I, Curtis

Category: General Life

  • Ramping

    Ramping is the increase of heat inside a kiln. A Ramp Rate is the speed at which this occurs, it is messured in Degrees Farenheight per Hour.
    to calculate ramp rate:
    Final Temprature (or estimate) of chamber – Original Temprature of Chamber
    __________________________________________
    Time to Complete (in hours)
    for example, the kiln completed firing yesterday at 1947°F, after 6 hours, 48 minutes. here is the calculation for ramp rate:
    (1947 – 85)/6.8 hours = 273.82 °/hr.

  • Why did the Chicken cross the road?

    A friend sent this to me, decided to share it with the blog.
    Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.
    Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends on your frame of reference.
    Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.
    Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.
    Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.
    Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.
    Captain James T. Kirk: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
    Social Worker: It crossed the road to be able to understand both sides.
    An accountant: It looked in the file and that’s what it did last year.
    A consultant: Deregulation of the chicken’s side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Our consulting firm, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), we helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken’s people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.
    Moses: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, “Thou shalt cross the road.” And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.
    Machiavelli: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.
    Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only trip the establishment would let it take.
    Colonel Sanders: I missed one?

  • Fine Dining in Gaston County, NC

    I just took a look at a list of local eating establishments for my county, and I am not impressed at all.
    See The List.
    There are all of 5 resturants listed for Bessemer City, of those, there are only three I would actually eat at. First is The Family Pizza Galli, then Gondola and McDonald’s. McDonald’s is the oddity on the list, because it is listed with other McDonald’s resturants, but is its own independant family-owned company, which has decent food, not the dog-shit served beside the overly-painted scary clown guy.
    I wanted to have a little bit of variety in what Chris and I eat when we return to my area instead of his, but im coming up short on places to go… it totally sucks. One of the best places in the county actually isn’t even listed on the chart, R.O.’s BBQ. I guess in this county it is assumed that if you don’t know of R.O.’s then you don’t eat BBQ.
    What happened to decent resturants in small towns where you can get real food?

  • I Bought A Sword

    The title says it all….
    I went to Concord Mills on Tuesday with no real objective, but for some reason I felt the need to enter Black Lion… not really sure why, it just sort of happened. I had looked at the swords and daggers two weeks ago when I was there, but they hadn’t crossed my mind much again until an unusual series of events occured which lead me to be extreamly drawn to the area where they were, more than just a casual glance this time. I had made a decision that a certain sword was to come home with me, so I went to find the annoying BlackLion employee who had been pestering me most of the evening and had her to open the case and get the sword out for me. After having my ID checked 4 or 5 times the sword was mine and I began asking myself exactly why I purchased it… purchase of fate? purchase of stupidity? purchase of “this thing is so fucking cool”? who knows… anyway, I don’t have any regrets about buying it.


  • Things Must Change

    In my March 7, 2005 blog entry I discuss eros/love, but several events have lead me to determine that I am not very good at expressing my emotions, especially when it comes to love. Two instances on Wednesday shine brightly as to how bad I am at emotional stuff sometimes. Chris and I went to Best Buy in search of a surge protector for a little project we came up with to do (more on that later), and when checking out I was accused of being unfriendly by the sales clerk. She asked me several questions, to which the answer was “no” (do you have a rewards zone card, do you want 8 months of Sports Illustrated, etc), at this point she made the statement “Well, I won’t even try asking for your phone number”, and I directly asked “Do I come across as being that unfriendly?”, to which she seriously replied “yes.”. That shouldn’t have happened, I should never let anyone think that I have anything less than the best intentions with my interaction with them. In another instance, this time with my long distance friend Oscar, I denied him a phone call because I thought it would somehow ruin my schedule… and somehow be not appropriate. That is total bullshit… I should always be able to make time for people, especially friends and especially when there is a situation where they NEED to talk. I make it a point to tell people who enter my life and gain significance that they can call me whenever they need to talk and that if they have a problem I am here to listen. Well, lately this little policy of mine hasn’t be carried out very well on my end. I should never turn anyone away who needs to talk to me… Im not exactly a psychologist, or even a therapist, but somehow I am usualy able to show people the bright side of things and help them better understand the nature of whatever their problem may be. I have always considered this to be something that I should share freely without hinderance to anyone who needs me. When did my time become so valueble that I can’t make time for someone important?
    I am learning that as I get farther away from my high school days, the more cold and robotic I become, this is a proccess which must be reversed if I am to survive socially. People have been joking with me more about “needing to make an appointment with GITI” lately than used to, I didn’t think about this much until now, when I am finally realizing that GITI is controlling my life, and for the moment, the only thing it is giving me is my assignments that are due in the next 15 days… no events on my social calendar seem to exist. To all of you who have experienced this issue with me, or those of you who will experience it in the future – Remind me that I am human and that GITI doesn’t rule my life, I do. Also to you people, read my February 21, 2005 blog entry again, it applies more to you than to anyone and it seems to hold more meaning now, for me at least.

