn’t a high traffic site, more of a hobby website. My partner and I started it together, and while popular in the beginning, over the years, the traffic dropped, the number of dead links became difficult to manage, and the usefulness of the content decreased. The desire to maintain the site was gone.  It was hard to let it go, but when it came down to it, the heaviness of the site, of not keeping it up-to-date,  was not worth it. We all have to learn to let go of our extra baggage and clutter, whatever the “clutter” may be. What was once a hobby became a burden.

Tea: Moonlight White Tea. Almost no aroma, but very sweet subtle flavor. Tastes almost as if honey was added. The description on Upton Tea’s website mentions melon after notes. I didn’t get that. Steeped well a second time.

After giving it come thought, I decided to turn off the comments. When it came down to it, I spend a lot of time deleting emails and reporting spam than approving comments. So, goodbye comments.

I’m still enjoying the direction I’ve been going in with my ceramics. While most of the pots I’ve been making have been symmetrical, one of my latest pieces took on different shape while remaining true to the concept. To date, this is my favorite piece.

Most ceramic instructors tell students to have a vision of the completed pot, right down to the color of glaze, before they start to work with the clay. This doesn’t work for me. For the mandala pots, I’ve been starting off with a general egg-like shape, I throw on the wheel. I make as many as I can (time and amount of clay permitting). When once they are dry enough to start trimming, I get to work cutting them up and seeing what happens. Some of the parts naturally fit together better.

For this piece, I did start with a loose sketch of a type of spiral, and I think the movement of the spiral comes through in the finished pot. I may have to give the ceramic instructor’s advice some more thought!

Oh free wifi, how you tease me so. I was thrilled to find that Amtrak finally installed wifi on many of the northeast corridor trains. Ideas started to swim around my head about what could be accomplished during the few uninterrupted hours I’d find myself with while traveling for the holiday. Unfortunately, while the network is easily detected….it’s not so easy to connect to. I got on once for five minutes and then spent the rest of the train ride trying to reconnect. Fair to say, I accomplished little, thanks AmtrakDisconnected.