It started with me flying to Sacramento in April to take a class with Loren Stump. It was a life-changing experience. The schedule was amazing. The class started at 10:00 AM and continued until 1:30 to 2:30 AM. He let me sleep in his RV, which was parked next to his studio, saving me a lot of expense. I would get up at 6:30 AM and go into Loren's studio and take a shower. JoElla, his assistant, shagged hot dogs and food for me. I would microwave a couple of hot dogs and eat them over the sink, then get on the torch to practice what I had learned the day before.

We made (in addition to lots of murrini) 2" paperweights, with tiny inclusions. The process fascinated me but I wanted to make something on a smaller scale. The paperweights went into the annealing oven with a rough base that had to be ground and polished.

I wanted to make buttons, beads and marbles using the technique. I wanted to be able to make a bead that was completed when it came out of the annealing oven. This presented many technical problems that took hundreds of hours to work out. I would get up and look at the previous day's work, only to find that I had solved a problem but another had reared its ugly head. I wrecked a ton of glass in the process, but finally beat the technique into submission. That was in mid-July. I worked six weeks solving the problems, but I knew it was solvable, and would be worth the effort. If you do a search on eBay for 'lampwork,' you will get over 3000 auctions for beads. Many look alike, but not a single one that looks similar to mine. Developing a signature bead is an important step in my growth as a beadmaker. Mine is a paperweight style, pendant bead.

I had been a bit bored making beads, but now I am like a kid with a new toy. All I want to do is get on the torch. The owners of the campground that we stayed this summer allowed us to set up our show tent to use as a studio. It worked out well and stood up to 60 MPH winds, but a 700 pound liquid oxygen tank helped.

Susie kicked up her wire-wrapped jewelry up several notches this summer too.

We had such a great time working on glass this summer that we did little else. We went to Ely, MN to attend an art festival. The show was unremarkable, but we got an instant feel for Ely as we got to town. We pulled into Ely right behind a guy in a jeep with a 50 caliber machine gun mounted Rat-Pack style. We also went to the Apostle Islands and decided to come back when the leaves changed to take a boat tour around the islands. It was so warm, the leaves did not change before we needed to leave.

I'm finishing this update in an RV park just north of Austin, as we make our way back for our 5th winter in Corpus Christi. We had a leveling valve on our bus acting up, but after traveling 125 miles on Missouri highways, it croaked. It pitched the left rear of the bus up, with the right front down. This affected the steering so we had to stop at a bus repair company (Caylor Supply) in Rantool, Kansas. As I pulled the bus into the repair barn, I saw all of the mechanics, in unison, point to my left rear wheel. It had deflected 2 inches forward of where it should have been as I crossed the threshold of the barn. A major suspension part was collapsed and one of the two, one-inch thick U bolts had broken. We were lucky that we stopped, because we would not have made it much farther down the road before a catastrophic breakdown would have occurred. The only catastrophe, fortunately, was inflicted to our Visa card.

Did you know that you can not get good Mexican food in Duluth? Tomorrow, we should arrive in Corpus Christi. The shrimp should be plentiful too. All of the flooding in south Texas as sent a lot of fresh water into Corpus Christi Bay and the Laguna Madre. This has reduced the salinity and is producing an enormous crop of shrimp. Instead of the shrimpers catching 200 pounds per day, they have been getting 300 to 400 pounds, driving the wholesale price down to $1.80 per pound.

After we get the bus set up tomorrow, we will hit the beach. We will get fishing licenses and get a dinner at Snoopy's Pier. We would ordinarily visit a Palatera to get an ice cream bar, but Susie and I are on Atkins diet, and ice cream is not. It is a great diet with no hunger or cravings. We are both losing weight, and I'm going to 160. That will take some time, but the blubber is coming off at a steady pace. I'm convinced, after trying many diets, mostly low calorie, low fat, that a carbohydrate controlled plan is the way to lose weight. Read this NY Post article. If you are a bit plump, get a copy of 'Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution' and read it.

Now it is Monday, October 14, 2002. We have already been fishing twice and we had a crab boil last night. The fishing has produced a few whiting and a jellyfish sting.

In a couple of days we will have been living in this manner for four years, with no end in sight. We are having an amazing adventure.