Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

Let me throw this out there...

I bought Fallout 4.

I can attest that you can waste way too much time doing things and picking up things and building things and killing things ( mostly Ghouls in this version ) than you really have time to blow.

I spent time building a place for the people I first ran into to live safely only to find out that regardless of the safety measures you put in place they are going to do stupid things like stand on five foot high roofs and or sleep in your bed or just sit out in the bloody rain because they can.

Today after playing for some hours I did a quest to relieve a transmitting site of its nasty ( raider /boomer ) people only to be given the requirement to secure it ( impossible ) and then send a call out for people to move and live there... HAH! I would have to ring the place with gun emplacements every five feet to feel good about that.

Even in the zone ( Sanctuary ) I secured with full walls and automatic weapon emplacements they popped in raiders in the middle of the blinkin place... Thank forethought that I ran gun turrets on almost every roof in the area.... That's about the only way the idiots were saved.. what did they do.. walk towards to raiders with open arms.... Yeah.. sounds like reality don't it.... So I shut it down... Enough with reality without it happening in a surreality I am trying to build.

Perhaps I should set up my own safe-house and let them all go hug the mutants. I can salvage their junk after.

Nevermind.

New back door tomorrow....

That is something to look forward to. After last weeks short week and then having to work from home on my first vacation day to try and fix things that are out of my local control... well it was a bad start to the holidays. Now I an having to wait till Monday to get other work done I should have been able to do from home also, but for a crappy password system locking me out when it should not have. Waiting.. I really hate waiting.. I want to do now.. get it done.. this is not helping my procrastination bones.

Thanksgiving was a nice quiet day .. with a stomach virus playing about it was going to be a close to home day regardless. I had a turkey sammich for dinner tonight and it was very nice. I'm thinking a hot turkey sammich tomorrow for lunch while I watch the workmen install that door.

Its going to be a short week next week as the Red Rock Rally in Gallup starts Friday and I plan on being there Friday evening to fly Saturday and Sunday... Hope to get some good video and pictures. I want to get a shot of the top inside of my balloon with the 10.5 lens on the D7100 so I can create the trip tic shot for my office wall. I have to remember that that comes secondary to flying not first. We shall see.

Well since I took them I should post them with a bit of information and props to the creators of the Fallout 4 world-let. Its nice if you weren't having to rescue people from their stupid selves all the time.

Sanctuary... with my build to fit bunker and gravity defying lookout post. Since there are no instructions on how to create things unless you delve into the nets I had to play around until I figured it out. With the building of houses and walls you would think the creators would have opened up the build areas more with more materials to use and made pieces to go up and down at an angle.. Nothing is straight on the landscape except for the building blocks.. stupid.

Power Armor...Found five sets.. none complete.. fine... using cores to power them is a bit much, not unlike having to repair your equipment in Fallout 3 New Vegas.. It gets tedious. Oh.. and if I take out a raider with a power suit I should be able to scavenge that suit. Since about all you do in this game is pick up crap ... well please.

The Sky Long Barrow... I built it big to house stuff and up high to keep raiders out and the locals out. Heh! Even removing the stairway before I leave the area, I find them in my bed, on the roof, sitting in the chairs with their dirty clothes... May have to relocate everything to an empty area like the red rocket place. Let Sanctuary fend for itself. My character is wearing a metal helmet and combat armor.. It carry's a pretty good 15 points at this time... Hate wearing the power armor all the time.

Bomber Kitty.... Got to hand it to the artists.. they do have a good time in this place.. I loved this picture... I even found a cat laying in a field playing with some little  pumpkin gourds. The pictures of the Moose in repose is a bit much though.

I have found one big glitch in the game so far and it irritates me.. but I am not going to think about it at all. I am going to finish this and think about this week and this next weekend and how to set cameras up.

If you are playing Fallout 4 or are thinking of buying it.. Go for it.. its a good diversion.. just remember.. that the people in it are no better than the people around you right now..... Stupid.. Silly and ignorant.

Fallout 4 creators.. Get back in there and fix the damn angle thing so I can have walls that do not have to sink into the ground half way to follow a line or leave gaps everywhere. Stupid and silly... Oh.. and I want a FREAKIN DOOR THAT I CAN LOCK!

LOLOLOL..... Its FUN!!!

Slight Adjustments

Wow.. Its Sunday and I am writing my blog...instead of waiting until Monday evening.... Its a stunner.

Back to front.....

Did not feel like doing anything balloon type at all. Did I get fried? Hope not as there is that cool rally in Gallup coming up. I guess when all of everything with Kiss A Hoy is settled out and PH is back in the trailer I will feel ready to go fly somewhere. I have to get my sensor back into place in the top of my envelope.

Oh yes.... So.. today.. I did put back my lamps into place and also my glow balls that I thought were dead into the office/cr. Above is the red with little bits of metal flake in it... It looks much more nifty in person. Two other lava lamps are purple and some weird color.. both bubble differently. They have not been lit in over a year.

