New news, new vistas, new learning

I'm out of town, at a Road Scholar learning adventure.  I'm working at the Corning Museum of Glass all week.  Road Scholar is a terrific program, tons of different opportunities, for every activity level.  The trip I'm on is 6 days, 5 nights, lodging and all meals but one included, all supplies and fees for the Glass Studio included, and it's only $799!  Go to the CMoG site and you'll see why this is such a bargain.  On our first day, I learned to gather the glass from the furnace, learned a lot of safety rules, and actually got to practice a bit with the hot glass.  Today we should make our first piece there.  I'm also learning flameworking and kilnworking.  In just my first day at the torch, I learned so much, I can't wait to see the kinds of beads I'll be able to produce when I'm done.  In the kilnworking shop, I've already learned that I want my own kiln.  A small one should be about $400, but it would make my beads better, and allow me to make more glass pieces for the jewelry I make.  I did 4 suncatchers in the kilnworking class, all of them are already earmarked for special presents, and I did 6 beads.

The teachers are all very good.  Their explanations of the way glass works and why it does what it does are very clear.  We have people in our group that have done this adventure 7 or 8 times, and people that have never touched glass artistically.  The instructors are very good at making sure everyone has every question answered.  I am very excited about glassworking now.  Looking forward to today's experiences.

My father is gradually improving.  They ended up taking his toe to down just below the knuckle.  The surgeon said there is other damaged tissue in his foot, that we need to wait and see if it heals now that the circulation is better.  He finished the one IV med yesterday, and hopefully will be discharged to a rehab sometime this week.  We're really hoping for one of the ones in Cortland, but we don't get much choice.  He will NOT be going back to Crown in Cortland, we made sure of that.  He will need to be in a private room because of the MRSA, even though they believe they've gotten a handle on that.

Well, I'm off to play with hot stuff!