Tacoma Museum of Glass Low Vision Tour May 31, 10:30 am-1 pm.

RantWoman LOVES the Museum of Glass in Tacoma

Museum of Glass

Admission to Museum of Glass Tacoma

RantWoman definitely encourages readers to check out

Blind & Low Vision Tour

 

Sunday , May 31

10:30am–1pm

Free, with required pre-registration

 

Join Museum of Glass docents and learn about glassblowing and selected exhibition pieces as you visit the Museum’s Hot Shop and galleries.

 

MOG’s newest tour offering has been specifically designed to serve the Blind and Low Vision community. This tour includes a visit to the Hot Shop, docent-led gallery discussions of art pieces from current exhibitions Paul Stankard: Beauty Beyond Nature and Kids Design Glass with the use of tactile images, objects, and 3D prints made to replicate the shape and feel of glass art pieces, as well as a hands-on presentation in the Museum Store. Registration is limited to 20 participants.

 

It is our goal and aim to make the most inclusive and immersive experience possible for the Blind and Low Vision community.

 

To register, please contact Elisabeth Emerson at eemerson@museumofglass.org or 253.284.4713

Registration required by May 23.

Things RantWoman LOVES

RantWoman loves the building shape evocative of native american shapes.

RantWoman loves the walkway over I5 from the Sound Transit bus stop. The walkway is marked by large glass sculptures and then by display niches full of smaller sized works.

RantWoman loves the hot shop, the demonstration point for many glassblowing techniques. RantWoman is definitely thinking about what it would be like to put on a welder's mask, grab a stick full of very hot goo and get all creative.

RantWoman loves the display hallway where younger kids' work is displayed.

RantWoman loves the workshop shere visitors have the opportunity to experiment creating small pieces of their own. Full Disclosure Rant Woman as part of the panel of visually impaired people who weighed in to help shape the Low Vision tour. When we got to the workshop, museum staff was worried about whether people were afraid of getting cut handling small pieces of glass. Everyone on the panel said something along the lines of "The risk is worth it," though we also suggested laying out the glass pieces in single layers. RantWoman does not remember what she made on her tour but definitely enjoyed putting together some kind of glass mosaic. 

 

An easy day trip from Seattle on the Sound Transit bus. After the tour, a couple simple dining options across Commerce st.

Sorry: RantWoman knows driving directions exist but is a big fan of public transit.

For now, Iceland is RantWoman's internet happy place

Iceland 

RantWoman has many things she needs / wants to distract herself from, so...Iceland it is.

Readers who just want a pleasant, somewhat price aware somehow reassuring video, please enjoy.

Readers hankering for some authentic RantWoman reaction ramble with a dash of ranting, see you on the other side.

Yay! Downloadable PDF!

Yay! Honest discussion of prices and budget options though check for your current year's pricing

Lagoons, lagoons, lagoons: all the ways Iceland offers to lightly steam oneself in geothermally heated pools sound glorious for achy bodies. RantWoman has childhood memories of an annual winter time Rant family trip to a hot springs pool in the mountains of CO. Swimming in the warm water was especially delicious when snow was falling. So all the ways to soak oneself sound wonderful--until on thinks of dry skin. RantWoman would have to look for some local option to avoid turning into a very flaky and shriveled prune.

As for doing the Blue Lagoon first thing when one gets off the plane, probably not. RantWoman has enough experience with international travel and jet lag to think more about falling asleep in a bed and saving the swim for another time, perhaps on the way out of town, though that leaves one with wet swimwear in one's luggage. Put a pin in that as a problem to solve.

Yes, Yes, cash free, prepay for mobile service, and the right apps for weather.

RantWoman loves the idea of the Fly bus from the airport. RantWoman will opine separately about driving: if travelling in the wintertime, either make sure your driver is comfortable driving in bad weather, snow and ice, or sign up for tours. RantWoman will look for more info about tours or options to hire a local driver.

Camp sites sound great if one is feeling hardy but if one, say, needs a CPAP machine, one will need either some kind of solar battery or an option one can plug into. RantWoman has no idea whether one could get a portable solar collector with the needed capacity. Never mind whether one could count on enough sunlight to fully charge before bedtime.

Camper vans! Camper vans! Fun to know these exist.

Puffins and whale watching? Puffins' high-contrast plumage just sounds like fun. RantWoman is ambivalent about even trying whale watching. RantWoman can see whales just fine up close on videos. RantWoman occasionally dines with friends at the home of one person with a view of whales swimming by in the Puget Sound. RantWoman takes others' word for it that the whales are even there.

Light and dark: high summer is exhilarating. Short daylight periods in the winter are good for...sleeping! RantWoman once spent a lot of a winter trip to Russia just sleeping. Between the jet lag and most of the surrounding conversation being in Russian sign language, not one of RantWoman's zones of even bare minimal fluency, RantWoman found it surprisingly easy just to sleep. Iceland might be a long way to travel just to catch up on sleep, but add plenty of time lounging in lagoons and RantWoman can imagine not being the only person on the planet who could imagine a winter napping tour.

PS Who can pass up year-round fresh tomatoes?

The Pandemic as Portal: Imani Perry Interviews Arundati Roy

#Covid #Pandemic 

Revisiting #COVID lockdowns may or may not be the most soothing way to duck the current plague of plagues, but here we are, counting the expected trickle of new #hantavirus cases and coming to grips with a substantial #Ebola outbreak which apparently has been simmering for a while in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now Uganda.

Thank you RantWoman supposes to YouTube for the time travel.

