Sept 29 Actually it rained on and off all day yesterday, but since we were mainly inside it didn't matter. Larry Brickman makes huge beads.... He balls up almost an entire rod of glass and wraps it all on at once... It does work unless the rod gets shocky and the entire blob falls off... which mine did! Today we are starting with painting our beads for electroforming think I will use something that I brought with me as I'm sure everything that I made yesterday is really ugly... alhtough you can hide all sorts of things with the copper..... After class we went to a wine tasting...then tried to go out for dinner, there were lines ups everywhere so we came back to Jill's made supper and finished a crossword puzzle... much easier to do if you type the clues into Google!

Sept 28 Good morning from Portland....Looking out the window it looks like it's going to be a cloudy cool day. The flight was on time, security didn't like my carry on bag, he unpacked it laid everything flat in tubs ran the tubs through the xray than handed me back my almost empty bag and the tubs.....As he was unpacking it I commented that it had to go back in the way it came out, he said then you should be watching how it's coming out because I'm not repacking it yo are! Luckily I had loads of time! On the way to the airport we stopped at Arrow Springs Northern CA glass place... I got away without a single rod of glass which was good since my suitcase weighed in at exactly 50 pounds!
Jill got a call yesterday saying that we are suppose to bring beads to electroform to the class today...

Sept 27 Well... the age for the Senior Casino breakfast was 55.... so I'm NOT a senior!!!! However the waitress gave both Sue and I the Sr price, because Jean (Sue's mother) and Dorothy her friend are such good customers... We all squandered a few $ in the slot machines Sue's mom actually won $10 and only spent $2 to get it! Sue and I wore our matching SF T-shirts she hasn't uploaded the picture yet though so you'll have to wait. Sue was trying to hide behind the rock we were standing in front of......but I think you can still see the T-shirt! They have elbow length sleeves and turned out to be much to warm for wandering the streets of Jamestown in the afternoon. Her parents live in Jamestown, we were visiting so that I could 'borrow' a soldering iron to fix a stained glass panel that had split. I ran a wire accross the bottom. Think it was close to 30 inches from end to end and the iron seemed to be pretty cool (600 degreees?), I use a 800 degree iron for everything!
We are checking out Arrow Springs on the way to the airport today. I'm off to Portland to take a three day class at Bullseye. Seems to be cooler again today, so I can wear more clothes to lighten my suitcase! The bathroom scale said my suitcase weighed 47 pounds but there was still stuff lying around......I think you should get a total weight of 100, not 2 * 50, since my little case is under 30 but I can't get anything else into it!

Sept 26 Got back to Sonora last night from San Francisco... I went armed with jackets and long pants.... the weather was HOT and SUNNY... no clouds or fog anywhere.... We stayed in an old Hotel near Fishermans wharf and China Town.... Yesterday morning we wandered around Chinatown... I tried on a jacket, which was fitted at the waist, most fitted jackets don't fit me, the sales clerk looked at me and said "Oh, you have Chinese Body!" I did buy it, can't persaude my camera to down load pictures here though so you'll have to wait! Sue and I also bought matching SF T-shirts if Sue takes our picture this morning I might be able to uplaod that... mines green and hers is teal....We took BART from one of the outlying stations, very painless.. going we took a cable car coiming home we took the F line along the Embarcadero, we had walked the F line earlier going back to the Hotel from China Town. The Hotel was the San Remo, (Built just after the earth quake in 1906) Sue's middle son Matt works there so we got a deal I heard Sue mention that the bathrooms were down the hall but it hadn't sunk in, so I snuck out of the room at 5 am wearing my jacket... so it was useful for something! This morning we are off to the Casino for breakfast, I get the seniors breakfast as I'm over 50.... BLAH!

Sept 24 Two days in a row!! WOW Don't worry I won't update tomorrow as we're off to San Francisco for the night. Sue's son works in a Hotel there and got us a deal on a room. Yesterday we went to Columbia a Historic ... preserved Mining Town... It was better than Helen GA but still too touristy ... Helen GA has been recreated in the middle of GA as little Switzerland it gets the TACKY award! I went there on the Saturday between classes. On the Sunday I went to Brasstown Bald which is the highest Mtn in GA. You drive most of the way up and then walk the last .6 miles and there is an observation tower on a clear day you can see 4 states. It wasn't that clear!
I think Chatanooga had it in for me as when I arrived on Sept 8 at 10:10pm I discovered that my rental car company ALAMO was closed... I had a prepaid two week rental! I phoned their reservation number and was assured that they stayed open til 1am and that someone would be there in 5 minutes... 10 minutes later I phoned again well this person didn't know anything, meanwhile Herbert that guy at the Enterprise desk said they stayed open until 11 and they did have a car left but it was a premium... I leaned on the Alamo desk until 10:58 and then rented a car from Herbert... He did give me a deal since I promised to have the car back by 2 pm... Alamo's comments the next day... tough we close at 10... so what if we have a rental scheduled for 10pm pickup you weren't here we went home!.... my revenge.. totally accidental.. I parked under a tree at my Hotel in downtown Chatanooga and when I went out Saturday morning the car was covered with berry flavored bird crap... and I mean COVERED! I spent 20 minutes washing the windows off... But the roof was really lovely when it got returned to the airport!
Yesterday we also walked around downtown Sonora, I thik we'll have to go back and check out some of the stores that were closed on Sunday... We couldn't leave yesterday until 2 as Homeland security in Atlanta struck again and kept my tool bag....! So we had to wait for my small very heavy duffle bag to be delivered! Do they really think I'm going to crawl into the luggage compartment and use those tools while we're in flight????

Sept 23 Sunday morning in CA yes it's me... I'm here inspite of Delta airline ground crew yesterday in Chattanooga! Actually it may not be Delta's fault... the idiot pulling the luggage cart with the outgoing luggage ran into the tail of the plane in Chattanooga and hit the plane so hard that the luggage cart got stuck... well 10 minutes after that there was an announcement saying that the flight was cancelled and we would all have to return to the check in counter... the race was on I grabbed my carry on luggage and went racing for the stairs... didn't see the coffee table in front of me it hit right below my right knee and I went sailing accross the top of the table landing on top of my luggage minus one shoe.... I don't think I even lost any ground as everyone stopped to make sure I was still in one piece... Got downstairs was 6th in line... but there was only one person on the check in desk after 15 minutes one couple had been rescheduled, the woman behind me said she had a car and we had time to drive to Atlanta... I went up and told the guy if he would release our luggage NOW we had time to drive to Atlanta and catch our connecting flights... so at 4:20 we hit the highway....she said it was an hour and a half, well it took almost exactly 2 hours at 85 to 90 miles and hour... Every time she saw a highway Patrol...ls he following us ??? 6:20 .. no problem , my luggage is still tagged and I had a boarding pass..... Got to Atlanta 30 minutes til the plane left the gate .. I threw my luggage at the curb side check and ran for security removing my ankle bracelet since it sets of the alarms.... (The guys in Chatanooga security were bored.. when I set off the alarms there they told me that it was my ankle bracelet, guess they can tell where the metal is that sets off the bells.... But I guess it's more fun to make you take off all your clothes... why tell you what it is that you actually need to remove!) Through security, found a departure board, confirmed my gate.... board says the plane is boarding...I'm at 'T' I have to take the train 5 stops to E.... get to E my gate is right at the far end of E very long walk... no moving sidewalks hand over my boarding pass... get told it isn't valid.... run over to the desk... It's not valid because I never took the first leg of the flight, new boarding pass last person on the plane, shut the door and we're off....
The silver class was great I made a silver spoon, a fish pin with an opal eye, and a box clasp for the bracelet I made last year. Gold... well it got dubbed Gold boot camp, ex Navy instructor class started at 8:15 we got 45 minutes for lunch and we worked until 9 Monday and wednesday... we melted nuggets, poured an ingot... took me 8 tries to hit the tiny hole to get an ingot... drew the ingot out into wire and then made a ring out of 19 gauge wire with a clear topaz... that took till Thursday, There was only two students in the gold class so we got lots of personalized attention! I also made a pendant... What did I learn...Gold melts really easily!

