Smile, it's Juneuary

I have no idea what the ad campaign was all about. All I remember that at some point in the middle 1970's, in January, 'Smile, it's Juneuary' was placarded over what seemed to be all the New York City Transit Authority buses. It seemed appropriate slogan for this year given our record warmth this January. The weather was more spring-like than summer-like but 'Smile, Its Marchuary' just doesn't have the same ring to it. In fact, it sounds downright morbid.

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Holy smokes.... I've been published...

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Two trips to the hot shop this week- Wednesday and Sunday. Lots of floor models. I had a giant candy dish crack in two on Wed. when we went to break it off the punty. I think the cold air pouring in from an open window didn't help. The second piece came out great although we almost lost this on the punty as well. It was a large piece made with Uroboros dark green frit picked up after the second gather. Hard to believe I made this one in the little glory hole.

Sunday was the same-- one floor model, one giant piece. I think the giant piece came out cool. I think I managed to get it to blow much thinner. Carlo pointed out my second gather bubbles may have been too large too close to the moile. I slumped the bubble down a bit before gather 3 and it appeared to work. A much thinner lip although I'm still not too pleased with how large my moiles are. On my first piece I jacked too far down the bubble from the moile. During the transfer it got too cold and cracked from the moile to the jack line. Then the lip started coming apart and from that point we knew we had a floor model. At least this one didn't wait to jump off the punty at the end.

My large spun-out got interesting. It was so long that I couldn't see over the edge to properly place the punty. I actually had to look through the piece for proper placement. When I went to puffer it I almost didn't reach. Things got so hot that poor Jim, who was providing protection, ended up donning the kevlar gloves. There I sat in short sleeves and black pants taking the heat and my protector was all dolled up in Kevlar keeping my unprotected arms from bursting into flame!

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Rant and rave time....

We *finally* took down the Christmas tree this weekend. When I took off the lights I went to check each string for burned out bulbs. Imagine my shock when I discovered all of our light sets had failed. I ended up getting my voltmeter out and painstakingly tested each buld and each socket. Out of 100 lamps (4 sets of 25) I had 30 burned out bulbs, several of which whose shunt devices failed and caused the sets not to light. I didn't have that many replacement bulbs so I ended up gutting one of the sets for its bulbs. These are specialty sets (G40 ice) otherwise I'd toss them and get new sets. Two sets of 100 mini lights will be 'tossed' -- I'll actually keep them so I cannibalize them for the bulbs. I think these two 100 sets will be replaced with LED lights next year. Hard to believe that so many bulbs were burned out. The rate of simultaneous failure jsut does not seem statistically valid.