infryq | Entries tagged with pottery

Yesterday I got the nlg prototype working, which required forking the JSON
reference implementation to hack in support for xml attributes. Then I got
the full system installed into our java server with all the appropriate
hookups in the python agent. I wrote a quick api in python to ease sentence
declarations so they don’t take up much space and are approximately
human-readable. Then I found a real live bug in simplenlg, because their
xml realiser flubs perfect passive (“haves” and “haved” are not words)
while the java realiser gets them right.

After work I did a turn through the garden. Wednesday night’s storm took
down a big branch of the tromboncino vine, the one that had the
probably-overlarge squash hanging from it. Cleaned that up, and rescued the
squash, which is huge and had wrapped itself into more of a sousaphone than
a trombone shape, hilarious. Then I picked a pile of beans.

We went to open studio, where I attempted to throw small cups off the hump.
No luck, four tries into the reclaim. I gave up and made a fairly nice bowl
out of the remnants.

Snack, crossword (nice trick!), and sleep.

Yesterday was better. I spent the morning grinding through options for
running the nlg system in our environment, and rapidly located problems
with all three python options I’d found previously, but got an idea for
running my prototype system inside our parse server. It’s not quite working
yet, as it involves converting JSON to XML and I don’t have the syntax
right somewhere in the pipeline yet, but barring unreasonable difficulties
it should work eventually. I spent the bulk of the afternoon in a detailed
survey of all our dialog elements to be sure the api I design will cover
all the necessary cases. Met briefly with an old student to discuss a
scalability issue she’s having with her current project, and made plans to
more thoroughly catch up before she graduates. Missed the shuttle on the
way in, but it gave P the opportunity to grab a coffee at the new la Prima
in the new Wean lobby. We’re both pretty wrecked in the heat.

After dinner grandma called; they’re starting a slow process to prepare to
move to a care home, which is the right choice. If only one of them was
poorly, they might be able to make it work, but with the stroke it’s just
untenable. So they’re ostensibly downsizing, although with us so far away
there’s not much I can take but what will ship. I put my name on the serger
and the thread collection, and maybe a hobnail glass piece or two.

I’ve been reading book two of the Tearling series, which needs an enormous
tw for rape scenes, so-far-vague reference to paedophilia, and more body
horror than book one. It’s starting to get into the backstory though, which
is really compelling.

Also staying caught up on the ceramics forums, and starting to take note of
which people’s posts make my life better and which not so much. I remain
someone who finds new things, and beginners by proxy, exciting rather than
irritating.

Yesterday we went to open studio. I trimmed and handled all three mugs and
trimmed the bowl. The handles were a bit dry but it worked out. P threw a
few salt pigs; his bottles from Thursday weren’t yet dry enough to trim. We
stopped at the big geagle at the waterfront for soybeans and snacks, and
went home for a very late lunch. Managed to sneak dinner in before bedtime,
so feeling pretty good about that. Watched the last two episodes of Lords &
Ladles so now I’m looking for a new low-tension show.

Yesterday I mailed mom’s birthday present, started spinning a
Seahawks-colored Romney-mohair blend to match the mariners one, totally
forgot to meet S for lunch, finished fine-tuning the Android app and
committed all changes, and added some transitions to the server state
machine to handle batch confirmations. After work we went to open studio.
My mugs were too wet to trim, so I pulled a bunch of handles, flubbed an
attempt at a pitcher, and threw a rather nice candy dish.

Yesterday we went to open studio. I wedged up six pounds of clay for
throwing off the hump, and made 3 smallish mugs, one flub, and one rather
nice bowl. I learned that it’s important to compress the clay really well
before/when you’re coning up the next bit, and that cutting off is tricky.
I also cleaned up my little slab of the negatives for some seal designs.

After clay we went to the Waterfront and got katiesnacks, a few sundries,
and a cheap SIM card. I did a turn through the garden and picked a pile of
beans, and most of the remaining onions. I finished plying the Romney
mohair blend and skeined it up for washing. I carded all the flicked
Shetland and dressed the distaff. Watched another episode of Lords and
Ladles, and called it a day.

Yesterday I got P off to the doctors office for an early appointment to
remove his stitches. I plied two bobbins worth of the Romney mohair blend,
and got myself in to work. The new android phones arrived, and they are
sleek and black and sharky and gorgeous. I spent the rest of the day fixing
the bugs F reported Wednesday evening.

After work we went to open studio. I glazed my fired work, trimmed a bowl,
and started a negative for a signature stamp. I might scrap it and carve it
into wax instead, not sure.

Yesterday we went to open studio and I threw one bad pot and one good bowl.
I learned how to use a chuck and trimmed the wacky vase from last week. I
really need my own trim tools. We stopped at the dollar store and picked up
a cheap tape measure, and also a steel spring toy, both for making tools
out of. P also picked up some glow sticks for the emergency bag and some
headphones. Once home, the handles I had ordered were in the mailbox, and I
spent most of the afternoon on a toolmaking learning curve. The steel
measuring tape has to be held just right for the tin snips to work on it
instead of just bending in between the blades. It’s easy to accidentally
work-harden the edge, and then it doesn’t bend smoothly. I got it to work
with some practice, but it doesn’t leave a smooth edge. I chickened out of
using the dremel because sparks are scary. Maybe I’ll bring everything down
to the basement and try that again.

