I guess another year has come to an end.  Looking back I had a pretty good 2009, especially the last week.  My wife and I went up to Michigan to spend some time with my family during Christmas.  My brother and his wife were home from China so it was great to spend some time with them.  They made it back safely to China but apparently their sleeping routines are a little off.  I guess that happens when you fly half way around the world…

HP pavilion elite 9290f

Not long ago I bought myself a late birthday/early Christmas present.  My old hp pavilion (probably 6 or 7 years old) needed an upgrade.  It served me well and I never really had any major problems with it until I crammed it so full of programs and files at the end that it really started to slow down.  So I shopped around and decided to go with another hp.  Since I plan to have it for awhile I decided to go all out and I got the Pavilion Elite 9290f while it was on sale.  So far it has been awesome.  It came with Windows 7 which seems to be pretty smooth.  Plus I got a copy of Adobe CS4 and MS Office at a great price because I’m a student at IUSB.  Everything has run really well so far.  I can’t believe how much faster everything is compared to my old computer. I’m actually typing this post on the new computer.  It’s set up in the “command center” at the moment (also known as the living room where I have two computers, an LCD monitor, Wii, Xbox 360, and TV all set up and ready to take over the world.)

dell 2209wa

The desktop didn’t come with a monitor so after getting some cash and gift cards for Christmas I talked to the fine people at Dell and they offered me a great sale price on their IPS panel 2209wa  monitor.  Apparently it is a pretty decent monitor for photo editing without a huge price tag.

Now, as Christmas break draws to a close, I’m going to try to get all the computers and the new wireless printer we got at Sam’s Club to connect to each other through the magic of a wireless network.

Pottery Supplies

I love pottery supply yard sales!  I made a trip up to Michigan on Thursday to see my family and check out a yard sale at Crossroads Pottery.  They didn’t have the kiln shelf that I needed and I didn’t get all the posts that I wanted but I got a lot of new stuff to experiment with.  I picked up some Laguna clay and a few random dry powders.  I also got a decent scale ($3!) to replace the cheap plastic Walmart kitchen scale which was probably $5.

Bad news: this is officially my last day of summer break.  Good news: The kiln is firing as I’m typing this. Continue »

Not too long ago, as northern Indiana thawed out and the weather got warmer, the grass (along with my dismay) started to grow.  I began to dread another summer of push-mowing our entire yard every week or two.  I wasn’t worried so much about the physical strain on my out of shape body (it actually would have been quite a benefit) I just hated giving up a few hours per week to push around a mower held together with a hose clamp and duct tape and also has no discharge cover causing the grass to go straight up into my face.  I usually ended up with about 6 pounds of grass in my hair or stuck to my sweaty body every time I cut the grass.

The new riding lawn mower

My wife must have been feeling sorry for me (after I had to hose clamp and duct tape the handle back together) so we decided to get a riding lawn mower.  She even cashed in the credit card points to help pay for it.  We looked around for a while and finally settled on a Craftsman for a few reasons.  We could get the most $ for our credit card points at Sears and their warranty included house calls which will save us from borrowing someone’s truck/trailer to haul it in and get it serviced.  I’ve mowed the lawn a couple times now and it is fantastic.  It takes me half the time to mow the grass that it used to.  Unfortunately I haven’t spent any of that time updating the website (until now).  But even if I only save an hour every time I mow the grass I ‘ll probably save at least 8-10 hours total before school starts next year.  That’s a full day of throwing or painting (or climbing trees…)

Well, it’s been almost 2 months since I’ve even looked at my website.  I’ve had some news items to share but apparently not enough time to share them.  Not a lot has happened in the studio since my last update but plenty has been happening in the “real world”.  Track season came and went.  My team finished 7-2 on the season and we ended up 4th at the conference meet.  I finished my class at IUSB.  I finished my duties as a Reading Recovery teacher for the year and completed all my paperwork.  I began another season of grass mowing and other yard work.  I spent some time on the Internet studying fantasy baseball stats and getting used to Firefox.  I finished the yearbook at school and worked on the Black Lab website and finished a few minor graphic design jobs.  Now I have to finish my required technology days before summer break officially begins.  Then I’ll have to take another class at IUSB.  In the near future I hope to get back into the clay studio on a regular basis.  Today I worked on my trimming chuck.  Tomorrow I hope to finish it and get some clay ready to throw.

