WALLYWARE

Could somebody please put a straight jacket on that juggling jogger!

Wow!  For the second time this year, I got one of my funny running memoirs printed front and center in “The Lighter Side” section of Colorado Runner.  This one is from a collection of stories about “My Craziest Races”:

At age 47, I was feeling pretty good about myself by qualifying for the A wave of the Boulder Boulder 10K.  Two miles into the race I was running comfortable 6:05 minute miles when I passed a college age guy who was JUGGLING TENNIS BALLS AS HE RAN!  It totally burst my bubble and I suddenly realized how one person’s race pace is another person’s easy clip.  I managed to stay ahead of him for the rest of the race, and the high point of the day for me was beating the legendary Bill Rodgers who finished a minute and a half behind me.  I don’t know how Bill did against the tennis ball guy.

And I just discovered a really cool database for runners that allows you, with the click of a button, to compile a list of all your race results over that past few decades.  Athlinks is perfect for the running geek who wants to instantly calculate the average time of his or her marathons, half marathons, 10Ks or whatever.  Check it out!

Here’s a nice shot Lori took at last month’s Mt. Evans Ascent.  It’s a 14.5 mile race that starts at 10,600 ft. elevation and finishes at 14,264 ft.  The weather was perfect and I felt pretty strong considering the high elevation.  I’m the runner in the yellow shirt:

That’s why they call her, “Your Highness”!

All hail the queen of caffeine!  She rules the land with a shaky hand!

Oh man, this one was designed with sales in mind because it falls back on two time honored themes: cuteness and caffeine.  Right now I only have one in stock but I’m pretty sure I’ll be making more in the near future.  If you want to claim this throne as your own, get over to the online store ASAP!!!!

How do you murder your oreo cookie?

“Let’s pretend that the cookies are people and the milk is a vat of acid.”

I grew up in the 1960’s in a neighborhood chock full of half-crazed catholic kids doing all kinds of weird things all the time, so when I hear the phrase “getting in touch with your inner child”, it kind of creeps me out.  Today’s mug celebrates one’s weird inner child and the idea came to me when I pulled the blank mug off the shelf and realized it would be a good shape for dipping cookies.  Until I get another firing out, this is a one of a kind, so head on over to the online store if you want to be the only person in the world who has this unique design.

I’m just working for the man.

For the past two months I’ve been working for the U.S. Census going door to door collecting information from residents here in Jefferson County, Colorado. It’s my first “real” job outside of making pottery since I graduated from college in 1978 and the experience has had its share of highs and lows.  I generally like the work, but that small percentage of people who want to use you as a human punching bag can really make the job suck.  I’ve got this pipe dream of writing a “2010 Census Worker Confessional” comic book to share all the stories about the people I’ve encountered. It’s a long shot that this book will come to fruition but it’s fun to think about.  I think the best thing about working for the U.S. Census is the fact that it’s made me really appreciate that I make pottery for a living.

Today’s offering in my week long mug-aganza goes out to all those people who have crappy jobs in big byzantine corporations.  The federal government is one such organization and I can relate.  “We’re just hapless souls working for an evil corporation” can be found in the funny mugs section of the online store.

Celebrating one’s abusive muse.

Here’s a unique cup and saucer designed for the artist who has to has to force himself to get to work.  Is it semi-autobiographical? You bet! I only have one of these in stock, so head on over to the online store to to snap it up.

In other words, decaf is a false idol.

Java is a time honored theme in my work.  It’s no secret that a coffee mug with a good joke about caffeine, the joy of guzzling your morning brew, or the horrors of decaf will have a solid fan base.  100 million Americans drink 350 million cups of coffee each day, which explains why roughly half of the pots I make are coffee mugs.  To get your hands on this new religious object, speed on over to the online store!

Here’s more proof that I might be loosing my mind.

OK…. I think this is a really great coffee mug.  If you agree with me and you want to own it, you better get over to my online store ASAP because I only have one in stock right now.  This design just kind of came to me in a flash and I like the way it makes fun of the people who are always telling other people how to be when they in fact are that way themselves.  There is probably even more under the surface here, but let’s not get into it, OK?  I did a series of weird and wonderful “deluxe” mugs last week and I’ll be posting little write-ups on them every day this week just for fun.  So come back tomorrow and check out my latest ceramic oddity!

