TAOSTAOSTAOSMOUNTAINBALLOONRALLYTAOSTAOSTAOS

Well that was a novel day! A fantastic day of insanity but really that was on my end.

The Taos Mountain Balloon Rally was this weekend. They had a few last minute openings and the wonderful people ( you know who you are ) called my son up to see if he could fill a spot and he did... and he did.

I couldn't go up on Saturday and they had a fantastic flight but... I decided that I had nothing going on on Sunday so a nice drive of two and a half hours brought me into Taos through some scents of ... juniper or lilac in the dark. Pretty cool way of cruising in....

A quick visit to the Pilot briefing and watch the balloons go up.. or so I thought. Mo had people to fly but Ted said I could go up with him if I liked. I jumped at that!!! Fly in a Firefly.... get to shoot the area as my son launched just after us and get massive amounts of photographs and also some 360 video from Teds balloon.

The Ted.... inflating with a sparker in his teeth!  Pretty awesome right there.

Fireflys have triangle baskets and low sides.. completely opposite of my high topped rectangle basket. Freakin amazing. So stand up the balloon...not let it go over and hit the trailer... close... prep.. jump in with another passenger.. squeeze about with two cameras on me and a large coat.. tight... up and off we go heading West and a little north. West was okay but North was not.

Then Mo came up and played around with another balloon before heading over us and coming down on the other side. He was not able to find the trickle of South and East we got and he headed off to the North.. bad... but he did get to where he could land and be safe about it. He can fly anything anywhere pretty much.

We sat in some funny air and were able to fly back to near the launch field and land in a nice little field beside it.. I got out and Ted flew a crew member off to the launch field .. That allowed me to shoot from the ground after shooting from the air. Ted landed with a nice South right on the East end of the field.. We caught up with him.. and he was looking for another passenger who was small... there was a kid standing around with his family... ( friends of another balloonists ) and asked him if he wanted to fly.. which as his eyes bugged out ran up to the balloon and jumped in. His family had a great time watching this happen.

Off they went and goofed around.....and being Ted.. he landed right on the 50 yard line of the local high school's football field. As we couldn't retrieve him from there he popped back up with more of the family in the basket to re-land a couple hundred yards away next to Kurt and Enchanted Diamonds.

Since Diamonds had a tarp out we asked if we could lay down beside her on the tarp and pack up.. Kurt as Mr Awesome himself said sure.... Now why Ted decided to cover Kurt and crew under his envelope I don't know.. but it was terribly funny... Just kidding.. More pull on the crown line would have fixed that... but that's the way it goes.

Here are some shots... I took 1300 ish pictures.... I have many many to go through... So a very few here now. More on the website when I get time....

Wonderful space to capture....

Puff accelerating into the sky.

Got his eyes on you Mo....

Fly ...fly balloons!!

If I hug you so much it must mean I LUV youuuuuu!!!!

I dont know what they are talking about but hiding in the trees is bad form.

Olaugh in the skys way above the mountains.

Janet swirls around about. Riding the waves along with all the others. Janet. I have many many shots of you.

And here we are... envelope over crew... I am not sure this is the best way to put a balloon away.. Ted.

That was fun.. I am exhausted. Tomorrow is going to be a day of coffee and sugar... or I will have to raise my desk so I stand most of the day.

The video from Teds balloon looks great.. fun if not a little weird. The camera Mo had was never turned down from looking at the inflation so I dont know how thats going to turn out.

Sooo.... I am going to close this out and let you read it.. and maybe edit some more shots before bed.

TAOSTAOSTAOSMOUNTAINBALLOONRALLYTAOSTAOSTAOS

Well that was a novel day! A fantastic day of insanity but really that was on my end.

The Taos Mountain Balloon Rally was this weekend. They had a few last minute openings and the wonderful people ( you know who you are ) called my son up to see if he could fill a spot and he did ..and he did.

I couldn't go up on Saturday and they had a fantastic flight but I decided that I had nothing going on on Sunday so a nice drive of two and a half hours brought me into Taos through some scents of ... juniper or lilac in the dark. Pretty cool way of cruising in....

