How to rest.

Hah!

With dogs who want to go out all the time and bark at shadows I am not sure this resting thing is working. I am pooped! Maybe I should just have gone and laid in bed and closed the door. I didnt.

I sat in my chair with my Lindstrand (TM) hehehe blanket over me and shivered. Feet and hands freezing... everything else boiling... but stomach is fine. Head though is wobbly as all get out and prone to heat and fuzzyness. I am not looking that up on the nets.

I did sit here and surf when I was not able to doze. I found a few things interesting. I wonder if anyone tracks what tech google and other tech monopolies are absorbing, buying, sneaking away with.... and why.... I would like to know. I, as I traveled back and forth through tech web sites saw patterns of buying of little companies that did certain things... ya just gotta wonder.

I again just deleted four paragraphs of soapbox.

I hope you are happy. Why should I bring you to feeling as bad as I do.

Sad bit really is I can't do some of the work I wanted to do at work.. yes.. I like my work.... and the other is I can't fly this weekend if this thing hangs on. And my hands are numb.... yay!

Some hopefully happier images.

Found some old pictures I scanned a while ago.. front and back.. nicer times it seems and the styles of the clothing... I like a lot.... And my mother's handwriting.....

Look at that comfortable formality.

The reverse..

 My mother a good one for notes.

My Mothers Father and Mother... And their cats. Even relaxed, well dressed and groomed.

 Sorry.. I am in sweats and a t shirt at the moment. Times change. I would never wear a clean white shirt out to garden but then again I never saw or remember seeing my Gran Pops out but he probably did. I should ask my mom sometime.

The back writing is as interesting as the front picture.. which this is not the back of the last but loved the myriad notes. 1948.....

I expect it was a high time as the war had just ended in 1945 and the upswing in industry and a bright future... My Mother was twelve in 1948 so she got to witness the bombing in London where they lived for a while... Such a division of realities.

We have it too good it seems at times.

No local wars ( within borders ), information at a touch, plentiful food.... 

Mind has wandered everywhere again... Enjoy your life!

Completely and totally forgot the facebook banner and logo... sheesh.. I am feeling like garbage still and its 9pm and my eyes are burning.. but ..for you I will edit!

Roswells Old Timers Rally is this weekend.. another thing I will be missing... (*^*$$)

Logo says it all.

A moments notice

Oh Joy! I munch on my lunch..sigh.. while working on email and spreadsheets and feel sick as a dog. From then till I got off work I was dizzy as all get out. Stomach was not bothering me.. just frozen hands, very wobbly head and heat flush around my eyes. Its Wednesday! What the hell! you are supposed to get sick Thursday so you stay home Friday.... What crap! I am medded up and going to try and eat something. I was doing fine all this morning... it has to be a virus someone sweetly gave me. Blah!.. Lets hope I can get better by morning because I got stuff to do.

Lots of VoIP stuff after the conference call. Trying to manipulate a system that is locked down and ever changing is crazy at times. It seems easy to some but its nuts when you are trying to run a link to something and it just up and disappears.. you change a bunch of settings for them to either not work or do things you didn't not enable. Overall its an okay system but there are some add ons that need to be paid for instead of us bumbling around and them flipping us the bird when we get it working. I know guys who have spend a massive amount of hours setting up a process and out provider just switches a few settings and locks us out. I feel pretty bad that they have burned all this time up and now its for nothing.

I have to make a few calls to HQ tomorrow and while I am on one call I have to ask some info on our UA system inflation equipment for a friend. I can see the info but I have no ability to see who the manufacturer is. Thats all the guy needs is a connection to the maker. If I have to do this from home I am not gonna be a happy camper. My lower lip is numb and hot... who does that to a person!?

Today we also heard that the Lindstrand facility in England is going to be operating again after being shut down. I have hopes that all goes well. A lot of stuff that is bought in the states comes from them or from them to our local contacts..of who I think are awesome. My kit bag was made by them and I love that thing a lot.

What I did when I got home was lay here and feel sorry for myself.... yeah... its not that bad but it feel ugly... no.. Im not that ugly... stay on topic.... Okay... I sat here and decided to look at the Ft Worth shots from the second half and look for interesting things... those things are below...


Hydrant with a view.

Weekend Valets.

Shadetree.

Shadowgrass.

Support.

Wait.

Nice and green in the middle of a small city.. very nice.

I have many more but I want to think about suffusions and springs and logos.

Mmmm.... Here is my facebook banner for the year and Logo.

Great splatter art without the mess.

The standard logo for my balloon.... Fast heartbeat...

Its fun.... Or it would be if I felt like fun....

Have a better night.

A good talking to.