My First Ultra-Marathon!

If you know me or you’ve read my bio, you’ll know that I’m a long distance running geek.  One of the things I really like about running is that it’s an honest sport in that you can’t pretend you are better at it than you are because the clock has the final word.  The past few years have seen a major slowdown in my race times, and I really don’t like getting slower.  Who does?

So this year I decided to change gears a bit and try some new things.  The past six months, I ditched the speed workouts that were beating up my hamstrings and I did a lot of barefoot running to combat my persistent injuries.  This seems to have helped a lot.  I’ve been running a lot of long slow miles… 90 in just one week last month!  I’m running relatively injury free now.   My first goal of the year was to run the Greenland 50K, a hilly trail race near Colorado Springs. The course is an approximately eight mile loop that we did four times to cover the 31 mile distance.  It was great running that way, because I could judge my pace really well by following my split times.  There was a tough 1.5 mile hill on the backside of the loop that wasn’t too bad the first three laps, but on the last one my legs felt like cement on the final climb.  I managed to have a really strong finish on the last two miles of downhill.  I passed one runner and it felt good to kick it in hard.

The weather on Saturday was near-perfect.  There was some snow and slush on the course, and the hills were a lot tougher than I’d expected, but I managed to come in within sixteen seconds of my predicted time.  I was shooting for nine minutes per mile (4 hr. 40 min.) and as you can see by the picture above, I was pretty darn close.  I took fifteenth place out of 115 runners, and I was third in the 50 – 54 age group.  These ultras seem to even the scales a bit between the age groups, so I think I’ll try doing some more of them in the future.  50K is so close to a marathon, I think I’ll have to go up to 50 miles to call myself a REAL ultra-marathon runner. We’ll see!  It was really nice to have Lori cheering me on each lap, and the spectacular spring weather made for an excellent day.  That’s Pike’s Peak in the background of the picture below.

Going green and going up in flames.

“Fran had her skin dyed green to accentuate her love of Mother Earth and to show everyone that she was truly “going green”

I came up with this new mug design idea last week on Earth Day.  I’ve always felt that contemporary environmentalism is more about looking and feeling green than actually being green.  Because to actually be green, you can’t take cool trips to Hawaii or live in a nice big house in the mountains like we do here in Evergreen.  Yes, I suppose I am a bit of a curmudgeon and deserve to be run over by a Prius.  I should also disclose that this mug is an homage to my old friend and hero, Fred Babb.  He’s been a longtime influence on my work and this one looks like something out of his 1995 “Friends and Relatives” calendar.  Thanks for all the cosmic inspiration over the years, Fred!

And here’s one more item in a long series of pots with flammable imagery.  What’s up with that?  Why am I so compelled to make all these vessels with stuff burning on them?  No, I wasn’t down by the old tire warehouse last week when it went up in flames…. really…. that wasn’t me…. I was home firing my kiln and it’s my airtight alibi.

If you want to buy some of these hot and cool new items, just go to the online store.

Golfing with the devil! Bright red dinnerware!! Lust Cats of the Gutters are media darlings!!!

Over the years I’ve received a number of requests from gift shoppers who have asked me, “Do you have any jokes about golf?”  Well, here it is…. Wally’s take on the Tiger Woods debacle.  I like the way it “explains” Tiger’s creepy rise to the top of the heap in golfing, but I’m not sure if these are going to get snapped up real fast by PGA fans.  They are available in mugs, plates and bowls in my online store.

And here’s something completely different….. dinnerware that is 100% humor free! We just rolled out a kiln load with this really wonderful set of these ohata khaki glazed dishes for our own use at home.  I really love this iron saturated glaze and it makes me want to make more of these simple pots.  If anyone out there reading this is looking for a new set of dinnerware, send me an email and we can talk prices.

Last week was a good one for my daughter, Robin.  It started when her riot grrrl band, “Lust Cats of The Gutters” received an impressive write up in famed rock critic Everett True’s blog.  A few days later the Denver Post Reverb music blog featured their song, “Nothing Cool Happens on Dates” in the “steal this track” feature.  Then a few days later their debut CD (it’s really just a demo they recorded a while back in our basement) got a positive review in Denver’s “Westword” newspaper.  How cool is all this?!!!!  And to top it all off, she turned twenty-one on Friday!