A quick visit to the Pilot briefing and watch the balloons go up.. or so I thought. Mo had people to fly but Ted said I could go up with him if I liked. I jumped at that!!! Fly in a Firefly.... get to shoot the area as my son launched just after us and get massive amounts of photographs and also some 360 video from Teds balloon.

The Ted.... inflating with a sparker in his teeth!  Pretty awesome right there.

Fireflys have triangle baskets and low sides.. completely opposite of my high topped rectangle basket. Freakin amazing. So stand up the balloon...not let it go over and hit the trailer... close... prep.. jump in with another passenger.. squeeze about with two cameras on me and a large coat.. tight... up and off we go heading West and a little north. West was okay but North was not.

Then Mo came up and played around with another balloon before heading over us and coming down on the other side. He was not able to find the trickle of South and East we got and he headed off to the North.. bad... but he did get to where he could land and be safe about it. He can fly anything anywhere pretty much.

We sat in some funny air and were able to fly back to near the launch field and land in a nice little field off to the side.. where I got out and Ted flew a crew member off ... That allowed me to shoot from the ground after shooting from the air. Ted landed with a nice South right back on the launch field.. We caught up with him.. and he was looking for another passenger who was small... there was a kid standing around with his family... ( friends of another balloonists ) and asked him if he wanted to fly.. which as his eyes bugged out ran up to the balloon and jumped in. His family had a great time watching this happen.

Off they went and goofed around.....and being Ted.. he landed right on the 50 yard line of the local high school's football field. As we couldn't retrieve him from there he popped up with more of the family in the basket to re-land a couple hundred yards away next to Kurt and Enchanted Diamonds.

Since Diamonds had a tarp out we asked if we could lay down on the tarp beside her and pack up.. Kurt as Mr Awesome himself said sure.... Now why Ted decided to cover Kurt and crew under his envelope I don't know.. but it was terribly funny... Just kidding.. More pull on the crown line would have fixed that... but that's the way it goes.

Here are some shots... I took 1300 ish pictures.... I have many many to go through... So a very few here now. More on the website when I get time....

Wonderful space to capture....

Puff accelerating into the sky.

Got his eyes on you Mo....

Fly ...fly balloons!!

If I hug you so much it must mean I LUV youuuuuu!!!!

I dont know what they are talking about but hiding in the trees is bad form.

Olaugh in the skys way above the mountains.

Janet swirls around about. Riding the waves along with all the others. Janet. I have many many shots of you.

And here we are... envelope over crew... I am not sure this is the best way to put a balloon away.. Ted.

That was fun.. I am exhausted. Tomorrow is going to be a day of coffee and sugar... or I will have to raise my desk so I stand most of the day.

The video from Teds balloon looks great.. fun if not a little weird. The camera Mo had was never turned down from looking at the inflation so I dont know how thats going to turn out.

Sooo.... I am going to close this out and let you read it.. and maybe edit some more shots before bed.

Can I have another day please?

Yeah.. I probably wont get anything accomplished still but it would be nice...

                       ....... Okay.. How bout some more hours.... a few minutes? Stubborn arn't ya. Fooey!

Well the last week was a week... Nothing major in the works there. More delays and waiting but that isn't unusual.

I did get to fly my Lindstrand racer Patturns Highperactive... it was nice. Very mild day below 500 feet... a bit quicker up there..North at around 15 but we didn't get into it. We played around and spun around and just goofed off. Getting the feel of the racer after flying the 90,000 balloon was novel. Venting too much and burning too much. Nothing I couldn't deal with but it was funny that I was over flying.

I would show you pictures of the day but I ( for the first time ever ) forgot my cameras. Oh I remembered the video cams but not the DSLR. All I have is a few I took with my phone and some clips off the video cameras... I will post those directly below this...

Kodak 360 snips.. Up and out quickly.. at around 450 feet per minute so as not to bump anyone else.

Parked in the road to talk to some kids from the house nearby.

Laid over and packing up while the new and greatly improved Kubi KKisses Of Fire goes overhead.