Before that I hung all six pin boxes... then rehung them because they wouldn't fit the way I was going. Don't you know that the bottom two have different mounts so I had to devise a way to get both pins in the wall level and about an inch below the upper ones. Sigh. In the middle of the six boxes  will go the triple 20 inch up-view of PH I am planning on printing on stretch around canvas.

Before that the Xbox 360 Pioneer stereo system was run. Its all sitting on my tables but sounding very nice with a connection to my surface via an analogue cable and a creative Sound blaster Xfi unit. Very clean and separated. I am going to have to either re-cable a portion of the cables or get another box to hide it all in. Too many things attached to too many other things with no cover. Better than it was but could be better.

Before all that was a five day week of being the Boss. My Boss is recovering from surgery and I hope doing well with that. I will be emailing him tomorrow to check on him. It was not a killer week of crazy Boss type decisions but a few that were on the edge of "why do you have to try and pull this crap now" kinda things.

In those five days there was the install of a computer at our Center Weather Service Unit over at the FAA... Not a easy or fun thing as the instructions were not what I would call good with gaps and errors and oopsies. I hope in the future that if a mod note is sent down it covers everything instead of having to hunt around and ask a lot of questions... Not happy about that.

We did get some nice Linux machines going for myself and our ITO to monitor our AWIPS system. Nice to not have to stand in the cold server room standing up typing in status checks... Just access and run them from my desk.. very nice! I had run the cable for it ages ago but when I installed my new walls I had put it where I wouldn't forget it... I forgot where I put it.. Had to take apart a bunch of stuff to find it but it worked a treat!

In between there was a ton of property stuff and paperwork stuff and stuff to go to the recycle service and climbing and towers and vehicles and returns of stuff and cashews and no lunchs and things. A pretty churned up week.

Now with all that I am battling a sinus problem that keeps causing my eyesight to waver in and out of focus. Headaches and a serious bruised left chest area that I have no clue what caused it. When you get old you get to complain about stuff you would brush off when younger... Its a right or something.

Here are a few bad shots of the things....

Glowy ball things... They are on their charging base and all three are charging again. Nice!

Two lava lamp things.. They look the same but they are not.

 Left side of office/computer room. Between or to the right and above the monitors will be where the triple PH pic will go.

Listening to SpaceMind - Silent Planet 1 on youtube in surround sound while checking my office diagram for the positioning of pictures and pin boxes.

You would think I would take notes of the week so when I was writing up I would know what to write when.. I really do have a daily journal of everything I do or things that happen during the week.. Im just too lazy to get it out and read it... way too tiring and then I will be thinking of work I have to do in the coming days before Thanksgiving.

Hope your week was better. This upcoming week will be short because of the holiday and not sure if I am going to be able to travel at all.

Well.. here you go...... a view to a fill ( office ). More to do and maybe some fun in there somewhere.

Cheers!

Blown aways!

Its now the 16th of November. I still have little want to go flying again. Ive been out and watched others and taken pictures and helped crew and all around them but its still a bit sighing of it all.

There have been some fun times.. Like this last Saturdays AAAA meet in Rio Rancho... Damn fast winds. Gusty too.. You could have a nice and calm inflation and take off only to be grabbed and flung South West. It looked great from the ground......

Chasing after Enchanted Diamonds was a good time. No way was I going to be able to catch up to them. The did a good wild landing on the other side of a hill and arroyo way way South. It was in high scrub and if I had no been direct line driving on a road that crested that hill I would never have seen anything but their heads.

I took somewhere around 400 pictures... most duplicated for best shot. I did even process a lot of them and put them on my web site. Not all nor many good people shots... yet.... But a lot... The links below.

What I did finish over the last week after work was the processing of all the Kodak 360 degree camera footage into 360 degree two segment clips. For ever minute of footage its two minutes to process.... for 9 days of flying and in those nine days many over 90 minute flights... It was long and tedious. You have to line up ever clip and flip the take when the cameras in set looking down or out depending on the time if flight.

For the inflation it is pointing up ( the lends is upward ) catching the inflation all around but when I stand up the balloon  it is now facing backwards... then in flight or before I take off I would flip it lens down which is what you will see in the following clips from the first five flights... so here you go...

Kurt flying Highperactive for the first time on Albuquerque Aloft day or Friday before Fiesta.. It was a nice smooth flight and you would never know he had never flown a racer before... My nudges as to what to do were completely unnecessary and goofy. Lovely landing and I had a great time not taking pictures as I forgot my camera.. go figure.

 My Sister in law and Son on his first flight in a balloon where we went South then East then up and North to get a great upper stands view of the fiesta field. A nice little jaunt and soft landing on the Pueblo.

