Guest Blog Post by Sto:)ps!

Ah Wednesdays.  I remember I used to hate Wednesdays.  Hump day.

When you're a poker pro, you often forget what day of the week it is.  But I never forget Wednesdays.  When I wake up on Wednesday, something in my body immediately feels a little excitement.  Why?

Because on Wednesdays, the poker room serves free lunch!  Omygaw, check this out:

Wednesdays are also a little funny because all of the richest most powerful people in Santa Fe have agreed to take the day off and play in a high stakes poker game at our local casino.  After having success in day games, I was tipped off to this game by one of the dealers who said I should play.  I think the dealers like seeing out of towners play in these games as a little experiment for them, just to see what happens.  I'm cool with that.

Since the players in the game are comprised of uber successful business guys, they like to get up early, meaning if you want to play in the game, you need to be at the casino by 8 am or you won't get a seat.  Luckily having a bad hair day doesn't matter so much with this job.

Poof, roll out of bed, get in the car, go to work.  Usually if I just leave it alone, my hair settles down a bit from Asian-fro to a respectable public level of bedhead.

Yeah, that's more like it.

Here's my office, very spacious.  Lots of coworkers here also getting their grind on.  Best perk of the job is that we get unlimited soda and coffee.

On Wednesdays there's a raffle for the guys playing poker in the room.  Tickets are pulled from a tub shaped like a pentagonal prism and cash prizes are handed out every other hour.

I have special permission granted from the poker room to give the tub a little spin whenever I feel like it.  I've utilized this privilege to invent a game for when I get bored called "The Price is Right" where I spin the wheel and make light small talk to my imaginary friend, Bob Barker.

Playing in this game is pretty strange.  I've played enough Wednesdays now where I know all the guys sitting at the table.   It's a table comprised of the most powerful old men who control Santa Fe, a world class limit poker pro from the area, and then random little old me.

This game has been running for years with the same guys.  The first week I sat down nobody knew who the heck I was and all the players were licking their chops assuming I was some out of town fish.

Playing this game always used to make me extremely nervous because I was unfamiliar with the game, the stakes were high, and there was a player sitting at the table who I knew was better than me.

I approach all of these poker challenges like I'm playing an old school Super Nintendo RPG.  Each major hurdle is like a boss battle.  I can accrue experience points and level up by grinding in my normal games, and then once I heal and restore all my HP and MP, I go off to fight the big boss.

Usually it takes many attempts and lots of failures to pull out a win.  Even when you lose you can still collect data, probe strengths and weaknesses, and devise strategies and counters for the next time you go to war...  these failures have enabled me to grow and figure out how to consistently defeat each boss I've faced in the past.

The thing with poker though, is that there's always another boss battle on the horizon.  I know one day I'll probably face a boss that's too powerful for me to beat no matter how much work I put into trying.  Until then, it's fun thinking of the remote possibility that I could someday become the biggest, baddest boss out there.

Eating free lunches like it's nobody's business,
-Sto:)ps

Pottery #2: Lids and first real Raku firing

So now that I'm actually getting some bisqued pottery out of the kiln on a regular basis, I imagine that I'm going to be having more pottery posts! You'll probably get sick of them but just deal. 

My goal right now is to make enough pieces that are a coherent theme (shape, glaze, type of firing) that I can sell them at the Santa Fe Clay art show in December. I may also open an etsy shop (or revamp my old shop). If I can make enough money to offset my pottery classes, I'd be super pleased :)

First off, here are some lids, or more specifically, pots with lids:

And some jars, in progress:

Raku firing! Here's what it looks like when you open the kiln - everything is red hottttttt

And here are how my pieces turned out today!

(Remember the before? Huge change!)

Here are some close ups:

That is all.

Pottery #1: In progress

Since the primary reason for moving to Santa Fe was so that I could pursue pottery more seriously, I figured it was about time to show you what I've been up to! I don't have much that is finished yet, but I have several pieces that are in progress.

I find the process of pottery making very interesting in and of itself, so hopefully these pictures will interest you as well!

Here are some of the pots that I threw a couple of weeks ago that I glazed today. I started experimenting with vases in Madison, but I'm taking them in a new direction- wide tops and narrow bases (and a bottle!): 

And here are some that I made more recently. Someone told me that they look like basketballs, and I think I agree. Luckily, when the clay is fired it won't look quite so red (I hope).

One class I'm taking is on Raku, which is a traditional Japanese type of firing where glazed pieces are removed from the kiln while the glaze is still molten and cooled rapidly in an oxygen-free environment to make really crazy metallic finishes.

Of course, in order to deal with molten pottery, you need some special equipment:

We did our first raku firing last Friday and I made some dinky little pieces to test glazes on:

Here's the set up - kiln in the middle with trashcans full of newspaper and other combustibles around the outside. The pots are inside the kiln.

Here's my can!

You can sort of see a couple pieces red-hot inside the kiln. It gets up to 1900 degrees F.

Done! Here's one piece with the finished glaze:

And tomorrow I fire these! Can't wait to see how they turn out!

Hiking, Firepitting, and Capitoling

First off, check out this caterpillar! After some internet research (which I did just a second ago so it is up to date) I think it is the caterpillar of the painted tiger moth. I've seen many of these around and they freak me out every time!

But anyway, Stoops and I have continued to have a fantastic time hiking around Santa Fe and hanging out with friends!  A few days ago, we hiked the Atalaya Trail which is near St. John's College in Santa Fe. It is a 7 mile hike up Mt. Atalaya and it's a pretty steep grade.

The views from the top were worth it though! 

We got to chill for a bit at the top and take a little nap: 

Last night, we went over to our friends Amy and Will's place for s'mores and Teichu. I took some night time photos to prove it!

Today, we went to the state capitol building. It's very different from the Madison capitol, but still quite beautiful inside:

That's all for now!

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

Yesterday, I went with Annie to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument. Tent Rocks became a national monument in 2001, so it's relatively new! I had never been there before, but I will definitely return.

The "tent rocks" were formed when volcanic eruptions left lots of material (such as pumice) in the canyon. The tents are maintained because they have hard caps of tougher stone that is less likely to wear away and holds the hoodoo in place.

I didn't get any pictures, but perhaps the best part of the day was getting to see a roadrunner! Meep meep!

Annie and I hiked the Slot Canyon trail and the Cave Loop trail, which was about 4 miles in total.  The Slot Canyon trail had some steep inclines, which led us through narrow passages between the tents to the top of the mesa for a beautiful view!

Some of the trees had either grown like this, or had water wash away the stone that they originally put their roots into:

From the inside of the canyon, the sun made beautiful patterns on the rock:

And some passages were quite narrow!

Once we started climbing the steepest part of the trail, we got some incredible views of the tents that we had just hiked around:

Here, you can really see the layers of stone as well as the darker, tougher cap at the top of the tents!

From the other side of the mesa, there were more view of the white rock!

Proof that I was there!

This tree had been eaten away by worms, which left intricate patterns on the wood.

Even though we had to retrace our steps down from the mesa, the rocks were still breathtaking.

One of the best parts was ducking under this fallen rock! Watch out!

I think this is the best shot I got all day. The rock has so much movement to it, despite being quite solid.