Now I’m sitting here at the old computer that I’ve pieced together.  It started as my original college computer (2000 AD) so it’s far from top-of-the-line.  I added some RAM, bought an LCD monitor and laser mouse while browsing garage sales and bought another Linksys USB adapter from ebay.  I decided Windows ME wasn’t what I wanted so I installed Ubuntu 8.10 and even got it onto the wireless network here at home (mostly by pure luck?).  Now I can surf the net while my wife is “doing research” which looks suspiciously similar to finding coupons on the Internet.  Ubuntu has run smoothly so far considering the ancientness of my machine but I haven’t exactly been editing video or playing the latest video game.  I plan to get a little more experience with Ubuntu and the world of Linux and the universe of Open Source software this summer.  First step: figuring out how to use my printer without unplugging it from the main computer and plugging it in here.  Second step: downloading and installing some of the 304 updates that the little red arrow says are available.  I better get busy…

Well, it’s one of those good news/bad news posts.  The bad news is that I must return to my day job tomorrow (which really cuts in to my studio time and sleeping in time…)  The good news is that I am writing this post from the comfort of my own home.  Yes, that’s right, we have stepped into the 21st century here at the Schwartz household and got ourselves a high-speed internet connection.  We were going to ditch Comcast but they offered us a DVR and internet package at a reasonable rate so we’re going to stick with them until they jack up the price again…

We got ourselves a Linksys router and adapter from Best Buy (thanks to everyone who gave giftcards as a gift) and I got our wireless network set up so we didn’t have to move my computer or run a network cable up the stairs.  We returned the usb adapter to Best Buy after I got the same item on eBay for exactly half the price.  So the good news is that I have quick and easy access to my website but the bad news is that I have quick and easy access to the Internet which could distract me from getting any real work done.  The middle school track season is under way as well so I will probably have minimal free time for the next few weeks.  At least I got a few things done over spring break including an order of senior pictures, taking pictures for our church easter egg hunt, some yard work and finishing the shirt design for our track team.  So now I have to get to bed since I have to wake up before 10:00 tomorrow morning…

Well, it’s been a while since my last post so I thought I should give a quick update so you don’t get too worried.  I just started my next class at IUSB.  I bought myself a new game to distract me from getting things accomplished.  I shoveled snow and tried to stay warm on the snow days that we had this past week….

I’ve also been working on a couple projects all at one time.  In the clay studio I’ve been working a few items much larger in scale than anything I’ve previously done on the wheel.  I got a book from the library about XHTML and CSS so I started designing a new site.  I’m also trying to set up a time to go paint some dogs on a wall for one of my friends.  As I was typing this I helped my wife set up her own blog to use for her kindergarten class.  Once I finish some of these projects I’ll try to put up some pictures….

Well, here is my monthly post…  Apparently it’s already November.  The school year is flying by.  Cross country finished a few weeks ago so now I have a little “extra” time during the day.  I’ve been keeping myself busy though.  We had a new well dug at our home a few weeks ago which left a couple piles of dirt in our front yard.  I hauled those away and got our yard ready for winter and organized the shed over the past week or two.  Amanda and I took some engagement pictures and some family portraits in the past week.  I’ll post some examples when I get them processed.  Here and there I’ve been able to pick up some clay and throw a couple pieces.  Every Tuesday I’m still going to my Content Area Reading class at IUSB.  We have to do a research project but I got to pick any topic.  I am researching whether I should mix my own glazes.  I’ll post the results when I find out more.

Apart from all that I’ve been watching the Wolverines and Lions lose on a consistent basis, avoiding politics, and a couple days ago I took a class to become certified in CPR.  So I can’t say I’m bored…  I’ll post some pictures in my next post.  Thanks for reading.

I just wanted to say “Happy Anniversary” to my fantastic wife.  I couldn’t do it without you.

I’m a couple weeks deep in summer break and I feel like I’ve been working 8 hour days.  At least I’m having a good time doing (most of) this stuff…  I’ve been working on wedding pictures from the Hoffman wedding a couple weeks ago.  My wife and I have also shot a couple family portraits so I’ve been working on those pictures too.  Whenever I need a break from Photoshop I open up Dreamweaver and work on my website.  I want to update some of the image galleries and I have to finish a couple pages.  Unfortunately the state of Indiana doesn’t think that I know enough about reading after being trained in Reading Recovery all of last year so I started earning a Reading Certificate to add to my license.  I go to IUSB every Tuesday and Thursday for 3 hours to learn about tradebooks.  And of course I should probably mow the grass pretty soon.  Or maybe I’ll wait until August…

Technically I still have a few days to work in the computer lab. But I’m not going in this week due to some transportation issues and a wedding. My wife is using my car this week because her car’s back struts are shot. Tomorrow I will be heading to Michigan to get ready for my brother’s wedding on Friday. So the last few days have been like a preview to my summer vacation.
The school year wrapped up without too much excitement. So now I have a full year of Reading Recovery under my belt. I will probably do it again next year unless they decide we want to replace RR with a different program. Then I guess I’ll get to learn something new…. We finished the track season on a strong note, taking 2nd place at the conference meet.

After working next week I’ll get ready to shoot the wedding in Indianapolis. I hope to spend a lot of time working with clay this summer and not a lot of time mowing the grass. My wife and I might take a trip somewhere but we haven’t decided where. I also plan to update the rest of the site. I’ve been studying the art of CSS so I can eventually get rid of tables… but maybe I’ll get to that next summer….