YOIKES!

Damn but these Sundays are coming quickly!

Its been a speedy week again.. Everything going on but amounting to just getting things ready. Things are almost as ready as they will ever be. Some touch ups at the end of the week but that's about it.

Let me see.... So many things but really not much to tell.... Massive fun with the facebook banners and profile pics ( posters )..... All of the last week below...

Highlight of the week was yesterdays flying.. Lots of people out on a little patch of dirt trying to get the feel for their balloon they have not flown in quite a while. I relate. But it was busy airspace with a goofy little variable wind. A lot of the balloons landed in the same place because that is where things just so happened to fly themselves... Very funny... I will add some fish eye shots I have not loaded anywhere else yet.... Fun fun... four days to go... gotta feel better or its gonna be painful...


Banners.. Find the numbers if they are hidden....

And profile pics or Posters...

If you have not caught on.. I try and put some real information in some and absolute craziness in others. 200feet per minute over the field is real. 1600 fpm is my max descent rate... which is blazing fast.

 Real silliness.

Real fear.

Laser shows this year.

Super silly.

Saturdays fun with friends reminded me of the coming bigger family fun.

Real thoughts of what went right and what went wrong or off from last year...

That is a lot of work.... a lot... Day zero which will be day 2 for me will be the end of these things until forever I hope. It was pretty foolish to start right when registration started way back in March... wow... so many days have gone by and so many things didn't get done... a lot of those things come down to the wire anyways and either everything is in place for them to happen or not.. Mostly not.. Try again next year... Or mid year... I dunno.... Lots of stuff you never expect or have a thought that will come up come up... You deal with what is in front of you and push off what you can or really cant get to and just cross your fingers and panic in private.... heh...

Okay.. So along came Sunday and a little got done and a lot didn't.... Here's to better timing and less spontaneous insanity...

Those shots.. All fish eye... Neat-O

Cheers and see you next week when I will be reporting what the first three days of Fiesta have been like.. maybe some good pictures to show too... I expect it to be a hoot regardless.

Sunday... Already!??

Dang but those few days went past like a flash. Its been so busy that I barely noticed them go by. Really the only two evenings I've had free was Thursday and Today. It has been a short week so I cant blame myself and I wont! Nope.. Not a bit..... Okay a tiny bit. But really its been busy.

PITAS KISS descending through a tiny wispy thing that was the only thing in near space. Bob found it.

So the busy was Friday we did a glow for friends in a field behind a favorite restaurant, Sadies! Our friends were getting married and wanted to have the balloons the met around for after their rehearsal dinner so that all their put of town guests and family could see what it was all about.

The field was being graded as we arrived and so that meant it was so very dusty that every step you made billows of find stuff coated everything... Not the best but much better than the hillocks and weeds that were there a few hours before... I like it that way better.

Turnout of family was fantastic... It was awesome to do.. Very light to barely there breeze but we were blocked by trees to our North. We glowed for 45 minutes... the family got pictures in the middle of us all glowing... I had the 360 camera on and it worked so I have it all over video... Nice that. A late might for us.. not late in the usual sense but it all worked out. Inflation to pack up was quick and done with little fuss.

Saturday morning was a down day as we were pooped. Not much really to do yet but that got pushed off as we had the "gathering" wedding to go to at 3pm. Gathering because Bob and I refused to go to any more "weddings". Leaving the house with what we thought was loads of time and then running into an accident on I 40 got us to the mountains about 5 minutes pate.. but still 15 minutes before the wedding began.

The wedding was awesome. What we thought would be a nice quiet and close group turned out to be at a wonderful place in the Sandia's with a fantastic dulcimer and harp player.. venue that was excellent..waterfall in the back... nice and semi shady. Vows and proceedings were sweet and to the point.. funny and just like the bride and groom... personal. They had a written schedule and stuck to it very well.... They had outside games,, SMORES... a cute munchie bar to get nibbles. TRAIL MIX! That's the name.... Which was good.... Dinner was combination plate and well done. Yes.. I could go on.. It was a very well done "Gathering".

Sunday we went out and flew family and friends of the party. Two balloons. I crewed and took pictures... and I did get video or all the flights.... and all the hops.. It was a good day for hops. 8 people flew..all new to Ballooning. I have just started to process the pictures and will load some below but that's what my whole set of days off the blog have been filled with... I'm beat.

 A little tug.

 First two in the sky.

 Puff over Diamonds. Ted flew 13 people today.. I cannot see how unless he strapped them to the outside of the basket.. hahahahah.... Good going Ted!

 Keith lifts over Bob... Nice moves there Keith!

Ted goes over Bob.... We are waiting!!

 Bobs off with two.. woo hoo!

 JP Lifts with his passengers from beyond.

Bob makes it four up and over.

It was exciting but ended with a bit of a crash to one chase vehicle. Side swipe. Had to help get the bumper out of the offending trucks tire area so the driver could get home. Everyone was safe and sound.

Whew!

Facebook Banners from the last four days... and Posters below.

SO much fun... So tired.

777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777

777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777 777

Guess its the last daily blog for a long long while.... IF... if I can do it..... We shall really see wont we.

