Signals

Boy can I babble when I'm tired. Sorry group from Canon. I told you to run while you could. You can tell when there is far too much going on.. you forget things that aren't in front of you at the moment.. and they get pushed backwards until you completely forget there was anything there in the first place.

Something like that. Above is one of the micro sd chips that failed on me. They were nice enough to fail after I got my files off of them.. but then they went nuts and wouldn't show anything. I had to format them and then the camera wouldn't recognize them. No matter what I did it did not work. Really they were viewable and accessible via computer but the Nikon just sat and puked all over the place with error here and there. Remember I talked about trying to get the RMAs done when my eye was still rock hit.. well it would seem that Sandisk can move quickly. THey had the first RMA and shipment Monday and the second came today.. so that is all working out great.

The hard drive that died is on its third format. I will do two more tomorrow and then ship it back. That drive I just don't trust to add files to anymore. Again...Toshiba were very nice and quick to get me a new drive. This I will send back tomorrow. Most everything 99% is backed up. I even have my drives set with their power blocks. I wished I could trim down the drives to just four or five but its not cost effective to buy more drives when the ones I have work fine. Those are either HP or Samsung. Two of them are terribly old but still spinning fine.

Since I was knee deep in drives I found a few abstracts to use for wallpaper in there as a break for ballooning pictures. Something for two very wide or three screen systems... One I worked on for an hour to throw away... it just was not going right... it was all wrong.

Signalman

 Rustic and crusty..as are the following clips.

Awpaginthesnow.

 So buried .. again. Cant measure frozen snow with an Awpag.

ShotgunStop.

 Every few months it needs to be replaced... poor sign.

SkateOrDie.

Or skate and die.. or get good bruises!

Everyone is just gritty enough. I keep wanting to do nice calming pastel wallpaper but keep getting the harsh side.. what does that say>?

Ah well.... facebook banner and logo today are manipulations of Nixi clock tubes and abstract washes... and a funny pirate....

Out of the ordinary all.....

I snuck off with the Fiesta background wallpaper... not sure if it would be good form to use it for a facebook background.. it would be fun.... but....

I removed all the other balloons.... yes.. no.. Not going to use it.. but it was fun to see how well I could remove everything.... I even removed the logo... I could make my own version from this cool background.. or the original... Its pretty quick to go about it....  Yes! I will Behave!!!

Evolutions

I was going on the other day about showing the differences between manufacturers of balloon systems... and yes I will do so today.. If I am repeating myself.. well.. we both suffer...

Bobs Cameron system is a pretty nice sport system. he is on his second Concept 80 envelope. 80 being 80,000 cubic feet of air. It lifts quite a few people at a time even in the summer heat. It has long fabric runs vertically. A short kevlar fabric throat but its very good at maneuvering. Bob can make it do very interesting things normally set aside for racers. Let me start the shots and descriptors.

Sport basket out with upright poles set for the burner frame.

Burners set onto the poles and into sockets in the basket top.

Carabiners attached..looped into two braided lines that run down, under and up the other side to carry the weight of the basket and passengers. Camerons have two lines per corner, Lindstrands have one.

The Ultra Single. Nice and easy to use. Lower squeeze toggles protected by that lower hoop bar. Blue toggles are for the whisper burners. Gold are to turn of the fuel supply. Its two fuel supplies into one coil system. Nice and lightweight.

Bob sets the radios and instruments.. his flower is always on... always.. LOL

Testing the system. Checking for fuel leaks, that all burners work before getting into the air. Checks... always do the checks.

Basket laid back down and the lines from the envelope throat attached. There are twelve lines down.. three to a corner.

Have to make sure that the lines do not cross and cause a weakening of their strength. Red line set up so its easier to pull.

Pulling out the envelope from the envelope bag. Pretty light envelope. I believe it is 80 % rip stop with a top course of hyperlast fabric.

Crew hold open the envelope throat to get the fans cold air to pack it. The throat will stay open once enough air is in it but its much safer to have crew keep hold.

Red line goes up to this pulley then down to the lower envelope so that its easier to open the top ( crown ) to let out hot air. Do you see that little green circle of fabric up there... See the little white tabs attached to it? Those are temp tabs and they have heat sensitive cards in them so that when the envelope is annually checked they can see how hot it got in the top. 250 degrees and 275 never exceed depending on the maker.

Hot inflation. The throat crew are just making sure the lines stay out of the flame.

Standing up now. See how the metal lines are attached to the lower carabiner that is also attached to the burner frame and then attached to the carabiners that are attached to the lines going up to the envelope.. all a connected secure system. The little spinning covers for the carabiner jaws are just lowered and then backed off to make sure they never pop open or lock closed.

