boy in the city. brandon visits yellowknife.

hey what's up out there? i hope you are enjoying the end of your 2009... for me it's been an interesting year, one full of much insanity and emotional turbulence. anywho as a little cap to everything i thought i would bust up to yellowknife for a couple days in order to escape my space and gain new appreciation for it before another year of paper, clay, bikes, skis and hopefully fish. anywho it's been nice so far, just taking it easy and spending some time with a good friend.

so 2009 is closing and it was a strange one. here is my top five great and top five suck for the year, i'm not actually putting my number one suck because it's a little too personal.

SUCK
5. blacking out, hitting my head on a coffee table and being hauled away in a meat wagon, having my head stapled, being belligerent at the hospital, escaping with no shoes and no glasses, getting back to my shack and just about to crawl into bed when the fuzz show up... they haul me back to the hospital.

4. got drunk, tried to jump a three foot fence, came down wrong and rolled my ankle, couldn't walk for 3 days, could hardly ride a bike or walk for 3 weeks and it still hurts.

3. the return of stomach problems, my own body is turning against me. seriously, it hurts.

2. monotony, feels like i live the same day everyday, you know, like "groundhog day" on shittier and without a little fuzzy rodent, or bill murry.

1. another year alone, no love for boys like me.


GREAT

5. new bicycle, started to winter bike.

4. caught an eight pound pickeral in the hay river, biggest pick i've caught yet.

3. my sister was around for the year, really helped out.

2. spent alot of time fishing and hanging at the beach. even fished in October.

1. one full year without a car of buying gasoline.

yeah so i guess it was an alright year, nothing incredible, still waiting to be hit by lightening... trying to fall in love with the world again and searching for a bit of comfort. i guess good warriors soldier on, swords by their side, waiting to be put to use as swift as meditation to action and dealing the swiftest most perfect cut. well this is brandon of the silver class wishing you all another great spin around the sun.

Dear Santa Claus...

Dear Santa? how are you? i hope well... i have always wanted to ask you... are your reindeer zero emission propulsion or do they admit a high amount of flatulence because of the high carbohydrate diet that they need to maintain flight? just wondering. also do you have stealth technology or do you just ignore FDA guidelines? i suppose as a magical elf of mysterious and vaguely Judeo-Christian background you have some sort of immunity... and plus i guess everyone has to be asleep before you come. that's always a bummer, i'd love to chill with you dude, we could play mario kart and eat cookies, it would be a blast.

i know you get a lot of letters this time of year and i know a lot of bloggers are pestering you and i want you to know it's cool if you skip my post this year...

i've been a very good potter this year and i've ridden my bike all year (even in the winter!) and i also finished my first complete year without spending money on gasoline so all i want for christmas is a 1970's Schwinn Sting-ray Pea Picker, if you could, i'd like a 5 speed stik-shift, shock sissy bar, Springer fork and an extra set of rams horns handle bars... if that is not possible a Grey Ghost from December 1970's would be pretty awesome too... i promise i will ride it every saturday and sunday in the summer and always to the beach.



your's in the dharma, brandon.

Commuting is... boring.

hey hey... weather has turned, groovy stuff, minus 27 is a-ok in my book! the bike is rocking balls! yesterday morning the ride was a little scary because it was minus 33 (-44 with windchill) and i knew that if i stopped pedaling and engaged the freewheel there would be no coming back (that is to say it would not spring back and catch the tire)... a couple of cool things happened though, the sched DC-3 of Buffalo Ice Pilots fame flew directly over me while i was peddling over the bridge, not too many people can say they were riding a bike in the middle of minus 30 december when a world war II radial thunders overhead, it was as it always is, a thrill... even in the summer when the noise isn't as loud it is something else. i love how that plane is so old but keeps on flying very inspiring and a true testament to reliability. but commuting is the same everyday... dark, nervous when trucks are on the road and same route... oh well familiarity is alright i guess... it is reminding me that i should get outta this town for a while at some point.

