A bit of this and that.

A week of waiting, watching, wondering and wandering....oh and a sore back and sore fingers.

Just to get this off my chest right here and right now... you know who this affects and you still post it!

Seven darned days away........ seven...... Do I even know where all the docs are? Do I have a better picture for trading cards... if Fiesta is getting us all trading cards again? Hell, I have to work on cards for the balloons too..... and that has layers of details also.... Another list in the making I can see now.

Back to front today. 

I spend the last two days ( I am including this evening as well ) breaking down my office shelving units. They were many many years old, book shelves from Walmart that had been jury rigged to fit
( hah ) Xboxes, cables connectors hard drives, computers and stuff. It looked terrible. The Xboxes hung over the front edge, all the cables were exposed and ugly and as is normal in New Mexico, dust coated everything.

Enter IKEA.... Damn but they are not in New Mexico. That didn't stop me from surfing their website and wishing to be a bit closer and humming and harring over living room, office and storage containers that could be shang hai'ed into working for me. Took a while but I settled on these 25in by 25 in by 15 or so living room cabinets. I needed at least three.One to settle the Xboxes in ( three Xboxes due to our yearly multi player gaming meets during Fiesta ) and another for the television box, and cameras and surface docks ( spacial error here ) and the last for all my hard drives, router ( moved to the second cabinet ) cable modem and video cam system and computer...oh and hard drive switch bank.

It all fit and pretty much where I wanted it to go except I had to move the router as it is bigger ( spacial anomaly ) than the width of the cabinets. The old shelves were 26 inches wide and overall these are around 23 usable inches wide. I did have to break out the zip tool and cut two 2 in by 12 in ports in the back of each to feed cables and connectors and also to vent air. It worked.

The IKEA kit was nifty. It took a while to get here but everything came without any damage and with all parts ( make sure you check every box completely ). Even the 70 in black glass top made it.

The choices in colors and types of doors and styles was expansive.. Besta is the name of the furniture. Instructions looked a little dodgy at first but it assembled so easily that no one should ever have a problem assembling anything from them. I did it all by myself with two screwdrivers. Craftsmanship was good and even the doors cool soft close and tap open is a nifty surprise.

Okay.. I went with a glossy black cabinet. Its black wood laminate with smoked black glass doors. You can see through them and I can get my remotes to work through them. The have actuators that pop the door open and also keep the doors open about two inches for air flow while the equipment is up and running. They even have legs to raise it up off the floor. I have a few things yet to do but its pretty much all done.

One thing... TOO MANY DAMN CABLES!.

 Old bookshelves adapted for stuff. Why do Comcast boxes have to be so damn large? The other things there are parts to the Pioneer Xbox surround sound system. So old but so very clear and loud.

IKEA Besta furniture. Two doors partial open for airflow. Not unlike our military and its love for lights.. I've been indoctrinated that way...I can see the lights for all the equipment through the doors without it being a distraction. Glass shelves with cool anti slide seats ( very cool ) 

You can partially see the site supervisor in the last picture. She laid in a chair snoring while I worked my butt off..... 

Cables, cables and more cables...

Cleaning up soon as my Granddaughter is due in and she is just walking with help of her walkabout toy. Important that.

There is still a bunch of stuff to do. Another sort through the bin full of cables and things but that can wait.

The other accomplishments for the weekend was going through two bins of cables, connectors, adapters and old equipment and chucking it in the back of the truck along with boxes and junk no one has touched in a year... then going to the back patio and pulling the two cut up envelopes that were bagged there and loading them into another truck as well as a bunch of things that needed to be thrown away ages ago. All of it was taken to the local dump center and flung into the bins for shredding and processing. The two old cut up envelopes were the hardest. I wanted to keep the bags as they are in good shape so getting all that awful stinky fabric out.... just ugh!

But.. now the patio is cleared of junk. Two computer tables and the old shelves are out there for this weeks processing. Two old bikes to be donated also sit out there as well. 