  • Birthday

    Woke up this morning and my neck was sore, this aging thing really sucks…. At the moment I have about 38 mintues to go until I am officially 20, but the many people around me found it neccesary to wish me a happy birthday already (you people suck, wait until it’s time). I don’t want to be reminded that it is the 20th aniversary of my entry into this planet when I have to do boring shit like go to Accounting and spent countless minutes wasted sitting here in Barnard Lab doing pretty much nothing. If it weren’t for the Internet and this lab I would be bored out of my mind right now…. or would I? Maybe I would be doing something exciting like perusing the many floors of Atkins Library looking at books on various topics and then sitting and reading small sections for the time I would otherwise have spent idle. Since the Internet exists and I am an addict I can’t really say for certain, maybe if there is an intenet connectivity failure during a time I have to be on campus I might actually figure that out.
    I dont feel 20, should I? Recently I have had this little issue of failing to acknowledge certain events, first there was Christmas, I pretty much ignored it until it was time for me to prepare things for that day, and as far as Valentine’s day, well….. whats love got to do with it? Another event I failed to acknowledge, even though there was chocolate and a card waiting for me when I got up that morning. This morning there was no chocolate, but there was a card, I just sort of ignored it… for some reason I suspect that it will follow me to dinner (yes, parents are like retrieving canines, you can burry the thing, but they will always bring it back). I planned today badly, there is too much idle time involved…. I even managed to leave for class on time today (which places me here about 15 minutes early) so I was waiting for Mrs. Yarbrough, then I ended up waiting for Vannessa so that she could sign the project, Chuck got tired of waiting, so he signed the page for her…not sure how that works with the academic integrity policy, but he had good intentions (making sure she got credit for her work, even though she wasn’t there to sign for it). Mrs. Yarbrough finished 11 minutes early (i think she stated this so that she would remember to credit the intangible academic asset account and make the appropriate adjusting entries when she goes over her allocated time). Mrs. Yarbrough’s closing line for the day I found to be somewhat humorous: “Have a good spring break, and don’t do anything stupid”. She states this, but has been mentinoing for the last week that we should spend spring break catching up on our accounting reading, me thinks she contradict herself. Since she finished early, I was early for Calculus, so I spent some time waiting for Mr. Jeong to show up, then the class waiting as a group for the class before us to decide to make their exit, 10 minutes after their time had elapsed. After they left we sat down, took our test and then left one-by-one. I wasn’t very quick in leavning, but still had some time, so I waited Mrs. Scott, there were two students in class. Mrs. Scott gaves us back our test and told us we could leave, so thats how I ended up here. Ironicly, after all this waiting I am going to Economics, where I will do no waiting, she will start as soon as we leave and finish exactly as her time concludes…my kind of woman ;-).
    Enough rambling for now, I will head off into the sunset and learn some Econ (or take a solid nap).