PH is seriously heavier than the 90. Super strong diamond weave and the baffle and all make for a tough squeeze and pack away. The new instruments were much easier to read than I thought they would be and I hope to have a case for them soon.

Here are a few shots clipped form the GOPro's.

Eric come visiting....

KKISSES and PUFF below with another brand new envelope Plum Fired Up.

Alan looking back and wondering when they will get off the ground.... hurry up guys.

Off the go and here we are spinning around burning time and staying in one place.

It was fun. Need go find more crew to come out and get some people in the air. My son thought we should make business cards up with out email address up so we can hand them out to people interested in crewing and flying. Its a good idea.

Now if I have time this week I need to break the bottom end down and clean it up .. if I cant get to it this week I will get to it this weekend as Mo wants to fly and I need batter shots of the envelope from the right angles to draw a pin mock up for it.

Speaking of pin mock ups... I finished Patturns In Czech last night only to find a glaring but easily missed error in the pin. Fixing that this morning and emailing to my friend to send off.. fingers crossed they can get that much detail down to 1 1/4 size. if not it will have to be larger... Or I will have to adjust the design...  Blah.

I am working on a set for all four envelopes. They will all have the round design but each will have its own type iconic ... Logo.... I guess... Patturns Highperactive has fast heartbeats because its Highperactive.. and In Czech will have straight jackets open and closed for being in check.. get it... Yeah.. the friend who thought that up was seriously in touch with the mode. MOJO I am still thinking on what that logo should be.. Its a toughy... Then lastly we will get back to Kiss A Hoy and I have no clue on that but we will get there.

So now you know whats been going on in Albuquerque... Here are the links to the latest videos I processed...

http://InvisibleBlack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/e3c0dbcb9

and

http://InvisibleBlack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/e1d915cb

Both were much fun.

More this next weekend..

My Precious!

Just had our Emily time with the granddaughter. She is growing and learning so many new things..like how to pull herself up on the couch, the foot stool or the hairs on your legs... how to get from one side of the room to another, mainly to get to her mother's shoes to chew on them...not allowed.. redirect... and how to manipulate me from 20 feet away... I say so what. Hahahah.. It was fun.



Last great shot of most of the crew before the last flight of Fiesta. It was a good time. Now we are seeing nicer weather but it's a crap shoot anyways. We got some good flying done and now we are back into the mode of weekend flying any time we want to... this weekend we had Mo flying Mojo's Reverse Gravity Machine or Ytivarg. It's such a nice balloon and handles pretty slickly even if it is hard to get her going down with a light load on board. She will come down. Ya just have to coax her a bit.( Mary and Dave were not in the picture because they were helping another Pilot get in the air and I was taking the shot ).

Today one of our bestest friends was in town from Portland and went flying with Mo. There was a time..way back when, when Mo was so small he would hold onto legs in the basket if it was a wild and woolly landing.. now.. he is at the burners and landing as easy as you please in the middle of neighbourhoods like it was a runway. No problem.

Below are the shots I thought were the shot of the day from Fiesta this last week....

This is a snapshot from one of my GoPro cameras.. It is a fantastic shot of KKisses Of Fire..Eric's new envelope ( just like his old envelope ) but made by Kubicek Balloons. Now Eric has a complete Kubi system. It even has turning vents which is super awesome.

A shot of Patturns In Chech 477 Terpsnickery ( by Eric H from his phone ) in flight with 45 gallons of propane and two passengers and Pilot. Totally awesome flight and she handled with no problem at all.

Overhead after most of the flight was off. It was a nice day.

Patturns Highperactive only got to static at Fiesta this year. We needed to fly more than one person and she has such a small heat area that putting two people in would shorten the flight time too much..It's possible but it was easier with In Czech.

Enchanted Diamonds positive burn. This balloon is so nice to look up into. It's a dream to fly and gorgeous in the sky.

Stacked. I was trying to get a shot of the two blue balloons, Chain Gang and UnChained but the others got in the way... and it was a good thing too.

A fish eye clip from the Kodak 360 camera. Such a cool view of the whole world.

I also worked on a banner for t shirts and one balloon pin.. shots below.