The ride home last night was awesome, the wind was at my back and it warmed up to -27, my freewheel worked and i blazed home with the help of the wind. i'm also surprised at how much of a difference in speed the temperature makes, and it isn't even a wide margin, -27 for some reason is way faster than anything lower than -30... it's weird because when you ski you just say it's slow, you can't tell the difference between -27 and -30 but on a bike i guess the lubricants are more sensitive to the temperature changes. anyway, still a little concerned with riding at temps lower than 30 but right now it's "no money, no choice" so i'll continue to bust out.

i had a nice weekend... mostly i played Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time on saturday... fun game, funny too. nice mix of puzzles and gunplay combat. honestly Ratchet and Clank represent to me the best part of video games... fun. crazy insane weapons, over the top bad guys, humor and a play at your pace style. the play is as complex as you want to make it and amping up the difficulty definitely provides a challenge. anywho you got a PS3 you like fun games where you shoot stuff and beat crazy monsters and robots to death with a wrench that is somehow also a boomerang give it a shot... or ask for it for christmas... definitely worth it.

throwing some piggy banks this morning... they look like munitions shells, or boobs, or... the kremlin? you decide.


i like 'em... fun to make doesn't really matter if they are even or not no trimming involved i can do more of this... it's fun and nice to stretch a bit. also i'm looking forward to squirreling away cash in one of my own and i really can't wait to smash the sucker when it's stuffed and see how much cash-e-ola is inside. maybe i'll finally have enough to buy that irradiated super chimp and get rid of that pesky weasel with the eyepatch and bird... he's such a nuisance... i did make up a back story for him based on what i know... i suspect he was once a pet on a pirate ship hence the mischievous nature and the colourful bird... perhaps the bird was a pet too... but now that there are no more pirate on the great slave lake he has retired to pester me at the strangest times in the strangest ways, well that's as near as i can figure it... have a great week. rock the commute! -b

'Captain! she just can't take it!' "Dammit! i said more power!"

she couldn't hack it. my ride doesn't work at temperature below minus thirty... as near as i can figure it out is that the freewheel gets to cold and won't disengage after running free of the gears, must be a grease problem... but anyway it was damn cold this morning... too cold for a 5km bicycle ride... ice fog was everywhere and because of it my glasses fogged up pretty easily... i discovered my freewheel's little problem when i got to the coffee shop i coasted off the highway and down the tracks when i got to the mailbox on the corner i realized i was getting no power transfer from my pedals to my tire. luckily i had made it to my destination so i didn't have to struggle with it any further. i had yet to diagnose the problem though, but after pulling my bike into the shop i was able to letit warm up a bit i found the freewheel started to engage properly, i wasn't worried about it being broken because it seemed to work fine once it was warm... i guess the grease isn't right for the temperature. what a bummer... will i have to sell out?

on a pottery note... i suck this week, ruined everything i made... so i gave up this morning for a day... hit it fresh on a saturday when i can do as i please... and i ain't so worried 'bout work and bikes and shit... seems to be the way to make me work... have a great weekend all.

one frosty freewheel.

hitting the deepfreeze.

facking cold this morning... -20 and -38 with wind chill. so it was a little frosty this morning, a little narrow and dark on the roads.... it's not so much the cold temperatures that i'm worried about it's the wind. the wind is horrible. it blows the snow across the road making it hard to see the difference between the shoulder, the road and the ditch. it also seems like there is greater traffic when it gets cold. it is definitely slippery for the vehicles. i felt fine on my bike this morning but when i went out in the delivery van to drop off some forms this morning it was extremely slow moving through the intersections, no traction. so it is a little scary sharing the road with all the metal beasts... i'm also so blown away by the amount of full size crew cab pickups, i always new there were a lot of them, i mean it is the north after all, but it seems like it's the minivan of the northwest territories. anyway... blowing snow, narrow roads and a lot of them and one of me. i guess that's what i signed up for... but it is worrisome, i didn't actually think it was going to be this scary out there... anyway i'm starting to second guess my decision for biking the entire winter.... maybe i need a back up on days like today... i donno but i do know that i gotta get home this afternoon against an 18 km wind and a -28 degree temp, totaling -40 degrees with wind chill. yeah, i'm smart like bag of rocks, well whatever, one day one ride one pedal at a time. peace out.

ridin' down the highway... goin' to a show... stoppin' all the by-ways.... playin' rock 'n roll...