  • Aging and the Passage of Time

    On Friday I will turn 20, two decades, one-fifth of a century old. In the past few days I have been analysing my life and trying to determine what I can do to make my 21st trip around the sun better than the first 20. The only thing I can determine is that I should focus more on the task of making myself happy rather than trying to impress people and trying to fulfil superficial goals that will eventually end up not improving my happiness much.
    Preperations for my 20th birthday haven’t been light. I spent most of last week and Monday this week worrying about my license renewal session. I was convinced that for some reason the DMV didn’t want me to drive in this state, but I eventually got over the feelings I was having and landed at the DMV on Tuesday morning. Just a routine renewal, read a line of text, and tell the little man what the little signs on the slides mean. For the first time I got them all correct on the first try. The picture on my new license is horrible, but I guess it will be ok, I will only have tht little card for 5 more years anyway ;-). In anticipation of turning 20 I began working on my personal website (in private, not live), but it will not be done in time. I think I am making good progress though (more than I have in the first year). The most anoying part of turning 20 is the need for a list of what I want for my birthday. When you are 20 the gifts don’t matter that much, especialyl when your environment is full of stuff that you barely use anyway. I have managed to come up with a minimal list to appease my mother and my aunt.
    This birthday I feel like I am actually on-time for once. I remember my 17th birthday being a very sad day for me because of regrets that I held with myself. The primary regret was that I hadn’t obtained my license yet and that I was scared to do so. This year the only way I was able to get myself to go to the DMV was to get my father to go with me. Somehow having him around makes me feel less bad about myself. Last year my major conflict was the fact that I hadn’t made any major progress towards mentally preparing myself for college. Most of my birthdays in the past have been about regrets due to some milestone that I hadn’t handled, or something else like that.
    My birthday seems to be pretty well planned out this year (Jon, I know you hate these, skip to the next paragraph). I am to get up at 9am, leave at 10am, go to Accounting and turn in my project, go to Calculus and retake the first test, then go to Business Programming and hear about the test, Finally for the academic day I go to Economics and stare blankly at a monotonous instructor. After class I will go through with some form of a plan which requires me to show up at my aunt’s house before I go with my family (and maybe a friend) to dinner. The rest of the evening after that is pretty much up to me… so we shall see, worst case scenario – I end up back at home with my pottery wheel and I spin the night away 😉 (hey, worst case doens’t always have to be bad).
    The more I age, the more I don’t like it, but I don’t really have a choice, so I deal with it as best as I can. I want perfection in my life, but the more I experience life, the more I realize that will never happen. I have passed all of the ages for which I can be the youngest to do something amazing/heroic/noble, so that whole prodigial ship has sailed. This means that all universal goals I could hope to meet are no longer an option, but this doesn’t stop my personal goals for growth and achievement (read as: “learning more shit and finding things to waste time on”).
    20 is coming very soon and in less than 48 hours I will no longer hold the title of “teenager”. For your personal amusement see http://curtis.kularski.net/countdown.

  • Tout le Monde

    I would like to appologize to anyone who has ever had contact with me that has been hurt by my stupidity, ignorance, insensitivity or general selfishness. I only recently realized how damaging my brief contact with the world has been. I have no mountaintop to retreat to, so I don’t know what i’ll do to stop further hurt from occuring. Once again, im sorry for the pain I have caused.

