Road Wise.

Shop Worn. Strange sayings.

I expect every language or people have odd saying that are completely lost on the modern age. Good thing books still sometime have the meanings or histories that point the way. Very interesting.

Storms overhead right now. I thought we were through with the rain. If this keeps up we will be under feet of snow soon!

The internet is still murky with loony stuff. I opened about nine tabs for interesting ( at first glance ) stories only for the most part to find they were very fluffy bat crap crazy eco zombie ramblings... One about stuff exposed by the receding waters or ice shelf's was spun into a stupid global warming tirade... I love how some "humans" think that they can tell the galactic weather from less than fifty years of very iffy weather data... Please save me from the self centered.

Others, like how to remove programs from windows 10 were funny in their basic info that anyone really should know if you have turned on a computer. Okay.. some people might need help with it.

The best was on creating a bootable usb for windows 10.. That one I saved for the heck of it. I dunno but I think creating tabs for things that might be interesting is a good way to get through the major garbage and on to the possible interesting things...sadly I mostly end up with only one or two stories that are worth reading.. All good.

How is that for positive. More positive... Going through the shots from last year and in directly last years Fiesta shots I never processed has brought up some very nice ones that people are happy to view. I will try and do some more and get them out where people can see them.

Below are a few shots of a fun flight with Eric. We stopped and then skipped across a road and just had to take pictures before quickly popping back up in the sky to find a safer place to land... It was a hoot. I also used the 10.5 fisheye lens. I think this lens has yet to go down in price. It is always about where or slightly higher in cost then when I bought it. Its only rarely used but  when you can ... you can have a load of fun with it.

Enchanted Diamonds Belowwwwwww......

Overhead Highlights.

A few Vent Lines dangling.

Sweeping skies.

In shot one... there is very little the fisheye will miss... so if you don't want a portion of something in your shot... you had better get it far behind the lens.

Shot two... There is never a time I wont find that a pretty view. That you can catch it all and then some is wonderful. Can you see my baffle? Its nice and yellow too.... It just... baffles people... whistling.

Shot three.... Vent lines.. Black... Counter Clockwise rotation vent... Widdershins.... Red and white candy stripe.. crown vent.... Green.. Clockwise or Diesel rotation vent.... Having them in the shot and not out is a different thing. Framing the Sandia's.  Normally you are trying to remove all but the view.. but its a neat perspective. I normally have them strapped up so they don't get caught on anything but they got loose.

Shot four... just how sweet that spot is on the lens... You can almost make the horizon flat but this is right on the fun house edge.

Looking at these again I get a kick out of the way Lindstrand followed my every ( possibly insane ) request. ..even down to what square of color of the pattern would be centered over my head... First yellow of the step.... and how the throat nomex is color coordinated to the whole envelope instead of a single color. You rarely see a pattern go through the whole balloon throat to crown. Yellow is tough.. but it had to be.. or I would have had to start completely over with my design.... Four yellow... red blue red blue... four yellow... red blue red blue..four yellow.. red blue red blue.. return... It was worth the headache to figure it out.. even the red blue are set for a reason. I like stories.

Oh well.. facebook banner and logo are plays off this set of shots.

Sidling along.. really across.... but hay... Its a cool quick shot.

Get Adjusted!!!

And off I go to check the trailer out due to the rain... Cant be too sure and I have learned the hard way to make sure of things myself so that I can let my worried brain rest easier.

Back and wetter than normal without the requisite shower... but.. all is dry and tucked up tight. I wonder if its going to stay cool tomorrow so I can put some lights on the trailer and get some other things taken care of without having heat stroke.... I wonder...

Off to think of more goofy things....

Touch of Black and White

Lets see... positive things to say of today.... Balloon system is annual-ed. One computer to the floor. A few more to go. Not carting 40 gig of garbage along with myself thanks for finding that Dave. Helped out some people. That's all I can come up with now.

After reading the internet "tech" web sites today I can understand how most of our country are BIG FAT HEADED cant think for themselves lets sit in our own muck people. Gosh but there was so many vapid NON tech segments out there that I just got totally tired to having the read through a paragraph only to find it was a stupid viewpoint of some NON tech... Wow! But the good out of that is that Samsung is coming out with a new digital Watch no one really wants. Woo Hoo... Oh and on the other side of the awesome tech.. Apples phones are going to be thicker this year... Oh Boy!

Positive.. positive...  

My point of view.

The most vapid thing I read was of a girl in college who due to her rent of 430 or so dollars decided to start living on trains for 350 or so dollars a month... yeah... Gotta love that.... Let me get on a train and have to sit next to a grungy stinky person who is living out of three bags... Oh Ho! Pretty cool! What part of find a room mate or ... Oh.. I just cant care.....