...it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll! anyway... i had a show on satuday and i did well... here's a pic of my table.


yeah so i sold pretty much everything... only had 6 pieces left at the end of the day... some of them were my favorites as well so i was a little surprised... but i guess everyone has their own opinion. Tankards did well, selling out along with my bowls. here is a pic of some tankards.

riding has been great too, they have cleared the roads from the last big dump here (it was pretty scary riding in the snowstorm on friday). i even had to jump off my bike on friday and push it through the snow because the road was too narrow to accommodate both the trucks and i. but i got home safe so all is good. Today's ride was great though, no wind clear roads and only minus 17. so no complaints here. well i best run, i'll catch you all later.

my schedule is kilnin' me.

crunch time. i hate that phrase, makes me think of stepping on beetles. i suppose it's better than "five minutes to midnight" an all too dramatic and overused phrase. i suppose the work i have to do isn't too too much... i really should have bisque fired a day earlier but pieces weren't ready. i hate not judging my drying times right. anyway i got my work cut out for me tonight and tomorrow.. i gotta unload and turn around the kiln tonight for a glaze firing of mugs which means glazing the bisqueware. anyway i also gotta truck all this stuff to town as well, i've been moving it a bit at a time while coming to work but i can only carry so much... oh well if i gotta borrow a vehicle so be it.

ghost the cat seemed pretty interested in the mugs and bowls that i was packing into my timbuk2 satchel this morning... she always has to inspect the new work before i pack it out. anyway had a pretty good load of greenware for the bisque cycle that ran last night. a nice full load of mugs and a few bowls that i needed to finish up a pretty full load all in all. it is a relief to have the bisque done but i'm running late.


on a bike related note: transported a bunch a bowls this morning and had a great ride... it was -17 Celsius and a little slippery on the roads... the funny thing was that my boots were more slippery than my tires... those are like Velcro compared to the cold rubber of my solomon's so in a way i'm crazy happy i decided to ride instead of walk this winter... i know last year i had my share of slip outs while hoofing it. anyway glaze tonight and that will rock balls. the more i can get done this week the better... gotta stay positive... gotta pray to the kiln gods (suggested to be Hephaestus, but i think he is the forge god and not the kiln god, but he is the god of artisans) and gotta be conservative when it comes to kiln space and pretty much perfect with my application, i don't have much room for fixing mistakes... chat at cha laytah.

song of the misanthrope.

what's up out there anonymous people? so far a good day today... minus 20 degrees this morning making for a crisp ride to town... luckily i didn't meet any plows or anything going the same direction as me... i was also only passed by 2 b-trains so not too bad at all. especially considering i was also packing an extra 8 pounds of mugs on my back. i was a little worried i would take a spill seeing this was the first really cold morning and all but everything was operating in top form. it was nice to get some finished work labeled up and ready for saturday...

i know i said i would take a few pictures and here they are... some glaze testers checking out some mixes nothing terribly exciting i'm afraid... and the pictures aren't even that good, i had taken better ones but i forgot my camera at the studio when i left for work so these ones were snapped from my macbook... so they ain't so good but give you an idea and better than nothing... like the first time you have sex.


anyway more shiny things to come... i think i'm slowly going insane... i mean i seem to be the only one seeing the weasel with the eyepatch again and working morning and night is disorientating especially when it is always dark when working in the studio... days seem to bleed into each other and i'm getting tired... i got to fire a bisque tonight one nice thing is that all i have to do tonight, and that i am looking forward too... a night on the chesterfield with a beer in my hand, watching stock footage of explosions and meat packing... exciting. ever wish you were struck by lightening? metaphoric lightning of course... the kind of metaphoric lightening that comes with a case of beer and wearing a bikini... but unfortantly these dreams are like an elephant on a tricycle being pushed by a colourful bird wearing a hat, simply ridiculous.