Ballooning family flight and not the same track.. this time we went South and then up and then straight down the center of the field at about 600 feet above.. then curled down to land about 150 feet from where we landed the last day... Hilarious. So much traffic.. so many balloons coming up at us and our bobbing along to stay out of their way and clear the field.

Kelley's short ride...... It was all south with a nice pause over the South end of the field in between. It gave the crew time to get packed up and off the field to meet us as we zoomed over power lines and tank far.. the cereal factory and a trailer to get caught... Very nice... The video at the end after we had put down of all the other balloons coming in to that spot in the quick winds is cool.

Andy's flight was one of my fussy flights. About two hours of trying to stay in a very thin wind stream heading West only to have to drop out of it due to low fuel levels and had to pretty much find a road to get low enough on to land... We were booking but there were power lines right to our right and only this nice bunch of dirt and a parking lot to drop it in. Gotta say.. when you dump a bunch of air and there happens to be a nice soft dirt pile and sage bush.. you just go for it... The local folks thought we were needing medical assistance but it was one of the best solid drop ins I have done. Poor Andy was my padding.. I kinda stomped him when we stopped so suddenly.

There are ( tried to type are and typed were twice.. whats up with that???) four more days of flying and another.... why am I having to think and stay on time streams of air all the time.. sheesh! Good times and I hope to be happy to go fly again soon. Maybe after Thanksgiving and before the Red Rock Rally in Gallup NM. Better be ready for that.... cause that is interesting flying.... Links below to a few years backs flight.

The pictures from Saturday..

http://InvisibleBlack.zenfolio.com/p606433990/e6eaf519d

Video from Red Rocks...

Down view of the rock jumping...

http://InvisibleBlack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/e382bc3a1

Day 2 and over the mountain!

http://InvisibleBlack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/e3e375b4f

It was a lot of fun.. Hoping this year is as much fun.

Slip Streams

Isn't it Sunday?

Could not fool anyone with that one. Sunday went past and it was not until head hit pillow and feet were wrapped up in the bottom of my blanket that I remembered that the blog had gone wanting.

A lot has happened but a little to really report. The double rainbow outside the office early last week was very nice. This is a three shot blend. It is what it looked like minus the rain falling.

In this week we did the standard work, a run down to Roswell to take a ridiculous four part six page test on our ability to travel on the runways and taxiways of that airport even though we are not allowed to do so. I ask you.... If you take the test then you should be able to walk the walk.. or drive the drive. No.. we do not have a need to go across any active anything there. We still have to take this test. I will leave it there. It was a nice drive down and back ( Hours and hours ) but I did get out my camera and shoot the road while we cruised down it. We even did a potty break in the lava fields outside Carrizozo... no.. there are very nice clean bathrooms there. Nice place for a camp out too and many were.

But before that I went to the AAAA General meeting and listened to our up and coming kids who want to be balloonists and their balloon camp. It was pretty good all in all though my legs do not like standing that long. I may have to bring my own chair and table so I can blog on the go while listening. Before that I wandered the Museum as they had some new displays.. took a lot of pictures... and tried not to knock things over.

A couple below too.... I have many more but no time to deal with them all as I had to back up and transfer and verify files of RAW JPG and MP$ and MOV across about 10 TB oof drives. It took me.. well its still ongoing but I have the important things done.

Pictures..


The Museums throat. Not sure I have ever seen a shot in this direction. Its nice how the panels are attached to the "load tapes" and the flags were a good touch.

Carrizozo's valley of fire. You can see forever.... or to the horizon Northish. South, West and East all all mountains. In out few minute stop to shake a leg I got caught up with the things up close instead of the fields of lava.

I got this close up of a capsule hanging in the Museum. it is rough and ready and good contrasts all over.

 Pancake Cactus in the dropping sun. I had a good time with the very thin focal depth. more with moss later.

One of the many descents into the valley floors between ranges from Roswell to Socorro. Not much but cars moving and those were few and far between.

Back to this.... I plan on re-shooting this with the 24 Mpix cam so that I can divide it up into three 30 inch by 30 inch panels for the wall of my computer office. I have to repaint it also as I did a "GREAT" job on this test. Not great at all really but very nice.

So this is Monday.... It was meant to be a get back to work kinda day and was in fact pretty heavy on the work.. That work being paperwork and processing... I love it when you do load documents and process stuff only to find it missing and not entered in reality.. I did not dream it nor did I jut write stuff whenever... But it was gone... So now its back and I took screen shots of it... Now lets see if disappear again! So busy but in the typing and entering things part... All the equipment is humming along very nicely.... Lots of ancillary things have to be done still but that's what Tuesdays are for.

Cloudbouncer was a big of a bugger too this week. But it got done!

I think Wednesday will be painting the home office. Once that is done I can move pictures and stuff out of the guest room and settle the office better... for now..... perhaps....