Okay.. not so good but hopefully okay. I had a presentation to give tonight at AAAA. I thank them for asking me to speak. I rambled terribly. But I love these people. They put up with me even when I couldn't keep the mike to my mouth. Oh well.. I did enjoy it a lot. Much information on Videography and vid cams and such.. music and mounts and all that. It was a good time but I cant speak publicly.

I talked about GoPro cameras, mounts and software.. showed a video and a bit of another. Great questions and I have a lot to write up for the Cloudbouncer to fill in the spots I left open. It was a great end to a rough day. What bothers me about today is that I do the work.. I send the emails with attachments and I get asked again with the information is... Im like.. did you even LOOK at your email? Did you even check the attachments before you whined about it to someone? WHat do I have to do.. follow up call to ask if you have opened up the email I set and were you able to understand how to open an attachment? Please? I am going to put a note on my desk that says... : Every email MUST be verified that it has been received before its read. From now on I am going to set a receipt to all my email. I really am tired of being told people didn't get the information. That or I am going to add a last line that says.. Please reply that you received the information or it will be resent within 24 hours until it is verified. Heh!

What a waste of my time.

I did get a nice view of the Fiesta Park from the Balloon Museum while waiting for the meeting to start. Shots from my Samsung Note 4 below. I say that so you know what I took the pictures with. Not any.. wooo.. its a Samsung thing.. as I don't care about that but as reference.


The Sid.

 The building there is the new Pilot center for Fiesta. It is named for Sid Cutter a world renown balloonist. Its nicknamed the Sid already. They will use it for all sorts of other things year round.. pretty cool!

Museum Views

 Looking East at the Sandias... wonderful vista views from the back balcony.. its amazing.

Railrunner.

Yes I was stopped and yes I took a picture... Nothing moved for about five minutes after I took this.. lol... Fast moovin!

Whew.. what a day again... its Tuesday right? Dang! Tomorrow I have meetings and deep information to get .. thank goodness its with people who are nice to be around.

My facebook banner today is a edit of the Sid and the side..hahaha....sorry.. its late.

Day 157

Crop

Yes.. I like them... I used them...

Have a great rest of your night and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day with less backstabbing and lack of understanding.

Cheers!

Blank Stare

When I was going home today I decided I needed to cut a few trees down that had taken root from my neighbours irritatingly profligate tree. I would have cut them down earlier but we have a fire ant problem and they will bite the hell out of you if you get in their area. You have to wait until its cool enough... Then you have to have a good saw.. or sawzall... I have a nice saws all but it went missing from the shed.... So I bought another one which I kept in the garage... it was lent out against my will and for months was supposed to return so I could get on to the cutting... Never did... So.. 70 dollars later I had another sawzall and the time to use it.

I did use it.. and what was supposed to be two relatively small trees turned out to be 10. One was as thick as my ankle. It took two hours to cut them down. I did move the front cut up stuff to the trash pile but the other four have to wait until I have the strength or the help to move them to the pile. It is a lot of brush but step one of many. I have to go buy some stump killer and get happy with it. Then chop out the remaining crap. Then burn it.. then augure it.. then cut some more then bury it under big rocks and light it all on fire!! YES!!!!  As normal not help what so ever to do any of this stuff. Lucky me.

I got blisters on my... well.. thumb. THis weekend there is going to be some people out there picking up doggie doo so I can do step three of deweeding my rock garden. I need some small fencing. 

Since I did all that I didn't have any time to think of a good subject for tonight's blog but I did find a few nice pictures to share. Tomorrow I have to give my presentation. I really have to get up and find my mini video port out to hdmi cable.. and also tighten up the power point slide.... 1 of 89. Heh!

I am winging it with talking points.

 Cold bushies.

I am on fire due to the joint pain of all that work.. the cold pictures make me feel better and show that New Mexico has a lot of snow. A lot. Not stupid amounts but some.

Snow Beagles!

 They are watching the sky hoping for clouds so they don't melt. I had a habit of making little snow men all over.

Naked in the snow.

Chilly then but the trees were happy for the water later. These trees always just stand there looking like they are waiting for a ride somewhere. Thumbs out. Never pay for gas.

YEah it was a bugger of a day at work too.. okay. part of the day... I hate being stuck in the middle of unknown situations. I can only be honest and state things as I see them. No BS. I hope it will be better than me trying to come up with some story. I would that its all up front and Is dotted and Ts crossed.

I am going to go take more pain pills... aspirin and sit here...

My facebook banner for the day is the backside of my passenger certificates that I have not given out in a while. 

And because of today... and because I lived in Italy for two and a half years.. I can say.....

Ta da!

Day old Chinese.