actually i think the darkness is sapping quite a bit out of all the people of limbo... i mean we only get about 4 hours of sunlight... if it's not cloudy, in which case it is dark all day... oh well, i gotta go anyway... i'm about to put a 187 on the tilt of the earth for the lack of sun.

bisque, glaze, throw and ride! oh my!

what's up masses? you miss me? nice monday morning up here in the northwest territories, minus 12 Celsius and a little light snow dusting everything, there is a still a shit-ton of hoarfrost out there making the world seem pretty surreal. my mom and sister got back home today after a month long visit to china, i'm pretty excited to hear all the stories and everything but it gotta deal with a day of work first. after helping them with their luggage i grabbed my bike out of the back of the van and took off to the print shop. it was a nice ride into town and i was really looking forward to it, i got some new gear i've been itching to test and they seem to work a treat, and not a frozen one. i also took 'em for a test run on saturday night to the pub... i had been in the studio all day and was so hungry i could have eaten crispy beaver urethra.

the Jacket is an MEC Juggernaut which, despite it's light weight is freakishly warm sometimes even too warm when i'm busting ass through deep snow. i like my new Solomon elf boots as well. they are warm, dry and light... but at the moment they are pretty stiff so they obviously need a little love, care, ware and abuse. the socks are pretty bad ass, they are padded up the shin and provide extra insulation, also the wicking actually works, usually i just dismiss that "feature" as an outrageous claim like "no drip teapot" all you potters know what i mean... if you claim your teapot doesn't drip you are a dirty liar! and honestly who cares anyway? but anyway back to socks... the wicking works! it was nice to come to work with dry socks and not have to change into a fresh pair. anyway the only downside to being back on the bike is that i can't go home at lunch to work in the studio... oh well it is a fair trade 'cause the riding is like Milla Jovovich... absolutely beautiful.

so i hope everyone had fun on the weekend, i was mostly working in the studio throwing the last of my mugs and tankards, unloading bisque, mixing glaze and turning around the kiln for a glaze fire... all a lot of fun and i have a better feeling about this upcoming sale... it is good to get work done. i haven't taken photos from the glaze fire yet, but i expect i will do so tonight... i have at least 2 more firings that i have to fit in this week (one bisque and one glaze and a possible third glaze, yikes!) i hope to get the bisque going tomorrow evening... just waiting for some things to dry and i still have to clean a few handles... it is half loaded though and things are looking good. i'll be sure to snap some pictures of the last glaze fire this evening and get them up... some cool results from a previously underused glaze: ox-blood red! with real oxen plasma harvested from an ancient race of blood oxen found deep in the cave of bovine time, ancient, still and tasty... mmmm sacrificial!

havin a glass of hemoglobin laden liquid, this is brandon sayin' "don't just recycle, recycle to the extreme!"

Do potters dream of ceramic sleep?

man what a night... i came home last night and checked on the mugs i had thrown in the morning... the tops on two were close to being bone dry, hoping to save them i quickly wrapped them in plastic with a sponge inside... a trick that sometimes works. i slept kinda nervously, deadlines and potential loss of product do this to me, hopefully the kiln firing i have scheduled for tonight will put that at ease. dreams were strange though thought i saw ceramic sheep, or was it a moose? an omen? perhaps i am remembering the dreams of some other potter... anyway... this morning i checked on them and they seemed as though they were moist enough to lute handles, was i saved? did the gods of clay and kilns forgive me?

perhaps they did but my hands betrayed me... i fucked up my trimming and threw one into the splash pan, deforming and taking a big nick outta the lip rim. the other i went too deep while trimming and punched a hole in the bottom... i smashed them together in a display of my hulk like rage and power, shards of leather hard clay falling into the kitty litter bucket below, raining like the ceramic sheep of dreams or nativity scenes,(what you don't like throwing your nativity in the air?) needless to say i wasn't too happy with myself and after finishing the other four mugs i slunk off to the coffee shop for an americano to think about my failure, wallow in my shame and prepare a new battle plan... perhaps i can out flank with dragoons and then rush with light infantry...

see you later, space cowboy.