  • Perfectionistic Murder

    My perfectionistic nature finally caused me problems tonight. In an attempt to create a ceramic piece on the wheel tonight I managed to make an almost complete piece collapse into absolute ruin. The piece was taking the shape of a bowl, and getting to be almost completely symetrical and smooth, except for a small defect on the inside, one of the interior walls was a little lumpy near the base. As a result of smoothing that wall down to match the others, the adjacent wall collapsed. This occuring nearly brought me to tears immediately, but I toughened up and started looking for positive things in the failure. I can say one thing for sure about the piece, I had it PERFECTLY centered on the wheel head (the remains of the collapsed piece served to prove this). In addition, the piece had a nearly perfect base (roughly half an inch), which was holding to the wheel unquestionably. For the night I have given up on the wheel, but I plan to work on it some more during the weekend, if I can get that close to having a piece I am happy with then it is definately worth trying again. I have only recently (in the past year or so) become a perfectionist, but it is having a horrible impact on my life. I need to find the right balanace between perfectionist and slacker. It is a tough internal conflict.
    After the collapse I questioned why I actually enjoy working with the wheel and clay in general and I couldn’t find any answer that followed a logical path of any type, but I did find an answer that was more of an emotional path. My grandmother and I used to work with my old pottery wheel a lot every summer and we had several nice creations, so there is a link there, but there is more to it than just those memories. I love working with my hands, even though recently I have become very “clean natured”. I used to maintain a decent small garden every year, but haven’t done it seriously since 1993, when my grandfather sold his store. I have had gardens since then and done some stuff with my parents’s garden, but nothing like what I used to do. I have intentions of having a garden this year, I am focusing on herbs and stuff though, so I can have some stuff that I don’t have to worry about preparing garden soil for too much (Herbs for me are a dish-garden event). Sticking my hands into wet clay is a very good feeling for me. It gives me a sense of control as I direct the clay in how it is to act, however, the clay gives a constant reminder that too much force cant be used, or collapse will occur. Balance, interaction and focus are all required during the ceramic creation proccess, or collapse will occur (Notice a reoccuring theme here). I am realizeing at this point that because tonight’s creation wasn’t a total failure I am regretting disposing of it. The piece had a failed wall, but the wall was still intact and the other half of the piece was still standing, and was nearly perfect. The only reason I could even call tonight’s end result a failure is because nothing physically exists as evidence to what went RIGHT tonight. My first instinct with an errored piece seems to be to lift the walls of it and impload the piece back into a ball (even though the clay needs to be reworked before its next project). I made many advancements in my abilities with the new wheel tonight, and with that fact I am happy. Maybe at some point I can train myself to not be so perfectionistic. In addition, I need to get to the point where when something happens that takes the piece off course, I can just stop the wheel and accept whatever final output occurs.
    Overall tonight, nothing physically lost, nothing physically gained, but a lot learned.

  • First Throw on New Wheel

    I just completed my first thow on the new wheel, it went fairly well. I had minor issues getting started on the new wheel during the centering phase. The bat came off of its mount (I guess I didn’t have it secured well). I considered removing the bat all together (as is reccomended when getting adjusted to the wheel), but the bat was already coverd in clay debris, and the bat mounts would have to be removed, so I reattached the bat and continued from there. Next time I think I will start bat-less. The base wheel-head itself is quite nice and I don’t see any problem with using it without a bat, except for the clean-up thing. I like being able to remove a bat to clean it.
    The end piece wasn’t exactly the greatest thing on earth, but perfection wasn’t my goal on this first throw. The goal on this throw was to become familar with this new wheel. All of the things I encountered with the wheel tonight I can adapt to and adjust for, with the immediate exception of the wheel making my table wobble. I need to seek a more stable structure to put the wheel on. The wheel itself only weighs 27lbs, but yet has a centering capacity of over 25 lbs, so it really relies on the structure it is seated on for stability. There are some legs availible for the wheel that I have given thought to, only problem there is that I would have to sit while working with the wheel, which would require me getting a potter’s stool (because none of my furniture sits at the right height), so there is a whole mess of things required to go that route.
    In addition to the wobble, there was a slight defect in the clay, which had I been more thorough in the preperation of the clay, would not have existed (or would have been detected). The defect was in the form of a patch of slightly course clay. There was also a defect in the final piece because I moved to quickly to bring the piece to its final height. This resulted in a slightly fat base.
    Even though the piece didn’t turn out that well I will post some pics of the finished piece once I do the completion prep and it is fully dry. I will also at that time post some pics of my previous works, both wheel and hand-built. It should be no suprise to anyone who knows me well that the most round and most uniform piece was created as a hand-built piece from a square block of clay (as opposed to the standard ball).
    I should be ready to post in about 2 or 3 days, depending on whether or not I decide to glaze. I have no intentions of attempting to get this piece fired.

    For anyone who doesn’t know, these are bats: