Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005 - 4:22 p.m.

red glass and productive behavior

Planning on firing up the torch this evening for some toying with my new glass rods. I'd like some heart-shaped earring beads. I also need to seriously figure out how to expand my glass selection without breaking my wallet. The 2 one-pound packages of red rods I ordered off eBay were about the amount of glass I need in other colors -- blue, green, amber, yellow, etc. I'd also like to try some more filigrana rods and some aventurine stuff, too. I played around with encasing a bead in clear the other night and it came out not too badly, but I realize I keep the bead too hot for the encasing glass, and it all smeared in one place. I also need to practice pulling some stringer, but I don't really have multiple rods in many colors at this point, so I hesitate to do that, since I'd use an entire rod. Or most of one. I'm not really good at making stringer.

Flat glass stuff has stalled. I have a pic of a period window I intend to do by the beginning of March....and I realize the beginning of March is coming up really soon. I guess I should get on it, already. Time to shift the workspace from flameworking back to cold-working. But first, I'll play with the red rods....

Work was good today -- people seem to be coming together as a team, which I'm glad to see. We ordered Chinese for lunch as a group, to accompany my staff meeting at noon. Productivity is up none too badly in the first 12 days of this month, so hopefully February will come out overall better than January, which was a not-too-shabby 71.6% for the whole department. This was pretty good, considering the lack of organization that I had to walk into and solve. It would be nice to make a quarterly bonus, although I doubt I will for this quarter, just because productivity was lower than the target, and I'm sure we had some overruns in cost areas. Sigh. I'm starting to sound like a manager. :)

I am getting a low-grade headachy-thing....and my throat feels tight....I hope the creeping crud holds off at least a few more days, although I'm bracing for the impact.

That's about it for now....I'm going to try to think of something for dinner now, and THEN go play in the glass.

Ciao!

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