I feel very good about that work. Very sore but good sore.

Looking forward to the work week.. things to do there that should be interesting. 

I had a great conversation on getting good shots of interior spaces that are focused throughout without distortion. My brain kept going right to a tilt shift lens to do this because I so want one

 ( at 3,000 dollars a pop ) that I couldn't let go of it. LOL. Tilt shift lenses allow for plane shifts to correct distortion. They are very specialized and I would never get enough use out of it to be worth the outlay... but that was where my brain was. I did remember that DXO software will fix distortion due to wide angle shots and it does a very good job but will crop edges which barrel out. The focus part was just a blank for me until a few days later when I remembered that if you set your camera for Aperture priority you can increase the focal space of your shot.. which I tested and it worked well in my little office. I know it would work in the open but elsewhere it would have to be tested.

Always wonderful to chatter about like interests. Plus I got reminded to look into a self owned web site and stick this all there along with a bunch of other stuff. Oh the time I need!!!!

Which I will waste playing Fallout 4 if I am let go.... hahahaha.. really need to deal with that soon... The website not Fallout 4. 

Oh.. Almost forgot!! 

I asked our local balloon repair and all around fantastic design company AERCO to make a larger pouch and instrument pouch for my new envelope In Czech. The pouch needs to be large enough to fit the flight manual, logs and docs required to fly as well as have a little space for extra stuff and can be attached inside Patturns Highperactives basket ( since I have one basket ) while in flight.. and I needed a new pouch for my 6040 flytec instruments as the pouch for the 3040s was a bit big and they slipped about and I couldn't see the screen well... Here is what happened from all our chattering on sizes and configurations.... They do good "work".

6040s tucked in with the button section open but the screen protected. loop hole to slide the instrument strap into and to the uprights.

I have come up with a few ideas that Aerco has run with. All of them pretty awesome. I have the ideas and they have ways to make it better and they also have Carol who is a fantastic sewing magician. 

A lot of this comes to making it easier to deal with things that are very important to flying. Be it an experimental plate made into a upright cover which is soft and fold-able and wont hurt people but is clear and apparent to passengers and FAA inspectors alike to these pouch ideas to keep everything undamaged and available. More ideas in this head.....somewhere.

Last thing.... The pin designing is going quite well. My third pin is being processed right now. The fourth is already done and waiting and friends pins are waiting final adjustments from their respective owners. I need a better picture for one and I have yet to find it. More requests are coming in and I have to get ready to deal with that when it happens..... good things.

I still have a tendency to complain but its all good.... 

Points of View

Depending on who you talk to you will find different points of view. In almost every view you will find a sliver of truth that is either used to prove a point or cause a distortion. How do you feel about your position?

If I crop a shot to prove a point do I have enough pixel density to pull it off or am I going to have some distortion or pixelization happening. Even with expanding the saturation or light it can cause untoward distortion. What is acceptable?

Truth is to me that the picture represents as best as I can what I want to see. Not reality because it takes so little to fake it nowadays. Everything you see can be twisted to show the opposite or extreme or the flip side. It might stand for a while but if your called out on it.. which you will be someday.. you have to defend it.

Id rather not and just say I cropped it or adjusted it to suit my eye. What I have seen and what bothers me most is reality skewed to appeal to the most people possible just to make money. I guess that is okay if all your trying to to is rip people off with generic crap and foist it off.. all good.. but be up front with what your doing. Slipping money out of peoples pockets and giving them a handful of crap is no way to live and you will ( unless you are a sociopath ) run it through your head over and over again on how you abused people. Regrets suck. LOL.

I may never make money with my photographs due to that. Oh well.

I do love how each camera I own has a sweet spot and lots of bad spots. If you can work to that sweet spot its all good. Sometimes you have to deal with the bad spots.

If I won the lottery I would buy the best DSLR I could for my friends. I would also buy the best all around lens for my friends too. Right now the best punch for the money for me is the Nikon D7100. It is a 24 mega pixel sensor.. and that is very very good. Why? Because even if you don't set your shot right you can come back and crop it and still retain an amazing amount of detail! At half that you can print a 3 ft by 2 foot crisp poster.