It's very hard to stay positive. 

Positively I did go find some pictures from last years Fiesta to mess with... Like the above one. I hope you enjoy them....

And an extra one of Ship Of Fools Reflecting because its pretty.

Yay.. fun.

Facebook banner and logo for the day... along the lines of ballooning but the fun part.. Splash and Dashes.

Visiting with the local Kayak Club... 

And before dive-bombing the gaggle in the river.

I will go off and think of more positive things....

Tomorrow... Tech to look out for?

Full Access!

A good thing today to get my access back. Stupid certificate error and I got to sit on my hands last week. Isn't it nice that the one thing that I have to depend upon and is required isn't always correct. Aint that special! The good things from today... Access, new computers being processed, new way to connect to remote sites, tomorrow is Tuesday and we get out hi speed net link in... if not turned up.

Bad things.... Not the commute amazingly... dont get me wrong.. the idiots have not gotten lost on the exit out of town.. they were just not seriously in my way today..both ways. Oh.. yes bad things.... Ugh!. trying to figure out winter leave and coverage.... ordering things for the office where you have to fill in so many blanks that I could have walked to the store and gotten it faster...I really hate web sites and I rarely ever go back to them that force me to sign up before I can buy anything.. I always send back a note stating that I care little for their tactics and will not use them in the future. I have at least that much choice. Other bad things were too many interruptions....too many things at once.... lots of paperwork to do.. now and tomorrow and the days leading up. Oh well... Its at least a good thing to do paperwork about. Looking forward to the 2016 fiscal year and what possibilities there are. Really ready to close out this year... I wanna pass that budget torch.

Other bad things... way tired of the localized mess I have to walk through and deal with everyday... Really really tired.... Biting my tongue very hard not to just open up the yap and close this s&#$ down.

Oh... I need to de-stress.....

Here are some so so tilt shift shots from last year....

Somewhat too small to really look good... Try try again. Tilts shifts should be at a specific height and angle from the subject and there is also the light and location.... Hard to get "just that right height" while flying..... Oh well...

I did notice that I had missed a lot of shots from last year.... I never edited or shower... Can we have another OH WELL!!!

Facebook banner and logo.. plays off the Survival Fiesta Map.....

Too early for Bugs.

Now off to get some ice cream.. close my door and stew in silence.

Dawns early light

Yeah.. was up way before that... Ask me why... I don't have a clue.

The mind kept running floor plans.. over and over again... what was that all about.... another no clue.

At least the morning rain was light and kept the heat of the day down. A good thing and I hope the forerunner of the general cool down heading into a mild winter. I think its gonna be a moist and mild winter...

Since I was up at 530 and the only thing I could think to do with the time and the sad shape of everything was sit down and edit some of the remaining good shots from Saturdays ballooning.

Yes, no its not all of them nor are all of the ballooning. There is a set of pre dawn panos not done and some post dawn singles and short panos in there.... Plus some strange ones and weird ones and trash ones.... some de-focused ones too. Its a lot of shots of a lot of things.... Some you will see here soon.

It was really worth getting out there early.... and it is always smart to keep your eyes open and not get stuck just shooting one subject because its supposed to be the primary area you are focusing on... So much other stuff happening at the same time... or not happening but beside you and all you have to do it look around.. up and mostly down.

Other than that for the day it was a general clean up inside... no way going outside and doing anything with weeds or stuff as the ants would be everywhere and very hard to spot. Plans for this week.... Oh yes.

Stunningly I was able to work on the trailer logo.... not that that went smoothly and without a hitch.. it didn't.... I have stalled again with the damn thing. Its a level of irritation I just don't need. Ill post two below and what I wanted but wont see.

I do not think you could ever say that to Bob and it be a real scenario...  Its all up and out.

Chase Beast... Or ShortGun....

Too many "people" think its okay to dump their trash on the mesa. At least this is somewhat being broken down.

Well.. yes there is a balloon in the picture... but Its the weeds that create a nice screen for the blast of color behind.

There were some more but I didn't feel they were interesting enough or a bit too much maybe.

Logo.. work... sigh..

Too much I think.... I guess I will go back to the primary design and fling this to the corner again.. At least the balloon is correct now.

Facebook banner and logo...

I hate having to try and match fonts...

Yeah.... off to read or play some fallout.. or something.... or other.

Saturday Morning Standing On A Hill At Sunrise With A Friend

SMSOAHASWAF....

Or as the little rabbit put it.... "ear wiggles".