I did a turn through the garden while lunch was cooking and picked a couple
of squash that had got away from me. We’ll be eating squash for a while. A
few beans, though it looks like the calimas are about done and the fortex
aren’t quite in the swing yet. Onions.

I’m reading a new book called Fangirl and it is excellent.

Yesterday we went to open studio and I made a wacky vase and two rather
large mugs, and trimmed the bowl I made on Wednesday. No flubs. I threw the
mugs from one hunk of clay, which is normally called “off the hump” but
mine devolved into a sorta attached disk that I’m pretty surprised I
managed to salvage.

We made it to studio early enough that lunch afterwards wasn’t too terribly
delayed. I did a turn through the garden and picked beans and calendula,
and tied up the bush marrows. P made Thai food (basil beef) and I made rice
berry. I finished another segment of the oval of french knots in Gerty’s
embroidery project, and did some research on clay tools.

Vivid dreams of a malfunctioning computer vision -based door security
system, family day at Olin, a large machine learning model finishing eight
months of training, a bed outdoors under a ginkgo tree, somebody
persistently misgendering a friend, and being flown around some
suspiciously beachy fjords by a stage magician who turned out to be doing
actual magic.

Yesterday I did some research on possible restaurant destinations for a
visit from F&A later this month, did some stretches, and took the bus in to
work. I almost have nested if/then statements working, although I’ve now
exceeded the very simple natural language generation system’s ability to
cope. I wrote up an email about it to clarify my thoughts. After work we
went to the final pottery class this session, and learned about throwing
bowls. I trimmed all my pieces and still had enough time to throw one
pretty darn reasonable bowl in spite of some significant trouble centering.
We lingered after class chatting with folks, and discovered J lives
literally down the street from us, so we may hang out with her and get
involved in the local studio together. Had just enough brain left for the
crossword before falling asleep.

Yesterday we went to open studio at the pottery and I made one terrible
cylinder, one pretty good canister, and a surprisingly good steep-sided
bowl. P lent me his mirror. It took a bit to get the hang of using it, but
now I’m hooked. I also started using a metal rib to help smooth and
compress when things got squirrelly, and modulo learning that the edges are
really quite sharp, I like that too.

We went straight home after, but still didn’t eat before 3. Gotta figure
that out.

I made some progress on Gerty’s embroidery project, and twisted up a few
lengths of fishing line for making cutoff wires. P ran out of toggles, and
made more. We watched an episode of Tudor Monastery Farm, and brought our
crossword time down substantially in spite of struggling with the top half.
I’m reading The Darkest Part of the Forest, a YA urban fantasy story in the
tradition of Tam Lin and The Wizard Knight, and loving it. A good day.

Yesterday I spun some more of the Romney-mohair blend, and met with someone
from a related research group at work about how they’re doing dialogue
management. P was on campus in the afternoon, so he drove us home. After
dinner and crossword I made a couple of simple ceramics tools, a needle
tool and a sponge-on-a-stick.

Top snack at the moment is gf animal crackers smothered with almond butter.

Yesterday I went in early for a group meeting, which went great, and spent
the rest of the day writing code. After work we went to pottery, which had
a new teacher. She showed some alternate techniques, which helped me fix
some problems I was having centering the base of the clay, pulling up
walls, and losing control of the rim.

After clay we did the trash and the crossword, and I fell asleep pretty
hard.

Yesterday I spun some more of the blue and grey Romney-mohair blend I
haven’t touched in weeks. It was nice. At work I put together a modular
system for representing the new state machine, and got most of it entered.
After work I did a turn through the garden, and picked the first bush bean
of the season! Very exciting. There will be more zucchini soon too. After
dinner P located a spare twisted nylon cutoff tool, so I don’t have to make
one. Hooray! I spent that time on embroidery instead, finishing the first
bullion daisy and starting the second.

Yesterday we went to open studio at the pottery and I flubbed one pot and
made three okay ones. I’ve been having trouble centering the very bottom of
the clay, and since that’s where you pull from, a slight wobble there turns
into a thin spot and a thick spot in the wall of the pot all the way up. I
also managed to drag open an abrasion on the heel of my left hand into a
scratch, so I’ll need to be after that pretty diligently if it’s going to
heal by Wednesday.

After the pottery we went to the waterfront and hit target for Katie-snacks
and Costco for paper products, almond butter, oatmeal, and fruit. Stopped
at the excellent Dylamato’s on the way home for fresh eggs. I’d never been
even though it’s just down the hill in Hazelwood, and whoa. Actual food!
Including locally-grown and -milled flour! Very cool.

By then it was after 3 and any hope of smooshing back to a more normal food
schedule was totally blown, so we did dinner at quarter to five and I had
another snack at 7:30. P made pasta with fresh pesto from the garden, which
smelled amazing. After dinner I did a bit of garden maintenance, including
the discovery of the first tromboncino squash — it’s an excellent climber,
seems to be making a ton of productive side shoots, and this squash is over
a foot long and only an inch or two wide, so if it’s at all tasty I think
it will be a permanent selection for summer squash.

Yesterday I worked on the state diagram and monkey-computed my way through
a couple of examples to debug it. A day of thinking really hard, making a
few keystrokes, then thinking really hard some more.

After work, it was time for pottery again! The lesson was on opening up the
center and pulling up walls. I practiced cylinders again, flubbed one, and
made four others that were pretty reasonable in spite of having a dickens
of a time centering.

After we got home we called P’s mom on Skype to wish her a happy birthday
and see if she liked the hat I made for her. She does :)