My favorite lens is the Nikkor 18-200mm lens. Its not that its the best piece of glass around but it is an overall fantastic wide range lens. In this dust bowl I live in and the conditions I usually take pictures in if you have to switch a lens out or take time to frame a shot including adjusting settings you have completely missed that shot. You may get a better picture than me but it wont be the picture I got.

Now I really wish the video cameras I had on my balloon when I fly could take that size of a picture.
When I clip out a shot from one of them it has so little information it cant be cropped of blown up.. they are still nice but very limited.

Here are some I clipped from the GoPros and Kodak 360 and then a few from the D7100. Oh, and a heads up at the end.

GoPro. Up and over the mass of Class below. Winds went from West,South,North,slight East,West.

 GoPro.. KKisses Of Fire overhead.

GoPro..View-back to the launch area. Nice Experimental wrap for In Czech. My design.

 Go Pro.. Parallel tracking KKisses.

GoPro.. Down, Crown out. Nice and clean bit of dirt to protect the envelope. 

 GoPro.. Rory and Hannah work the straps to bind the envelope so it does not capture air. It loves to do that.

 The last two are crops of the full frame. Not bad for GoPro clips.

Kodak 360.. Lovely point of view and somewhat crop-able. I need to test how far this can be enlarged on print.

Kodak 360.. Another point of view for Hannah thinking and all the rest of us looking on.

The 360 is a lot of fun. I have a 10.5 fisheye Nikkor lens for the DSLR and it also take wonderful shots. If the GoPros and Kodak 360 all had a 24 megpixel sensor.. wow.. that would be amazing!

Overall it was a stunning day of flying. So much air to play with and a wide range of directions until the end. 46 minutes of flying. A couple of landings. Some obstacle avoidance and some ground adjustments to see how hard it was to keep the balloon up in wind and not take off again ( very hard in In Czech. She either wants to be so soft she turns into a sail or tight enough that your off the ground again ). I found myself wanting to stay in the grid of Unser, Southern, Off road motorcycle track and the 7/11. Go figure. Plus I wanted a nice place to lay In Czech and it was getting breezy at the end.

Fantastic group of people came out to get us in the air and down on the ground and no one wanted to go fly!?!??!! Poor Chris had to be the ballast that day.  But he got a relaxing flight instead of a white knuckle one. Should have taken Nick up too. Next time we will get Highperactive out and see if we can do some serious descents and ascents.Raise the blood pressure a bit.

And as to the heads-up.... When you are charging all your cameras remember to check ALL your cameras. I forgot to check my D7100 and guess what failed half way into the flight. Yes... Uh-Duh... no battery. Only 68 shots fired. What the hell! That has never happened before.

Now I have to see about doing things around the house..... things!

If you have not come out to watch or crew.... come out!!! My contact info is here... contact me. You might even get a flight the first time you show up. That would be amazing!

Neeewwww Mexico!

Live in New Mexico?... don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes..it will change. Every time!

First. I can never remember the weight of my balloon envelope. Here. It weighs 232 lbs. Yeesh. Heavy! Propane weighs somewhere around 4.4 lbs per gallon so add 4.4 x 30 gallons in there too.
I said heavy!

Second. The week was a blitz of email and responding emails and rewrites on minor details for no apparent reason of any advancement of action.. but we do as we are tasked. Regardless of its silliness.

Third. This weekend was the AAAA Friends and Lovers Rally. A two day event that is open to the public. I knew in advance that weather was in question for both days. Saturday the winds were going the wrong direction but they made it a fly in task and balloons ( balloons also did statics on the field for the public ) took off South to try and fly in and hit the target which was to the West of the balloon museum ( then land on the field ). 6 balloons made it. It was an extremely fast flight. I didnt fly as I thought it was not worth putting the crew through it for 15 minutes but the son did and he popped up and ran to the field in fifteen minutes and missed the target to the West so not so good but I guess he had fun. Sunday it was so windy leaving the house that I didnt even take the balloon. We went out and then had brunch and listened to all the winners get prizes. Fun. Home and coffee after. Misc shots below.