I was standing this morning on a hill West of the launch site. I was there about 45 minutes early for the balloon family meet and expected to greet the sunrise standing alone and enjoying the quiet before the sun clipped the Northern edge of the Sandias. No such luck.

I had a truck with two guys and two dogs drive up the hill and stop to ask if I was waiting for the sunrise... I said yup and they gave me a thumbs up and went off... then two people wandered around me with their dog and stopped talking and stopped coming my way and turned around when they saw me beside my truck... I was an imposing figure in my bright yellow jacket and cameras I guess. Lastly I had a little baby rabbit bounce up the hill towards me and stop about ten feet away, ears almost as long as it was... it stopped.. looked at me.. turned a bit.. sat there and then just before the sun started over the edge bounced into the bush beside the truck.

I took a lot of pictures of the area across me and down below me before remembering to click my camera over to shutter priority... Then things looked better... Not that I could see it then but later I could tell the difference in focus and depth.

Total shots today 1,285. Total worthy shots.. dunno yet but darn near most of them. I loaded a bunch of my favorites up to facebook for friends.... They were fun... Lots of good laughs.

After the sun had cracked the mountain and I was unable to see due to staring at the sun too much I drove down and met up with everyone... That had me start shooting everything in sight that was worth a shot.. and no.. not just a balloon standing around either.. which.. looks like a balloon standing around... not very interesting.. so .... much shooting...! Both zoom and fish-eye. The fish-eye was fun because it damn near captures everything just in front of the camera. If I am not careful it will catch the toes of my boots.

It was a good day.. good friends...good photographs. Lots to edit and go through... I did a four picture treatment with a few because of the subjects... and the first is a shoot out between me and Ted ( In white shirt below ). He posted a picture of me taking a picture of him. What he didn't know was that I was already shooting him from waist level... Five total and four clear... Hah! Good for not knowing exactly where the camera was pointing. So fun... here are the sets...

Gotcha Ted!

And two of Eric. This is cool because this is a Fantasy Envelope with a Kubicek burner /basket bottom end. Very cool. Very lively... so two for Eric....

The smiles this guy gives off.. kid in a candy store.... Plus he is so nice I can stick my camera where ever ( within reason! ) and he is fine with it... Next set will show.. I had the fish-eye about an inch from his ear and shot about 20 or so shots... not a blink....

Its funny how the fish-eye aged him.. or it looks like it did... He has very long arms too. Nice burns there.

Last on the quad sets is Keith coming in to a landing. I was watching and through about 10 shots the crew were quite interesting to watch. I chose four for the set.... Look closely....

What did you see... who is old crew and who is new to ballooning..LOLOL. It was funny to watch.

I did take a bunch more and I could stuff a ton here but that would be stupid. I will put some in tomorrows blog that no one has seen mixed with some I really enjoyed that I posted to FB today.

A good day with good friends in the middle of nowhere and it was zero stress, zero frustration. Just what a Saturday is supposed to be.

Facebook banner and logo.. also from today.... I will post the original shot of the banner as I had to stretch it to fit the banner size which sucked but I wanted to use the shot bad.

Logo.. good reflections.

Original.

So I think I will go upload a few more to FB then call it a night... Tomorrow... logo for trailer... for sure.

Enjoy your Saturday night... don't have to get up early!!! Even though I was already up today.... sigh.

Looking Ahead Not Behind

I really need to adopt that stance. Everything that has passed is passed and not dwell on the crap that was shoveled all over my desk. Swiping it to the side on Monday and starting a good fresh week.

A frustrating week to say the least. Two good things.. One was a mod that went okay if not quite perfect, and a Friday afternoon call that makes Tuesday something to look forward to.

 Oh.and I am out of little yellow lined note pads... Very crabby due to that.

Tomorrow is Saturday! Yay! Going to be up already so I probably will go out and take pictures of my friends flying. After Eric's awesome shots the week before I will have to get the game on and find some fun stuff to do too.

I have spent some time on the below edits. The idea came from a Back To The Future poster about Flux Capacitors. Well hot air balloons don't have flux capacitors but they do have freaken awesome powerful burners... so I went with that... edited a nice down shot line art of the basket and burner set in the middle with all the outstanding pieces of the burners that I love.. toggles and switches but made it all just blend into a basic design... Then I added that into the poster styles then went farther and started playing with sets then sets of five then additional posters... plus all the recoloring because I did it all on black and white and wow did I not think about the sizes I had created in!!! Whew! When I started setting the five poster shots together it crashed the program. The file was going upwards of 2 gig.

Soooooooo.. I scaled it all back... and it was still pretty big.. I wanted the detail to no go all ugly on me. I wanted to have something that was large enough to print at size or make a shirt out of or what ever.. It was an exercise and I really liked how it came out...

