Hello, my name is Michael and I am addicted to lampworking.
Yeah, that sounds kind of cheesy, but it is true! Once you start on this hobby it tends to take over and obtaining more raw glass, tools, etc. is never enough.
I have been working with glass since October of 2006 and have gone from working with a torch attached to a tiny little desk to having a rather large setup in our studio... it's still not enough though. 
I am originally from a small town in central New York called Oswego. I lived and went to school there right up until January of 1991 when I left for Florida in the middle of an ice storm. It took awhile, but I finally landed my first job as a software developer and at that point I knew that I was never to return home with my tail between my legs (like so many of my friends from Oswego said would happen). I bounced from job to job for a few years and then finally thought I had found my home with a small company called Cell-Tel Monitoring in downtown Tampa. Unfortunately, we were the victims of a buy out and the controlling company closed the office.
While at this job I had managed to move up the ranks a bit and at one point was responsible for the selection of new employees. The office had been growing large enough that it was finally time to hire another administrative assistant. I put in my request to the employment agency I was working with and started interviewing applicants. The company was offering dirt for pay for this position and I argued all along that it was going to be hard to find someone to fill it.. specially considering that we were in downtown Tampa and the person would have to pay for parking as well! I probably interviewed a handful of people and either they were too skilled and would not take the job for the pay, or they were not even close to what we were looking for. I tried to tell the office manager that we needed to increase the pay and he basically told me that it was not going to happen. I narrowed down the potentials down to three.. of which two would have been a stretch to fill the position. One of them however looked promising but they had drawn up an unprofessional resume so it was an even tougher sell for the manager. I explained to him that this was basically all we were going to get and he made the comment of "It says here that she likes to make people smile".. rolling his eyes immediately after. "Well," I said, "it is either her or we go back to the drawing board". He finally accepted and I called the agency to let them know the new hire could start as soon as possible. Who was to know that this new, very attractive, admin assistant was going to be the woman I was going to marry a few years later.
So here we are.. several years later with two children, a beautiful home on two acres of land.. didn't think it could get any better. But it has...
Over the years Susan has slowly eeked out any artistic talent I have. She was a student of the Ringling School of Art and Design so she just oozes talent (although I still think that she does not take full advantage of it!). She had always enjoyed watching me work in Photoshop creating artwork for websites.. but when she learned that I was getting interested in lampworking she got very excited. Finally it would be something where I was doing something with her instead of her doing something with me (which was usually computer related). Once I started getting the hang of it, we started rearranging the box offices that are in our 50x50 steel workshop out on the back of our lot. This area made the perfect studio and we set about making it into a space where the whole family could work on stuff.
Now that everything is set up, I think the two of us are going to start creating some really cool stuff... so be sure to stay tuned!!
- Michael