Pretty bad when I go back and remove a period so that that sentence would fit the line... wow... sad...

I do or did enjoy the posting to this site all the time but it has become a chore to find new things.. and sometimes its become just a soap box for my yelling.... It was supposed to be what I wanted it to be. I really have no need to contain things to a specific.... It was never to be shoe horned into a single.. or few items blog... It was to be what ever I wanted on a daily basis... I did write a story at first.. it was fun but trying to control that to a paragraph a night and then not having a continuity line made it very tough to keep up... It was a good story but I will have to think about that too... A good author who was at one time trying to sell his stories would make up paragraph gotcha sections to grab an editors eyes and get him or her to buy the story.. Those are fun.... Perhaps when I have more time I will continue that..... Then it was three web sites that had interesting things.. but there were days when the net was full of trash and there was nothing to show you....

After that it became looser.. I took some time off and then came back after I wanted to share stuff.... and now... after 777 posts its time to step back... So.. The next blog will be on Sunday.. and in that time I hope to have done some other things and share what happened in the abbreviated week...

Nothing other than a few funny things to pass on.... then facebook banner.. and I am happy to say there are only 16 days left of that too....and logo... which will be nice to be rid of also...

There are some very special people out there that can create a wonderful picture and state things just as they should.. I like those people...

FACEBOOK BANNER!

Hard to find funny stuff every day even for these...

This is funny.. Except for Jenn....

Its funny because its true.. There are so many RV's in town for the Fiesta that they are in their own an invasion of people in big rectangular vehicles... Almost every one is a good person and a fun person.. I have chatted with a few.. I have almost knocked off an antenna of one.. He was fine with it.... 30 foot for an antenna is a bit much next to the landing field.. but it was all good and I missed it by 20.... didn't look like 20 when it was there in my face buy hey!

Jenn.. Jenn has to deal with all of these things full of people.. good luck there!!! Hang in its almost over... hahahahahahahahahaha....

So long the road.. so quick the trip

One last daily blog post after this one. 777 posts in two or so years.... We shall see if I can stick to the every week post from Sunday on. I really like this vent zone... hmmm... Maybe I should create a anonymous page just for venting... the daily vent? Might work... I can save up my daily vents and post a bunch at a time.... No stealing my ideas.... Hahahahaha...

Hope that shot work since its a huge pano in reality..... A bit fuzzy to the right but that's because I was focused on the left.... ya know.

Lots of fun today watching silly drivers try to block each other from merging or changing lanes.. I saw two almost wrecks that would have been the fault of the person trying to not let a person in.. wow.... interesting world here. Chili must be getting to these people.

We had sunny rain today.. It was neat. I was watching one of the horizon cams and saw the rain drops, like mini falling stars / flashes in the sky.. then the ground went wet quickly but the sun was just a shining away. Ill bet there were a lot of double rainbows..... Sorry I was working at my desk.. no time to go take pictures.

Wooo.. Didn't have that much sugar today and off I go on wild comments in FB... boy oh boy!.

So a few more shots of last Sunday.. Some nice close ups of the balloon... checking things before Fiesta.... Nice to know things are in place... All the Things!


Baffling!

 A look from a turning vent past my color coordinated baffle ( fabric shelf to keep heat at top of balloon.. that different shaded yellow fabric ) to the throat and awesome basket.

The lone envelope bag....

 All the wild children are down there doing a speed and safety inflation competition. We just sit on the road. The grass was sopping wet and I was not gonna lay out on it.

A test burn and a wisp of flame.

 Nice 140 psi. No heat.. just Au Natural. I did get my replacement heater pad in today for my POM tank. Yaah..... Good thing.

Pulling it all out...

 It looks like a terrible mess of ropes and lines and fabric but really it was a flip to the clockwise and it was perfect. Had to move only one line strangely.

I have high temps for you!

 This is my temp sensor seat. The dark lozenge area is the pad on the outside of the envelope that the "turtle" sensor sits on to keep it from melting.. Its sensor pokes in through that little hole and slides into a sleeve to pop out at the top. Neat tech there.

Color coded crown.

 Following the pattern up and around. Again.. Looks like a mess but it all just slips into place once the velcro tabs are in place.

A pulley for you!

This pulley is where all the lines from the crown come to...which is attached to that candy striped red line so that I can pull it open to drop down when flying.. that's how we go down.. we open a huge hole in the top of the balloon.. and down you go... Yes it really is designed that way. Pulley looks wonderful too.

So.. bits and pieces checked before we fly ten days in a row... Ten days if the weather is nice and the winds are agreeable.... Soon to be seen.. again... as we reach the the last few days before it all feels like its speeding up.....

Okay.. now its time for the banner and logo... Banner is a nice shot by Mary.. Love how the grass draws your eye off to the museum while we stand to the side.. saying.. yeah.. go ahead.. see something else too.... Hi Keith, Bob, Greg!

If you know your Memes....

All in jest..... Or ... well.. Better to know what day it is..even if its impossible to get everything done in time.  My typing it would seem is at an all time low today... Wow!

Have a nice night.