Furlough over!!

I got the call on Thursday, they are bringing 20 seasonal workers back and I am one. I start on Monday the 21st on a strange shift 10:00 to 6:30 but we will go back to our normal shift of 9:30 to 6:00 on January 3rd. This has been a terrible furlough, I had problems with UI and extensions so I ended up having to take a loan from my credit card. I am going to have really knuckle down during this work period to get my debts paid off so I can be more comfortable during next years furlough - I especially need to be ready by the June 1st.

I hope to take some hot glass classes at Pratt next summer so I can get back into it. I have taken glass blowing classes, bench-work classes (mostly bead-working), and spent a lot of time watching glass blowers at work. I want to take the classes to learn what I can but what I really want is access to their equipment: the polishers, etchers, kilns and so on.

While DW (convention from savings advice to refer to family DW dear wife, DH, DD, et c) was getting her science PhD, we had access to a ceramics kiln that we used to do some hot glass work. We still have many of the items we made and this was about 20 years ago; what we did was mostly fusing mixed with slumping. Around that time I made some life casts of my face (with some help - Hi Kevin) and I want to some slumping projects based on the molds. I made both positive and negative molds and have been dragging them around with me. While in Tucson I found some 3 inch thick pieces of glass that must have been submarine porthole glass that I have some ideas for.