Wednesday, February 10, 2010

What's Wrong With This Picture?

It works better if you turn the kiln ON, that's what. At first glance this is a perfectly normal shot of a kiln load. But this is the AFTER shot (or should have been) not the BEFORE shot, and I was more than a little dismayed when I opened Bertha yesterday and saw my slump load from the night before still unslumped. That was the first major disaster of the day. I looked into slumping the pieces yesterday and having Judy ship them 2-day to Philly for me so they would be here by Friday... $179.00. I don't think so. So I fell back to using pieces that I already have in Philly to fill in the gaps--which is great, but I don't know what pieces I have there after all this time. So without knowing the pieces I have to work with, we couldn't drill the holes in all the panels. We also can't use any power tools (corded, cordless or battery-operated) at the show so I called Hargrove to see how much they would charge to have union labor drill the holes for me. Once the panels are marked, drilling the 1/4" plywood (with a power drill) is nothing--Dave did one in under 10 minutes. Unfortunately, the minimum time is one hour, and the charge is $120. I don't think so. I stopped by Ace hardware on my way out of town and got a small manual hand drill. It won't be fun (for John--Todd's partner John is here to help with set-up and breakdown too so we at least have three sets of hands in the booth and his are the strongest hands), but I have my principles.

With two strikes behind me, Dave and I loaded up the minivan in the rain and I hit the road... at 1:15. The weather was not good for the entire afternoon, evening, night and early morning. It was either raining, spitting sleet or snowing the entire way. When I left Atlanta I had the germ of an idea to go straight through to Philly and arrive at 1:00 am. The germ steadily took hold and I was pretty committed by 9:00. Then about midnight I hit the REAL weather. There were cars on top of the guard rails, cars upside down, a jack-knifed semi, cars facing backwards on the freeway--most of them with their lights on and people still in them slowly getting covered by the snow. But I reasoned that it was better to make the drive with very (very) few other cars on the road than it would be to make it during the day with a lot of other cars--and yet more snow, and maybe wind too. And I arrived safe and sound by 3:00 am.

Now it's after 10:00, Bill and Elaine were first in line to unload this morning and were all done and having breakfast by 9:30. I am... awake, semi-alert, still decaffeinated and ready to have a hot shower and get to my own unloading. The hotel is... interesting. It's a little boutique hotel for weekend romantic travelers and so has no fridge, no microwave, a little bitty flat-screen tv, no dresser, no bathtub (shower only)... and single beds unless you get a room with a queen and a cot. But the beds are comfy, the room is quiet, and it was only $69 a night through Hotwire (and it's close to the convention center).

The phone has been ringing non-stop since 9:00, guess I better get to it.

A life of shows on the road is never boring.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

glad you arrived safely...Judy

Geri Omohundro said...

Geez, I'm so glad you made it ok, I've been following the discussion group on wcc and there's alot of people driving to the show, or their flights been canceled... hope it goes well for you, keeping fingers crossed in dry, semi arid Idaho.

Bill said...

Clearly, someone hasn't been getting enough sleep...

Cynthia Morgan said...

If it's any consolation they're gorgeous blanks...

Hope the snow doesn't mess up your show--or you.

Dee said...

she's half setup - as in walls and panels and crossbars to hold the lighting...

had a decent in room dinner with drinks, ready to rock 'roll in the am