Centering arm works

Had a productive, yet easy day yesterday. Made this tasty Bayou chicken pot pie for dinner and got some studio time to test out the centering arm after mixing and pugging some clay.

I centered this 5 1/2 lbs of very soft, grog free, clay pretty easily and opened it after I made a position adjustment on the opening tool. I used a combination of the centering plate and  my hand, which I used mainly to push down the top. That worked really well. I will need to lower the centering plate just a hair more. The other thing I found was that I needed to remove the back part of the the wheel tray if I throw anything wide, because there's no way to slide the arm with the centering plate out of the way as the bowl widens. I had to lift off the top opening arm and remove it so I could lift up the centering plate arm and get it moved back so I could open the bowl all the way.

This is a terrific tool! For some reason, I was able to use a lot less water and even with this very soft clay, was able to get a good sized thin walled bowl thrown without slumping. The  degenerative arthritis in my neck and upper spine are loving this tool! 

I got a couple of other studio tidying jobs done and in the midst of reaching up to put something away, I hit the plastic tray that holds my best and most expensive and fragile trim tools. The whole thing went flying and I was at least lucky that that only one shattered; and of course it had to be the one that I had custom made!

I finally found the solution to the Apple new IOS software bug of not being able to send email. Fortunately, someone on you tube posted a video with the fix, which was as easy as just deleting the password for the primary email in the settings smtp area and re-entering it. It's taken me days to find that solution. My next fix search will be to figure out why that updated software or the updated iTunes won't load all my loose photos (it loads the sub-folders and photos in those folders), but not the loose photos in that main My Photos folder. It is a puzzlement It's also not loading all my playlists which show up in iTunes, but won't sync to my iPod touch or Ipad. After these latest updates messes, I am not going to be prone to doing new updates until I see what other people are experiencing. Lesson learned.

Meantime, the kitchen is calling. After an egg salad on toast breakfast I'll  head to the studio if  it's warm enough, otherwise I'll set up the side lights in the new photo setup and see if I can take a few test shots. And somewhere in the day, we also want to make a Costco run.

When I look at how full my days are, I have no idea how other retired people can complain of boredom. The world is full of free books, how to and other videos at the library, great hiking and driving trips, free on line courses (I just signed on for a free course in Permaculture), all kinds of clubs and activities to join, and long lists of new skills to learn if one is more interested in passioning to live in the moment and not staying stuck in the past or worrying about the future.