I, Curtis

Category: General Life

  • Unusual, but useful products

    image I am beginning to believe that all original ideas for products have been used. A few days ago I was thinking that it seems weird that my batteries are all giggling around loose in my camera bag. Today I received the latest edition of PC Photo magazine, and a few pages in was this odd, but useful product. It looks like a decent product that might be sturdy as well. The company’s website claims that it is a strong case, but I won’t know for certain until I receive mine in a few days.

    They are very cheap for their usefulness. I myself purchased 3 of the "slim-line" AA holders. I got one in "Caution Yellow" for high visibility in my camera bag, one in "Tuxedo Black" for those formal occasions requiring batteries and one in "Military Green" for when I need to blend in, or when I’m in the woods in my camo gear taking pics Open-mouthed

     

    Product Link: http://www.powerpax.net

  • My Astrological Chart

    image

    Yesterday Chris’ aunt generated my astrological chart. The chart itself is more astronomy than astrology, it is the positioning of various celestial bodies at the time of my birth and their relative positions to the location of my birth. The astrology part comes with the "reading" of the chart, which is an interesting psychological event in itself. Horoscopes are hokey, this is interesting and remarkably accurate (or at least it was for me).

  • Spicy Chicken Seasoning

    This evening I tried my own attempt at making a chicken seasoning. I was going for something mildly spicy with a bit of a bite, but nothing too hot for my dinner guests (my parents and Chris). I overshot and ended up with something very spicy, but that was considered to be a good flavor by all who attempted eating it. The mixture is listed below.

    Equal parts:

    • Ground red pepper
    • Ground white pepper
    • Ground Italian seasoning
    • Garlic Powder
    • Mrs. Dash Chicken Seasoning (yes, I cheated some)

    One-half part:

    • Ground cumin

    Three parts:

    • Cornmeal

     

    After mixing the seasoning I spooned a single teaspoon into a shaking bag (any light-weight plastic bag, gallon or larger, will do), tossed in a half-breast of chicken and shook aggressively. Once each piece was seasoned I placed them inside a turkey bag (laying flat) on a 13×9 baking dish. I added some sliced Italian sausage on top of the chicken. Tied the bag with butcher’s string and tossed it in the over at 350° for 45 minutes.

     

    I believe the level of heat of this dish can be controlled by adjusting the amount of seasoning placed in the bag, perhaps next time only about a half of a teaspoon per piece of chicken.

  • Plans for Finishing Summer

    Summer classes are over and I’ve made enough ceramics to want to bowl myself into a corner… so what’s next for the summer?

    • Figure drawing – I’m borrowing a book from the UNC library about figure drawing, so I think next week I will try some figure drawing exercises and at least get myself a base set up to play with… maybe I will practice enough during the next two weeks to want to take a course on location at CPCC in the Spring.
    • Advanced C++ – since I won’t have a course in Advanced C++ in the fall, I’m going to at least attempt some of the exercises from the old course. Maybe this time I will understand it… using my new 5th edition of the text.
    • Photography – with only a few more weeks of summer, I want to get a few more colorful shots in, maybe even find some locations to set up and shoot for a while. A lot of my readers here only know me electronically and have never seen much where I live except a few shots of my yard. I’m going to try to capture some of the joys of the North Carolina piedmont region.
    • Writing – if there is enough time I think I will write. Maybe some erotic stories, maybe some non-erotic short fantasy fiction… perhaps a lot of poems.. I haven’t written any poems about photography yet.. maybe I should see what I can come up with there.
    • Getting It Together Interface – GITI is always on my agenda for summer, ever since her first few lines of code over 5 years ago. GITI is more complete now than it ever has been, but the education module needs some organization, some redundant code needs pruning and there are a lot of code areas that need to be "smoothed at the edges" (nutrition, email, etc)

  • More DHS Abuse

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN0126069520080802

    It would seem that the only way  to truly go through customs entering the United States without hassle is to go through customs naked.

  • The Art of James Biggers

    THE ART OF JAMES BIGGERS

    An art exhibit featuring the digital designs of Gastonia native James Biggers, a nationally renowed artist and adjunct instructor at Gaston College, will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Aug. 9 at Carrington’s Showroom, 1206 S. York St., Gastonia. Several of Biggers’ works will be available for viewing and for purchase. For more information, call 704-833-1425.

  • Any chemists in the room?