TV and why you should not watch it.

On the top of that list is Christmas Commercials the damn day after Halloween. Please! Cant wait to get your fingers into my wallet? Did you know that you probably turn off more people than you capture by showing this crap so early. Oh.. at least you waited until after Halloween is that it? Yeah.. Not buying what your selling.

No really... Its all about removing money from you and sticking it in some overly paid exec and his boss or owner of said company pocket... Nope.. Other than a few minor things this year I am spending any moneys locally. Not gonna be much either. Sorry... Tis the season and that season isn't extreme consumerism.

Sorry.. It had to be said.... For one time I have a football game on... and that because music right now is hurting my neck and head.... along with everything else I can mute a game... I am not watching it orrooting for anyone.. its just background while I am backing up files. I have to verify and back up a couple of drives... Those drives are 2gig and 4gig drives... and they are pretty full.... Every set of transfer files has to be checked after for content and size... I cant just walk away and let it putter away. Okay I can for an hour at a time as its taking about an hour and a bit per section. I still have to go back and verify RAW against JPG and reverse.. Then I can wipe and clear old files. What do you do with 500 gig drives? I have a few that I do not know what to do with now. Some are external and some are internal.... Dunno...

This week was a bugger. I could go on and on about the pathetic drivers in this town but I know they are everywhere... and in every city. So .. in every place in the world.. or lets bring that down.. in the States there are people who 1. Should not hold a drivers licence 2. Cannot pay attention to diving long enough to go where they are going 3. Are stupid enough to cause accidents then blame someone else. There should be a yearly on line exam you have to pass to keep driving.. It should be an attention test to see if you can pay attention long enough and if you can follow rules and signs.

Please... Save a life and ride a bike... stay off the roads. Sorry other bikers... at least they shouldnt kill you when they cut you off on a red light.

Beside that I had a hell of a time getting my logo done for the side of my balloon trailer. Its still not perfect but I have to stop this wheel I am on at some point and say good enough. I will not ever ever ever use the place I used again.... I will also force myself to learn to run the process myself. I mean.. If you give someone a jpg of something and say... create it out of this.. exactly as I have it now.. why do you have to show me how much of a moron you are by re-sizing things? Did I ask you to re-size anything? NO! Do what I asked and don't get all artistic with me.... I don't want you for that.. I want you to process my art. As I said.. never again.

And at the end of the week I was troubleshooting my surface 3. That started Thursday morning and went into late Friday. Wednesday eve it was working fine and Thursday morning it flipped the screen and would not change..no matter what I did.... whatever settings were changed to modified. I even went as far as to reset the damn thing back to windows 8 settings and no change.. that led me to believe it was the sensor that had failed.. along with a few other connections.. and I blame it on crap and more crapware.

And that was the easy part...

When I contacted Microsoft to get it replaced as it is way within its year warrantee they decided to hang up on me.. recalling got them to forward to the commercial side even though that is not where I wanted to go.. Ignored for three hours waiting for a return call... calling back gets a dingle berry who decided to charge a new one against my personal account without my authorization then refuse to un-charge it. Lovely. After getting hung up on over and over I got another person who just again stated the same thing with a suggestion I call my bank and have them deny the charge... Which I ended up doing then undoing because it would have frozen my bank account for up to ten days!!! Great help! No! So then after all that my money was returned but I have no idea why or how or who....

Businesses are not there to help you as much as... again.. to separate you from your hard earned money. Banks especially.

Oh and Microsoft.. and others that out source your call centers to India.... Speaking English and understanding English.... two different things... and reading from a script just means you're wasting my time.

See.. now I know there is a lot of bad things in all that above but of it all I have to say one thing for the company Amazon.com. They may not treat their employees well and they should fix that but.. when you have a problem.. it gets corrected ASAP.

All the ugly gone... The good..... My Lindstrand basket is back together and clean. Ready to go. Needs a bit of wicker.. I can to email about that.. I need about a foot of yellow wicker just in case I cant repair my break. I was thinking about flipping my basket to give the down side a rest as its gotten a bit flat with all the laying on the ground ( bolster ) but then I thought it would just scuff up the other side side so why do that. Right now its just minor and in another five years it will be just as fine and a little flat.. No biggie.

Another good thing is our family's old balloon Kiss A Hoy is coming back from the semi dead. I am giving it to my son and he has already bought a Cameron bottom end for it. All he needs now is a set of instruments and insurance. Its waiting on a bit of paperwork but that should be coming soon.  Then insurance.. but it will rider on mine for now. Its a dark horse and very different from PH. 77,000 cft so a little larger than PH but a normal shaped type so it will stay up longer and glide better. Float... whatever. There will be a set of Super Doubles under it so that will give her a boost in the heat department. May fly her next weekend... we shall see.



Other than that I have hopes for this coming week to be quieter and more functional. Hope your week is as calm.