Pandemic Is a Portal: Arundhati Roy on COVID-19 in India, Imagining Another World & Fighting for It

Note to self: Look up book of essays: My seditious heart.

How Will COVID-19 Change the World? Historian Frank Snowden on Epidemics From the Black Death to Now

Dr. Snowden 

A doctor who previously recovered from Ebola and others speak about the current Ebola outbreak

#Ebola #DRC #Uganda 

DRC Ebola outbreak 'way bigger that what we see now', virologist says • FRANCE 24 English

Main transmission related to funerals and caregiver including health care workers.

Is Ebola a global threat? | DW News

As WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak a Global Health Emergency, Did USAID Cuts Worsen the Crisis?

"We learned too much too quickly to be anything but concerned."

ravages of measles, hantavirus, Ebola because of DOGE.

Ebola outbreak could be getting out control amid aid cuts, says frontline doctor

US AND other countries health care cuts contribute to environment.

How worried should we be about the Ebola "emergency"? | Global News Podcast

WHO warns Ebola outbreak in DRC 'rampant for weeks' as response faces funding shortfall

'This has me very concerned': Doctor issues stark warning about new Ebola outbreak

88 dead as new Ebola outbreak spreads to second African country

Global National: May 18, 2026 | Congo, Uganda racing to contain deadly Ebola outbreak

Kids these days: Even Princeton???

 #AI

Interior monologue:

RantWoman, WHY are you posting these comments here on your blog? How about writing nice polite comments to The Princeton Alumni Weekly or to The Daily Princetonian ?

RantWoman, frankly, is livid. A recent survey revealed that 30% of Princeton students admit to having consulted AI when writing exams. As a result, Princeton is ending its LONG tradition of unproctored exams. RantWoman first read of this in Elon's sandbox (Twitter / X). See also BREAKING | Princeton faculty mandate proctoring for in-person exams, upending 133 years of precedent

Previously students have been considered more than adult enough to write their own exams without faculty around to ensure they did not cheat or misbehave. and then to write out and sign the honor code pledge 

This custom is ending, and the sample of alumni from RantWoman's era who have opinions are all insulted and affronted and appalled. Several of us are familiar with the practice of open book exams for math and STEM courses but it just never would have occurred to us to cheat on in-class exams.

RantWoman remembers what a jolt it was in graduate school when even very prominent scholars had to sit and babysit the class and give permission to use the restroom. RantWoman is not charmed that this level of babysitting will now be the norm at Princeton.

Long ago, in the mists of the last century, "Even Princeton" appeared on a sign at a student protest about the Vietnam war. This was before RantWoman's time but RantWoman has seen pictures. Now the phrase has come to Princeton as far as students too eager just to let AI do their thinking.

RantWoman has friends who teach at other institutions who report that students try to get away with relying on AI to write papers or exams. This bane to intellectual development is also widely discussed by academic voices in social media streams. RantWoman sometimes has a grant review hat and has seen at least one grant application where AI was so pathetically obvious that all the reviewers just wanted to trash the document. 

With mention of Princeton-based AI projects all over the social media RantWoman sees, RantWoman probably should not be surprised that Princeton students are just as eager--and thoughtless--about plunging into AI as everywhere else. RantWoman is still appalled.

RantWoman gets it. AI CAN be very powerful. 

AI can also be extremely biased in ways that worsen problems of underrepresentation about both certain categories of people and specific important policy dimensions.

Even the best models cannot embody all of human knowledge unless people actually acquire and create it.

Most important, if humans do not know a subject wellm, how on earth will they catch errors or hallucinations by AI. Never mind needing to be able to think even if, for instance the power goes out.

So yeah, relying on AI to help with tests, to RantWoman, completely devalues a Princeton education and if proctored exams are necessary because people cannot resist consulting it, what a drag!

RantWoman is torn though:

The ability to write exams on a computer is a huge accessibility step both for students and for faculty with accessibility needs. Were this not true, RantWoman would suggest an approach now taking shape in elementary and high schools: lock up devices during the school day for younger students and during class but not breaks and lunch for high school students.

That said, RantWoman is probably going to cease ranting about proctoroed exams and go back to advocacy energy in the direction of skepticism about the huge amount of electricity, water, and other environmental stressors associated with massive data centers. Stay tuned on that front.

EBOLA round 17 in DRC: Public Health Emergency of International Concern

 #Ebola

RantWoman's eccentric content curation: dump a bunch of videos in one place. RantWoman is mainly collecting videos for reassurance. The fact that the outbreak could be larger than currently known is not totally reassuring but measures to manage exist.

Update:

WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global health emergency

EBOLA sounds scare and this round is on the scarier end because it is the strain there are fewer diagnostic tools for.

Will the latest Ebola outbreak in DR Congo and Uganda spread further? | Inside Story

"ring vaccination"

conflict zone!

LOTS of health concerns and health system already in bad shape

importance of cultural awareness and building trust and cooperation

H Ha Han ... Hantavirus

#hantavirus

And from a new source 

The video does not do a great job of explaining the map, people who got off the boat early and contacts of people on the boat while in transit before the risk was identified

Lots of solid science

Hantavirus on board update with Prof. Vincent Racaniello

And just in case anyone worries that the US administration will assign competent people with expertise in virology, ....

Trump STUNNED As His NEW HEALTH Official's Secret GOES PUBLIC🚨

Trump HUMILIATED After Hanta Virus Response Leader's EMBARRASSING Background Exposed

President #StableGenius on Iran's uranium

softball pitches and he swallowed the ball

FOX NEWS Admits Trump’s China Trip Was a DISASTER