The original idea with lettering. I was informed that it might sit funny on a woman and I should try it vertical... which I did because it was good advice...

Vertical... very nice.

 Inverted.. excellent...

Dual colors.. neat-o.

All from this... and another sketch from the net but showing everything on a curve.

Now to get them to t-shirts.

Oh and the pin design for In Czech.

Main drawing with colors. From here I wanted to see how it really looked without all the white so I added some blue.

 Blue made it easier to make sure it was balanced correctly. Yup.

 After that I had to find my original ring from the Patturns Highperactive pin and create or recreate the ring, import it and resize the balloon to fit like the PH pin is. Since the Patturns Highperactive  pin had an outside and inside color ring of  bright yellow I wanted this pin to have the colors on its bands match so we needed soft yellow in the middle and white on the outside... very classy.. nice. Chrome where the outside gray is and the inside light gray is sand blasted matte. Wording next. Must have its full name too. Oh and I have to draw straight jackets too.. tough.

PATTURNS IN CZECH 477 TERPSNICKERY

Next I will do the MOJO Reverse Gravity Machine 47 Ytivarg pin. All will have the same dimensions and style.. after that I have to do a new Kiss A Hoy pin to match.. so there will be a set of four pins. 

Somewhere in there I have to do cards for every balloon but PH. They can be different. Getting the information for the cards will be fun.. Ill work on that.. It has to have the history of the balloon on it so that's got to be done. 

In all this we have to get the basket and burners cleaned and ready for the next rally in Gallup NM in December. Both of us are going to fly in PH and MOJO. Picture opportunity big time. 

Whew.. what a week... and I didnt even get much posted from the Fiesta pics.

Hope your weekend was nice and calm and quiet and you got some rest. Flying Patturns Highperactive next weekend then she gets the cleaning. Can't wait to get her in the air with the new instruments.. got 6040s and as wonderful as they are they are super complicated to set up... on the up side.. they record every part of your flight and so you don't have to remember all those numbers at the end of the day.

Cheers!

The Day After...

Sitting down the day after Fiesta ends is usually one of perspective.

This year its ..wow.. that was different.

Of ten days we flew five, static-ed one. Of ten days only one was a fully closed field but two more were suspended half way and another was too dangerous for comfortable flying that we stayed on the ground.

Eight people we couldn't fly ..which is the big bummer part of the whole thing. Though we did fly nine people which in fact is fantastic! If we had used Patturns Highperactive ( Racer ) it would have been half that. She can only fly one person at a time. So all in all we got a lot of people in the air with the help of our new envelope InChech ( Patturns InCzech 477 Terpsnickery ). A 90 with the carry weight of a 105 and the envelope weight of a feather. Cant beat that.

Some of the situations you run into during Fiesta flying is that the conditions are not good for older people or younger or those you don't want to scare on their first flight. So you have to balance a decision to fly on those factors too. Id rather disappoint a person than scare them or hurt them. The crazy weather caused so much trouble in the decision making portion of the day and was also frustrating to no end. It was never.. all good or all bad.. it was all over the place. But that's Fiesta and that's why its 9 days. Or how I look at it.

This year registration for 2017 is in March. I am not doing a count down for each day since that was an insane amount of photo-shopping and ideas every damn day. I will post those from this last year to my web site as soon as I feel I have the time to blow. It was daunting.

I have posted this on my FB banner and it will stay there for a bit and then I will just update the damn thing when I feel like it.

Lots of photographs taken and much video footage. Trying to get that all together too is mind numbing. Loads of stuff to deal with in this post time time.

No other shots here today as I have to process more but look to next Sunday for a top of the pops kinda list.

Top banner and the bottom banner was the last Sundays landing and laydown. So much help from a fantastic crew and friends running about the park.

Okay.. damn.. Since it went only to facebook I will post the last days crew envelope love shots below. Keeping her off the damp grass.

All hard working but also not all the crew. We are missing some crew who were off running about or had to leave early.... I will sort and get them posted later for all their work getting us up in the air and down safely.

Have a wonderful week.. see ya next Sunday.