infryq

Yesterday I met with an ad hoc team working on a visualization web app for forecast evaluations, went to lunch early so I could make a 12pm meeting only to find it had been moved earlier, listened in on a webinar R&R gave on Delphi’s work and provided backchannel support in the chat, had a good 1:1 meeting with C, a reasonable team leads meeting (keeping people focused was a constant struggle but everyone’s clearly exhausted), and listened in on a couple final presentations for data analysis projects. In the cracks I started drafting documentation for the upcoming API signal on official hospitalization reports from Health and Human Services, and wrote up the release process for API signals in excruciating detail so that folks who are working while I’m away next week will be able to follow it. I’m glad I did; all wrapped up like that it makes it very clear how much work it is.

P did the Thursday errands, which included picking up the vegetable order, and this week picking up a painting I bought from R featuring vibrant colored crows ❤️🪶. It’s gorgeous and I’m excited to hang it. The roads were in good shape locally, though the farm folks had to do some substantial digging to get themselves out for deliveries. All told about 12”, wet and heavy.

Dinner, ordered a big box of Katie snacks, crossword, SG-1, snack, sleep. Dreamt of sewing a coat with many panels that kept skewing in ways that defied geometry, and making experimental puff pastry that alternated layers of butter and jam.

Finished Ring of Dragons. Endings continue to be of the got-tired-of-writing sort, but I sure am hoping to see the remaining threads come together harmoniously, so imma keep going.

Yesterday I took a day off for adventures. We went to Carnegie so I could
pick out some clay tools at Standard, and I got a large loop tool and two
small ones for trimming, a wee pick/manipulator tool for smoothing the
inside crease on mug handles, some brushes, and split a set of angled trim
tools with P. Then P hung out at the coffee shop while I explored main
street, and I picked up a print from a brilliant colorist at a gallery that
only shows art from women. Home and lunch, then we went to Shadyside so P
could pick up the first part of his order at the Apple store, and I went to
Blick. I got some modeling epoxy and a fettling knife (Standard was out).

The crossword was hard! Like an old school Friday. Many false starts.

I tested out the modeling epoxy and made two signature stamps from the
positives I carved in wax last week. There was some learning curve because
for the first hour after mixing it acts as an adhesive, but I was able to
recover okay and scrape the remnants out of the carvings without damaging
them. Best impressions were at 1.5-2 hours.

I drew a template for the rib I want to make, aimed at compressing the
bottom of small forms. Might do that today.

Yesterday I played around with carving my initials glyph into a wax tablet.
It worked okay, though I probably need to go deeper to get a good
impression. The nice thing about wax versus clay is that a heat gun will
take care of all the wispy crumbs. We went to the farmers market and got
apples, peppers, eggplant, parsley, and some other things I don’t remember.
I did the laundry and hung it out on the line. I packed the care package
for my sister. We went to the library and I pulled just about the entire
ceramics section for study, and checked out two of them to bring home.