Off he goes in a totally different direction that was expected. He did in fact goin right round that Cameron Viva and head in the opposite direction. A fun time.

There ya go.. a basic Cameron Concept 80 inflation process. There is a lot more to it but those are most of the high points. I didn't go into the way the basket is woven to make it lighter.Or about the colors of the upright covers and bolster... Double threading of the whicker and Bob had different coverings but they wore off so he had them get wild with it.

Ballooning is a load of fun and seriously seat of the pants flying... I know I've said it before but no other vehicle even a helicopter can take off from a tiny space and stuff its self back in a tiny space.. winds willing. Oh! And Splash and Dashes.. and tree topping... floating in and out of the treetops not touching but ever undulating along... Come crew and see.... come crew and get to fly.... yeah!

Wow!

Oh.. had some fun with my fazebook banner when I got home.. and then my logo too....

Woo hoooo.....

As good as a poke in the eye!

I think the poke would have been better than the rock in the eye I got from Eric's fan.. I blame the fan.. it had its sneaky snarky blades just waiting to fling that stone... just....waiting....

It was a mothers sisters pain in the eye. Hit right between my inside eye and center. Thank goodness for that. It has taken most of the day for it to lessen the feeling of a rock stuck in there. But I did get some good shots of everyone flying off... mostly before that thing. I posted three of each onto fazebook. I have more selective shots too. I did a set of shots just on Bobs cameron system which I will at some future date post and explain. For today I have some off shots that no one really ever take shots of.. mostly. Never be predictable in all things. Most things.

On the interwebs there is a relatively funny photography youtube link that goes on about photography but with a quirky funny bent... they went on about the standard shots people take... Sunsets, clouds, bokeh and such.. they went on about its bad bad bad... but they do it too... funny...Whatever spins your wheels is what I say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtxzJlpvqQM

Funny stuff... most of they stuff is pretty good if not odd in a odd way...  now for a few ... different ballooning things...

Edgeglows.

 I pulled off the side of the road to get this shot. Nicely glowy but a little diffused... no focussed right.

Shorts or highwaters?

 The attire of the summer balloonist in Albuquerque.

Solar power.

 If the rock wasn't going to burn my eye out it was trying to line up this shot. ouchy!

Scuffing it up.

Its what its made for. It lasts a long time and protects the lower whicker from drag and rock damage. It has such character.

So those are some of the off ( non photographic choice ) shots that I think are much nicer than the standard shot... but then saying that below are some nice standard shots never before seen in this space today.

Silhouette of a flight.

 Zigging and Zagging.

Nom De Plume.

Emerald stairs.

Pointing out directions.

I was looking for other things on these shots. I did a lot of filler shots in between of full view balloons doing balloon things...like going around other balloons ( Bob ) and popping over and down into arroyos. Spinning in place and closeup shots of people too. It was a nice day but I had to cut it short after the rock incident.

Now comes the other pain in the butt. Right after I downloaded the shots off of the two super fast Sandisk micro chips they failed! Stunningly. I reformatted them and they work on the computer but the camera will have noting to do with them. I tried swapping adapters and chips and cameras... everything else works but those two chips. So I had to go onto Sandisks website and process to get them replaced as I just bought them last month. They wanted pictures of front and back of the chips, serial numbers and proof of purchase... that with a  tearing eye... So much fun. Well it done for both and now to see what will happen and how fast. Glad I have spares.

After that I was able to get the last segment of last Saturdays Angel Fire 360 video processed. THen I worked on speeding it up. It worked out but seems jerky.. and I dont know why. At this point I am just glad its done. I can look into the GoPro versions and hope they are nice enough. I am also hoping that the upload finishes soon.

Hows that for a day of stuff....

Facebook banner and logo.... yeah..

Reminds me I have to set my flag links on my crown line and also that there are more things needing done than hours in 96 days.

Polaroid Rounds

Large amount of yawning today. A direct change to last weekends Angel Fire hilarity. Kinda nice to have the quiet but kinda miss the awesome people and place. So much so that I grabbed some clips from the 360 video and adjusted them..... slightly...lol.. kodachrome polaroid....... ish...

A direct short quick day of speed things. Get it done, get back down, rest and dont move too much or too quickly bodily. I spent most of the day copying, verifying, recopying, reverifying. I think I am as close to being backed up correctly now.. I think... My eyes were crossing and I had about eight drives online and was getting things mixed up so stopped for the day and decided to do some edits.