    I have been looking at definitions for certain processes and states that affect ceramic ware, and I came up with the following definitions… I find them a bit confusing. Is there anyone who can save me a few hours of deciphering what these mean (ignoring supercooling, which doesn’t affect ceramics)?

    Vitreous refers to a material in an amorphous, glassy state (in contrast to a crystalline state). In such a state, the constituent atoms do not exhibit the long-range order that is characteristic of crystals. However, they still exhibit short-range order — the separation of atoms and/or the lengths of covalent bonds are very close to their typical equilibrium distances. The creation of a vitreous material by supercooling or by addition of additives prior to cooling is called vitrification.

     

    Vitrification is a process of converting a material into a glass-like amorphous solid that is free from any crystalline structure, either by the quick removal or addition of heat, or by mixing with an additive. Solidification of a vitreous solid occurs at the glass transition temperature (which is lower than melting temperature, Tm, due to supercooling).

  • My Day – July 24, 2008

    Got up at around 5am, and I didn’t do much for the first few hours except read email, watch some stuff on YouTube, bookmark some shit in Del.Icio.us and things like that. After a while I ate breakfast, and went back to email. I also read the feedback in my digital photography class from my instructor. He finally got around to grading the course. I won’t know until tomorrow morning what my grade is (after the registrar processes grades overnight).

    After I got un-lazy I went to the wheel again today. I practiced some bowls and plates using the new texture I started working with. Overall I am happy… but it has been too long since I last trimmed bowls and plates. It is quite challenging to do… remember what hardness level is just right for trimming and things like that. I will get back in the hang of it though. I plan to work on ceramics for the next two or three weeks until I get fully back into the swing of things. I will be working on ceramics at home right up until I go back to class and I start working on a project there. I plan to have large functional objects as my project. I will be returning to bowls as well as working on my newly acquired techniques from last fall for coil building on wheel forms to make things like tall bottles… things I could never do from a whole lump of clay. After working on the wheel for a little while I took a short break for lunch and returned to the week again until I had to clean up to make dinner. After dinner was cooking I went outside to take some pictures for a friend. After dinner was finished being eaten, I went back outside to let Chris take some pictures of me.

    Once that excitement ended, back inside for some trimming of the remaining pieces. Now I have cleaned up again and I am exhausted. I just remembered I still have to empty my slurry/refuse clay bucket before bed… then I can sleep.

  • My Day: July 22, 2008

    My day started at 1am today. I didn’t do much then, just browsed some porn and looked at modifications I could make to GITI and things like that. I ate breakfast around 5 or so.. had a waffle with natural peanut butter (yummy Open-mouthed).

    At around 6am I brought out my pottery wheel. It was the first time I had really touched ceramics in a while. I worked for about 2 hours before taking a break, during which I went outside with my camera and took some photos, mostly of trees and mostly macro. Then I worked a little while longer at the wheel before going to drop off a package at Office Depot, took care of some other tasks and spend 15 minutes starting at/fondling a Nikon D60 (and its friends the D80, D40 and D300). Know what it feels like to hold a $2500 camera? HEAVY! It wasn’t a good heavy either, just bulky and hard to use. I like the D60, its lightweight, but its got awesome features and I believe I could live with it for a long time. Got back home at 12PM…ate lunch and then went back to the wheel for a final throw and then some trimming. In all I made 2 plates, 2 cups, a few bowls and one really odd container. About 10 pieces total. I had about 4 misthrows today. It was pure pleasure throwing today, so I didn’t go for speed or anything like that… I just threw to be throwing.

    After cleaning up the kitchen from where I was throwing I made dinner. I made a pan-fried chicken wrapped in bacon, some pinto beans (boring I guess, but I like them, its a southern thing I suppose) and a batch of cornbread muffins (and some Mexican cornbread muffins for those who find the others lacking something). After making dinner I received the day’s mail, which included my ShutterFly orders (except for one piece, which for some dumbass reason is being handled by UPS Mail Innovations… it goes to UPS to deliver to USPS, who delivers it to me). Overall I am happy with ShutterFly’s service. My only complaint is that the 8x10s should be on thicker paper, but well… I say that about everyone.

    Now I think my tired ass is ready for bed… it has been  a long day and its a miracle that I am still awake now. Sleepy

  • Rant: Stupidity of Web Users

    I can understand the general Internet population not rotating their sideways pictures because it is a fairly hard thing to do… but what about the people who have 3000+ images on Flickr? There is a built-in rotation feature that is very fast and very easy to use on Flickr, but yet many people ignore it. Are the people stupid, or simply lazy?