First the mains then the full set...

Base burner with basket frame design...

Poster set then finding a font that suited and some retro line art made by over lapping two sized line thicknesses.

Main point since it was the burner set I was initially doing... was the Lindstrand Jetstream Series II burners I have. Little balloon at 69,000 and burners for a 105 to 240,000 balloon.. Yeah.. kick your butt across the sky. I added the Patturns Of Highperactivity because that is what amount to my balloon and myself... or as my mother thinks of it hahahaha.... Then added funny messages on the bottom...

Or Really funny...

I had to make this into a wallpaper that would fit my cell phone but again.. just had to change the message at the bottom...

Then I did all five of what I had in mind in the beginning... Talk about a bugger of a time with the coloring.. the lining up .. the adjusting of the fonts .. which by  the way are not standard sized and widths but modified by me to do what I wanted it to do and look how I wanted it to look... This thing was 25,000 pix across in the beginning... very detailed and crisp. Computer choked.

So now that I have the plate set up I can go back and change any part of the wording or the design to fit whatever I want. So many ideas there but its good where it is now. I plan.. I really hope to do the work I am supposed to be doing on the trailer logo....

Like I am supposed to......

Yeah....

Facebook banner and logo for the day....

Tough to hide numbers in such an open picture....

Logo.. though my ankle biters are knee biters...

A couple weeks vacation

Its a tough day when you have to run around in circles because of one thing and you cant get the assist you need right away due to time and distance. Could things have gone different.. yes if my access wasn't screwed up it might have gone a little quicker but in the end the problem was one of no control and forgetfulness. Not my problem but my problem.

More writing down of important information and filing it where it an be found. Its going to be an extra step in the daily process but its gotta be done. Too much to continue to scribble down and then lose.

I love my job but I need more information and more robust file system. It really comes down to good habits.. or better habits. That and being a nag. My attitude has dropped and I am fussy. I am never a good person to be around when I get all fussy.

I am also going to have to go visit the base tomorrow and get a card fixed. That should make for a fun morning.  Oh.. well after an other meeting.

I was drawn around by the burners I own this late afternoon/evening... As you can see in the above picture they are so classic. Okay you can only see a portion of them.. But their characteristics are very singular. I even did a logo based on them.. what a way to not create the logo for the trailer still... Not sure what the hell is up there....

Ah well here are some shots I don't think I have shown that I like.... All from day 3 of Fiesta.

Every morning of Fiesta there is a Pilots brief. There is also a big white ball thing.. No not the guy wearing the coat... that other big white head.. ball thing... LOL. just kidding... That big pibal that lets us Pilots see what the winds are doing as it ascends. Granted by the time the sun comes up and also by the time we can get off the ground the winds usually change around a bit.. hahahaha

Fake shot... Well it looks that way but its really my black turning vent line just beside my crown line.. Looks very fake though. Just up off the field and heading for the whale.. Capt. Ahab!

Looking back to see Enchanted Diamonds lifting off and bouncing off Black Magic Woman... Someone needs to watch their hands! Diamonds looks so small compared but she is bigger than my balloon.

Another surrealistic shot. Depth is interesting because of the dust clouds down there. That is the park/field off Osuna that the city has nicely set up just for us who need a good place to plop down South of the Fiesta field. Problem with it is that that cement arroyo to the left likes to act like a barrier. If you are left of it its hard to cross and if you are right it loves to suck you in,.... been there done it many times.... Also need to say that this time.. I was crossing over it and made the fields lower left corner of grass with little trouble..

Looking back again to see the dino is breaking out and heading our way after escaping the Balloon Museum.. or so it looks here. Funny balloon.

Crew forced to pose for pictures with Smokey Bear. Well I do buy them all coffee once a Fiesta... Its a good day to be crew that day I tell you.... Coffee.. snacks if you want and all you ahve to do is come crew.... yep... Its mainly me wanting coffee and a snack...

With 43 days to go and so much I want to do before.. well.... I feel much more capable of getting things done but less in control of the whole thing. I don't know! The plan for the next 43 days is .. Get the balloon system annual-ed ( yearly flight inspection ) .. go fly and shake her out after that inspection... take the next weekend off to prep... fly the weekend after that from Fiesta field with the other AAAA folks... Prep everything again for Fiesta... then rest a week then get going... its gonna be fun I hope.. or I hope its as much fun as last year was.

The floor I put in seems to be very nice.. I have lights to fix.. a front yard to burn to the ground and some drawings to force myself to do...

Sigh

Facebook banner and logo for the day.....

Logo I made when I should ahve been working on the other.....Jetstream II baby! 30,000,000 BTU's