Stacked pictures of yesterdays flying was fun. Looked them over and brought out the familia balloon and posted them to facebook. Lots more but I'm not going to just post whatever. There are some very interesting shots buried in the files. Lots to play with this week. Not that I will the next two days or Today and tomorrow as I have a presentation to finish up. Oh I have it thought out but its really a winging it kinda thing. I have to just write down my main points... run up about 100 power point slides and I think I will be good to go.

Looks pretty cool industrial huh. I may have to use this too as a background. It ties in nicely to my blog tonight which is going to be about different pieces of balloons with shots to show. Manufacturers... not all... Lindstrand, Cameron, Aerostar, Head, Firefly, Cubicek, Fantasy and more... Each has a way they build and a reason and type. Its nice to know you have a choice.. and you can even mix and match some of the systems together. Heck.. Each Pilot has a way and a reason for doing what he/she is doing and why she/he likes what they like. The good thing about most of the best Pilots is that they will always watch and learn and adopt best practices of other Pilots.

My main pick up at this time is using a full harness with slip knotted rope tether to secure my system to my vehicle. When I am ready to go I just have to flip one knot and slowly release the other slips and I am off or I can hold it just by clenching my hand and I cant go anywhere. THere are other devices and I will show one below I have used. I don't anymore because they can friction lock. My thought on that is if there is enough pull to friction lock the thing I should not be in the air. But I digress.

Here are the pictures with explanation of what it is or what is happening...

Cameron squeeze burner grip in Lori's hand.

A very nice dual burner that had a bar running across below to help control the direction of the burn. The red squeeze tab is on both ends of the bar. The brass one is the pilot light knob. Very powerful burner.

Lindstrand Squeeze burners.

Different design, similar idea. very powerful burners. I prefer the Lindstrand because the squeeze triggers are on top, Both can be grabbed by one hand or two fingers if necessary and they are protected from accidental activation by their location. Round cans instead of square cans of the Cameron.

Firefly single. It has a verticle squeeze tab.

Trustworthy and strong. Springs keep it centered in the throat of the envelope but with the ability to rotate it when necessary.

Velcroing the top in.

Almost every balloon has a crown that is velcroed in during inflation ( to keep the hot air in ) until the crown is pulled loose of those same tabs before launch so that the crown can be opened to release hot air and descend. In some balloons there is a catch and no velcro.. in Aerostar's there normally are both velcro and butterfly springs to hold the crown in place.

 Teather quick release.

 This is what I was talking about above. The black strap goes between two uprights on the burner frame and that connect to the tether "eye" that is hooked to your vehicle. This is to make sure the balloon does not get into the sky before you want it to. This can happen... This is a bad thing. It is nice have the quick release if you need to attach your drop line to it later or then release said drop line if necessary... All safety things I can go into another time. I will get shots of a drop line and tell you about it.

The crown ring for Puff ( Firefly ) balloon.

Smaller than mine but a larger balloon than mine. Details of the manufacturer. Fantasy balloons have a loadtape ring and there isn't any metal ring at all. All of those ropes go to the edges of the crowns opening. Yes they get tangled and yes its smart to not let them stay that way before you inflate fully.

So many things to get tangled or hung up or caught. Pilots do many walk arounds and go under their envelopes and look like they are just bumbling around but are really checking ever darn little thing out before committing it to the sky. I used to think it was impossible to remember everything you had to do when I was training but you can.. and do... and it becomes second nature after a while. I can go on about that at length too but not tonight.

Whew!

My facebook banner today was of a nice bit of green bush out on the mesa. Focal length is very shallow and it was a pretty green... Yes, when I am out taking pictures of balloons I get distracted.....no.. really I am looking everywhere for anything I would find interesting.. and there is a lot of things out on the mesa to peek my interest.

If you could zoom in on this you would see that there is quite a lot of detail in those little leaves.

Logo.... for the day....

Sadly there is a lot of trash on the mesa too. Not as much as I have seen in other cities or suburban places but enough to make me angry about it.

And there you go... TOday was a slightly busy day of getting new tires on the truck. Just in time. Nibbling a 1.75 hot dog and soda... grabbing some Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the house... then editing and thinking about that presentation. Tomorrow.. Work! I wonder what the off the wall things will come up.... I need to look over my budget spreadsheets and reprogram some funding. I had a thought and I want to exercise it. Funny how I can do work related things on weekends when I should be relaxing.

Okay..I also had the last of my chinese takeout from yesterday.. It was good....

 Off I go...

Hot Air!

So much so that a small portion of Rio Rancho bloomed in the Soviet Nuclear Detection System and had their systems go on standby/fuel. As the big balls of hot air meandered off like untrainable kittens the warning was lifted and returned to Be A Pain In The Ass level. Photography was amazing too..