Sept 21 The boss will be back in the land of internet connections this weekend, so if I'm to get any more chances to add useless, irrelevant comments, this is the time to do it. Unfortunately, anything I can think of to comment on is so useless or irrelevant that even I can't bring myself to bore you with it. Except that the weather has been great (not counting this morning's fog) and gallery traffic has slowed to something less than a crawl. Just thought you should know.

Sept 17 You've seen those signs in front of businesses saying "The boss told me to change the sign - so I did"? Well, the boss told me to update her rant. So now I have. But just in case you're wondering - she got through her silver class and is now into gold. Funny how she always gravitates toward the more expensive..... On the home front, our new boiler is in and it works! Not that we need it yet, but I've heard ugly rumors that have the "F" word in them, so its good to be prepared. Sailing tomorrow!!! Despite a probable lack of wind, but what can you do?

Sept 12 For those of you who were expecting Lynne to update from Chattanooga or other points south of here, don't be alarmed. She got there only to find that, contrary to their advertisements, the hotel did NOT have the facilities for her to do an update, send emails, or whatever. She's currently at William Holland and says she probably won't regain a connection to cyberspace until the 22nd or someplace in there. And I'll be 'way too busy working on the house (partying, sailing, goofing off...) to do more than the occasional update. Actually, its been raining so I've got our new electric boiler mostly installed and even found time to attend to a few customers in the gallery! Sunshine in the forecast though, so who knows????

Sept 7 My website was down all morning...I decided to clean up my web based email yesterday afternoon.... I went through the emails page by page and checked the delete box then went to the next page... as soon as I was done I realized that I had to click on the delete button on the bottom of EACH page, not once I was all done... so back to the beginning, about half way through the second time round the server timed out... I'd had enough fun so I quit, but when I went to log on this morning it just gave me an error message.... It's sort of fixed now.... The other excitement for today was digging Em out of the lobster crates again, he was around about 2 am so wasn't even in them long enough to get hungry... Silly Cat! It was a year ago today that Duddies disappeared I wonder if he was stuck in the traps?
I think I'm all packed, hope I have everything, It's hot here today, although it's clouded over so the temp seems to have stalled at 22/ 72.

Sept 5 3 days to lift off... Today I have to pack everything that needs to be mailed... and unpack my suitcase and see what I've put in it over the last 10 days... I keep randomly adding things... so today I will dump everything and start over! No more beads will be made here until Nov as I brought in the tools last night.. My new little DVD player is set up in the gallery so now all the lucky customers get to watch my video of me making beads in 1998 and 1999!
Yesterday I spent the day in Saint John, Stuart was here for the weekend so I drove him home Monday night and stayed in town.... G is finally up so I can go dump my suitcase!
OK I just realized that I haven't posted the winner of my Faux Tink Vessel.... Drum Roll....Mrs Waters... is the lucky winner!

Sept 1 The beginning of another month... G bought me a tiny DVD player... so I can watch movies as we drive across Canada... Actually we're thinking of setting it up in the gallery with a DVD of me making beads. We dug out the video I made in '99... My very brief career as a video artist....the video was funded with a Canada Council Grant... It had to be an artsy film, in order to get the grant it couldn't be educational... (no further COMMENT ... ) Stuart taped most of the video and I edited almost 2 hours of video down to 5 minutes.... The same tape had me demoing stained glass in '88, only significant difference between then and now is I'm wearing pearls and my hair was shorter... there was also a 2 minute segment of Stuart as a Scowling Star in his kindergarten Christmas pageant..