Just Missed! and Other Oddities

I just missed Obama yesterday.
Really.
He stopped off at Island Snow to get some shave ice in the afternoon. I ride past Island Snow like three times during my ride. Near as I can figure, I missed him by about a half hour.
I was home by the time his shave ice began to melt.
Today, I find out he was on the beach at the Marine Base and I just happened to ride out to the Mokapu Gate. I was wondering what all the extra guards were up to.
I thought about asking a guard if the President was around but I figured the chances of him answering a guy on a bicycle were slim to none. Based upon my previous encounter with armed guards, perhaps it was better that I got out of there anyway.
Still, I'm kinda bummed I missed the dude. You'd think that with all the time I spend riding around Kailua, I would have at least caught a glimpse.
So anyways, I was riding around, trying to get in some extra miles so I decided to check out the area they are re-paving:



They started to pave the road back around the middle of December and they are almost done. I noticed something about the bike lane while driving past the area at night and wanted to see what was up.
See, the bike lane has no lines yet. At night though, it is lit up with what I thought were those reflector thingys they put in the street.
Instead, they are lit up by these:




Just what exactly those things are I have no clue. It looks like some plastic molding with a reflector strip on it that was cut and glued to the street. The plastic is soft enough that when you step on them or run them over, they bend and lay flat.
How odd.
I guess it's cheaper than that reflective tape they lay down before the permanent paint goes down. I have to say that at night, the bike lane stands out because of them.
Well, I had to head on home for I had more mugs to glaze up. Believe it or not, someone liked the mugs I made and ordered a couple.
I had left my ceramic tool box out and it got wet when it rained so I had to take everything out to dry.
I found some pieces I had forgotten about in the mess that is my tool box.
Whenever people get into wheel throwing, the first thing they want to do is go big. Don't get me wrong, it takes skill to throw big pots but big pots are just well, big pots.
I went in the opposite direction:



I used to hear "you spend way too much time in the studio" quite a bit.
There's more goofy stuff around but I'll save it for later.