I knew my decision to canx last night would bring good fortune to everyone else. The weather is fickle and every time I say I am going to fly it gets ugly. I have already posted to fly this next weekend under the guise of the main canx order so I can catch it sleeping. I have high hopes that Sunday will be nice and I can get some air.

I took somewhere in the range of a thousand pictures today. Lots of duplicates but thats normal. I had the D300 out with the 10.5 fisheye on it. So many great shots with that piece of awesome glass. You can tell from the shots below how good they come out.

ZK burners and Pilot. Both facing away for safety.

Ted and the Puff burner facing towards you... beware!

Black Magic Woman's burners facing away with no Lori in sight... hehehe.

Puff Pastry! Puffs basket is bold and bright and way cool looking from this viewpoint.

Massively fun day. So many balloons out and I couldn't get to all of them as I really wanted to get some shots of Puff today. I have been meaning to but get drawn away easily as I have a very short attention span. I did get a LOT of shots of everyone but I only got up close and personal with ZK, PITAS KISS and Puff and a bit of Diamonds. I will post some more shots of Puffs interesting and singular basket and burner system later.

I will add this here.. Puffs basket is a triangle and she has a central burner. THe yellow you see above is one of the outside handles. Overall it is a big basket with lots of room and low saddles. Very colorful and with the black smooth soft leather it seems a little bad to put her out in the dirt. But thats Teds problem..... Sorry Ted... I can barely keep my own system clean.

First launched was Bob with a first time passenger.. I believe next was Puff then Diamonds then ZK up and out and around... Think of a upwards clockwise corkscrew and that is how they went.. gently and smoothly. I think Puff and Diamonds were very close for a bit as ZK went off to play with someone else that took off from farther West. Way too many pictures to load to show today.

Whew.. I am bushed. Downloading that and processing those that were on the D300 took a while. I also had to  reset my D7100 and download a new firmware version, then set up my shooting menu back to how I like it. Center focus, lock, recompose. I was having a problem that I could focus lock recompose, shoot then it would lock up... I figured it out after the fact.

My facebook banner today was of the edge of the mountains in the morning sunrise. I had to move quickly to get to the launch field to get the shot... moving to a place where the street lights were not in the way... Pain in the butt...

Day 160 zero zero zero zero......

Debris found on the West side by people who cant afford to pay 5 bucks to drop it at the waste recycling area.... Jerks.

That or the jackrabbits hare worried about sunburn.

Off I go... to edit some more awesome balloon pictures!!

April Showers.... HAIL???!!

I just say that I could want to fly this weekend and the Weather takes a major turn for the worst. Hail! Watching the weather continue to oscillate just goes to show that I need to say early that I want to fly.. then not whisper a thing until the morning of... or here we go.... earthquakes, tidal waves... mass hysteria! Well in about 30 minutes I will be cancelling. No contact from my passengers means they are detained doing their work and cant make it. No biggie there. I may go out and help and take pictures instead.

Oh well.. I am all ready for next weekend... hows that for early? I will sit aside for this weekend, letting the weather go wild and then next weekend we will fly..... Sunday morning. That way everything will settle out and the weather will be benign and comfy. Then I will pounce like a bengal tiger and scream into the sky and bounce about the wind streams and generally toy with the air molecules. They will never know what hit them! OKay... by the time I finish this blog my mind will be made up.

Work today was more administration and facilities and little system anything. Sucks. Got some info confused and buy did that feel real stupid. Too much interrupted reading of modifications causes disjointed memories. Did have a good meeting just before leaving work today and I feel better about our direction on this upcoming mod. Lots of questions still but they will be answered Wednesday.
Spent some time looking up classes and was happy to see the online classes but was unhappy that the classes on Linux were missing.... I have to do some more research.

I have a speech to give... speech.. no.. I would classify it as a treatise on videography and equipment. I will get that done this weekend. I did go back and look for more suitable photographs for super wide wallpaper work wall art... I found a few I felt like working with. Nice enough.... I think....


StoneSky

RustedSun

RockGardens

TiledMateo

HighVistas

I need to upload these but not until I have more to fill the file. I am shifting them to my drive to take to work for those displays. The last one is my favorite.

I watched the rain today falling on and off all day. Temps dropped and the wind was treating us the the last of the winter.. I guess it was a Friday so I will take it. Places got hail..I got wet. Luckily the thunder let up in time for me to rush down and get propane at Ortegas. I'm all full up. 9.9 / 18.8 / 20.3

My facebook banner is a shot I took while rushing to the trash container to dump some junk.... little rain and soaked. Oh well.. Glad I had a warm coat.


Day 161.

Logo... Just a quick sketch...I have no reason why.

Off to take my frustrations out on.... something.