dang cold, deadlines coming up...

hey, hey, les enfants! pretty cold this morning -24 celsius... made me kinda happy i was behind in work and thus didn't have time to bike to work today... actually i was kinda excited for my first really cold morning but pots need to be made and it took me about an hour and a half to get some work thrown and the studio kinda cleaned up. i've been working on mugs right now and i forgot how time consuming they can be. both luting the handles takes time and so does the drying afterwards, dry too quick and cracks will cause the handle and mug to look like shite, and to break off easily. so i gotta do a lot right now to accommodate for the extended time. Bowls just chil after they're done. they're all like "dude, thanks for trimming my foot, now i'm just gonna sit here and chill out and dry before i have my sauna"... so much easier, if only drinking from bowls was more popular.


anyway i finished off all my regular size mugs just 6 waiting to be trimmed and have their handles luted. i guess all i got left to throw are some mantastic tankards for mustache wearing manly men (preferably the type that lift comical pyramid shaped weights) to consume the malted liquor (that gets you drunker quicker) who don't like it out of bottles and/or cans. got two done this morning... s'more to come yet. you know, i happen to like the ancient hop juice myself and these bad boys have got me excited... plus some of me ole mates have requested some epic tankards for their brew so i must oblige. here is a pic of a previously made tankard, the new ones will be even better i got some new ideas and i'm really looking forward to stretching a bit with these pieces.



a regular mug.



a TANKard for drunkards. both these pieces were made last year, new pictures of 2009 tankards soon. have a grand day, gangstas.

snowy, lots of pots to finish.

howdy y'all, what's kickin' shit today? i had a nice ride this morning, luckily the plows were out early enough that i didn't meet any going the same direction as me, and there wasn't much of an ice coating on the chip-seal, one advantage to that crap i guess. also the town was able to clear the snow from the core, and they didn't even leave large piles in the middle, eliminating this kinda jackassery:



and people think i'm crazy for riding a bike, i'll bet you loonies to beer that i will never get hung up like that. anyway, not much doing for biking, mostly getting back and forth and trying not to get hit. on the pottery ends of things though i have been throwing clay like, ummm, a golem? i donno what throws clay more than a potter, okay so my similes suck today, suck like uh... the great shop vac of space and creation. better? no? damn. i'm busy making stock for the christmas season... nothing says profit like the combination of a diabetic man with a beard who likes kids to sit in his lap and a messiah that was celebrated as our saviour even before he did anything (like obama getting the peace prize) makes me feel all warm and fuzzy... like the handcuffs at the dominatrix... anyway here is a look at some 2009 mugs.



i'm looking out the window while some soft white snowflakes drift lazily down, settling on the bare trees and pine needles, like some cheesy souvenir snow globe or stock imagery from a robert frost poem. speaking of drama, i hope the "Ice Pilots" show went well, all my best to the Buffalo Crew.

smell you later for now. -b

"dude, come check out my blog" 'nah, i can bore myself.'

so here it is my official first blog post... i thought i'd start this blog because i have recently taken on the challenge of biking year round... i know, "big deal" some of you say... yeah, well unless you are doing it above the sixty parallel on icy roads in complete darkness... just you shut your mouth... (my little china girl).

some background leading up to this...

my car broke down in January, i started walking. when the snow melted enough (end of april) i was back on my Dew busting the commute. winter started coming and i was torn between buying a burly bike to ride through the winter and purchasing an internal combustion engine (a sweet little jeep)... ultimately i opted not to buy the jeep but still had to make a decision: ride the narrow roads or find another vehicle.

i weighed the advantages and disadvantages and then i was like all fuck it! i love bikes and hate cars! i could not think of a better reason than the challenge for someone who considers himself a "core" biker. additionally i think i can save up for that irradiated super chimp i saw on the internet.

anyway, i dropped some dough bought spiked tires, a burly rig and a shit ton of LEDs. threw it all together and christened it "the suicycle"... been riding in the snow and ice for a month now, been loving every minute of it but things will change when the busy season starts... and coincidently my biggest concern: fuel laden b-trains heading north... but more on that later.