Now that I have the video files backed u I can start re-processing the 360 videos. That was one of the things I lost when the drive went south... all those reprocessed videos. Loads of fun. While I was in overwatch mode I played some Fallout New Vegas.... my memory is playing games with me and I am leapfrogging through it. I remember some and keep overriding the games storyline and that is causing me to do things before I have started those quests... I am tired of farming for items so I can get enough bottle caps to purchase the equipment I need to go forward against some of the harder creatures.. but the game is being a pain.. why am I doing this.. cause Fallout 4 is coming soon.. and I am tired of playing Borderlands alone.

Since I have to sit there monitoring its about all I can do but read.. and I only feel like reading on and off. I guess if I had my computer room still I could have had three displays and three computers going to do everything I needed to do but ... keeping it all straight is tiring too... try it sometimes... run eight or more drives with various naming conventions and file sets and even with them being different it gets all mushy. THen add in another set of files and another thing your reading and its gets wearing.... Nevermind.. Now that its done.. or 99% done I can spend tonight processing those vids again.. which I am about to do...

Here are the 360 video clips I edited.. Hope you like them...

Hanging out in the field with friends.

 Laying down on the job.

 Lee neaning closer.

Color depth.

 Overwatch.

Yeah.. I used to marvel over polaroid pictures and still run my fingers across the chemical area at the bottom of those old photographs... Such a cool idea and process... I even remember the polaroids that you had to use a little squeegee to spread the chemicals across the picture for it to appear too. That would have the whiners freaking the heck out touching those chems... wooo... gonna kill ya if you get it on you... ( for 150 years ).... right... Suckers... world full of whiny suckers.

Woo hoo...

I purged some people from facebook today. They deserved it for being stupid or redundant or just plain oxymoronic. I did dump some because of repetitious posts or that I rarely read anything they have to say or if I just don't interface with them. If I deleted you it might also have been an accident... as I got in a purge frenzie... hehehe... If it was not for some very special people on facebook that I really want to keep in touch with Id shut it down. I will use it for my purposes and refuse to allow it to manipulate me.. arrr..... avast ye....

And with that screed on facebook and its neverending want to quantify me.... here I will use it for my ends... BANNER FOR THE DAY!!!!

I loved this picture because of the pretty colors on the gravel and the little flowers that I had abused a bit by laying on them... I wanted to show you how pretty things are when you are laying in the dirt and rocks... Zooming in on the original shot and those little flowers and some nice detail... 

Tattered and torn.... Replaced now and looking very nice.. but here... overused.

I was going in a totally different direction today but ... well.... I always decide what to write about right at the moment and trash a bunch of ideas..

There were some interesting things on the nets but it was so over run with crap I shunned it all.. ( pushing arms out with hands vertical ) shun.. shun.. LOLOL....

Nanner Nanner!

Out of the ordinary

While we were running cable for a new camera at work.. me mostly running back and forth to the office and then out building and looking over the facility as I am wont to do weekly I was taking pictures of the guys doing what they were doing... for our archives and our digital wall in the foyer. We have these three displays on the wall that show pictures of our activities as an office and weather and what ever we like to show off. Its better than just a few pictures in frames. So there I was.. and decided to take to off shots...it was hot... I am slightly crazy...

So you get to see three things I took that are not normal and not usual for interesting pictures.. but they were interesting to me. Not posting pictures of the guys because it was work related and no permissions. It was a good day even though the link didnt work due to its length and a couple of screwed up testers.... funny but no joy. On order.. two POE line amplifiers. Next week should be fun.

Oh. yes.. the three things...

Closeups...

 Not a selfie!

Countdown...

 Or is it.

Pressure Drop.

Brass only.

I usually take a walk about the grounds to make sure there isnt anything needing done or needing fixed. Nothing much to report but one black widow with a massive web.

Still working on getting my hard drives backed up and restored. I did get the drive from TOshiba. They were very quick about getting the replacement drive to me. Now its moving files onto it from the recovery drive. Lots of data...since all the photographs I take I shoot NEF ( nikon ) and JPG I have to back up both and those NEF files are big.

Too sore and tired to go out tonight so sitting in the chair dealing with the dull pain and blogging and researching... researching and blogging.. Oh.. and I did find a very nice on line virtual training course with a real instructor.. Going to sign up for it as soon as I get a few more answers. Cool stuff!

My facebook banner and logo.. from yesterdays run to Fiesta Park... Hay.. Fiesta has a major sponsor now.. Canon!.. I feel... I feel mixed feelings.. hahahaha

 Fiesta sign on Alameda.

Well.....gate ten sign.. modified.

It was fun.....

Now to rest up the back some more... it was a very long week.