Fourth. Looks like the pin designing might be taking off. Got some people asking about mine and how, why, what and such.  I am waiting for the proof of the third of our four pins to check the updates. I had to remove a bunch of lines as they were blending together due to the ability of the stamping machines quality limits. Hoping I do not have to modify it any more but it happens. I am working on a few but I have so much personal feelings attached to them that it's hard to get them as perfect as I want them to be so I keep redoing them. LOL. I have CDO. Horrible horrible CDO.

Fifth.. is there a fifth? Oh yes... damn..... I started reading on the nets about these.. which are so freaking cool if limited...

  http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HKFR2VC/A/roli-lightpad-block?afid=p238%7CsykolMsoy-dc_mtid_1870765e38482_pcrid_163208623866_&cid=aos-us-kwgo-pla---slid--product-HKFR2VC/A

Which after reading everything about it found it was limited to the sounds programmed into it and you couldn't add anything... to finding and freaking out about this...

Which was completely exciting...

https://www.ableton.com/en/push/

Ableton Push 2. Stunning expansion of sound and music. If only I had 40 years to learn enough to squeeze out everything this could do. Okay.. maybe 20. Time to learn the guitar, piano, drums, then this thing.

I mean.. you could just drop yourself into it and go but it would be like a tiger pounding on a box of bunnies... It might sound good at some point but it's still a silly tiger pounding on a box of very pissed off bunnies. The website and tutorials are all excellent... If only I had the time and the want. The want being the want to do things. In reality I am hard to motivate to do specific things. I have to be in the mood and well... I get off on tangents far too much.

I also want and have many many ideas for working with clay and stuff and there is the photography stuff.. CDOCDOCDOCDO.... maybe I'll just sit here and drink my cocoa.

Here are some shots from the weekend......

My favorite crop clip from the Kodak 360 camera. Just over the edge of Fiesta Park of my son in MOJO RGM.

MOJO's Flytec sensor ( Turtle ). The sensor is strapped to the outside of the envelope and the sensor head slips through a small hole into the inside where it sits against the inside fabric to read the temp which it then transmits down to the receiver unit via RF so we can see what is going on up there. Normal max temps for envelopes is about 250 degrees. Varies depending on manufacturer.

Racer up! As everyone tucks into a corner of a local church property and set up and get out as fast as possible. Due to a twisted set of cables we had to deflate and reinflate. No problem. Took 5 minutes.

I got to taking a lot of people pictures this day since everyone was posing so nicely. Cello what?

 This is how we loop the crown line, loop the crown line to pack it up..... everyone does it differently.

Posing for a picture in a picture.  The kids were having a great time running from balloon to balloon.

Senior Pilots. They watch and wonder. We were requested to not drive all over the grass and the grass was covered in goose poop so everyone moved to the road side edges to pack up and put away. Yuck!

First place winner Craig chats with the crew while the kids pose with another balloon. So very funny.

Lots more happened but to try and show all the shots would be mind boggling and if you really want to get a feel for the surreality of ballooning... you ... just...have...to...come...out...and...CREW!

You can look at videos.. flip through pictures... talk all you want... nothing is like the real thing. Being there.. under the envelope as it rises filling with hot air from those terribly powerful burners and being controlled by the crew as the balloon find equilibrium on the ground.... to the lifting feeling as you climb out of small open areas in the local area.... yeah.. it rocks. Nothing like it in the world.

Fire In The Sky Show

Youch!

Going flying on Saturday you expect to sleep in on Sunday only to be woken by the damn neighbor's dog thrown out in the cold barking its brain out. Thank you neighbour. I promise the next time I do go flying I am going to rev my engine at 0500 and make as much noise as I can possibly make.

Idiots and animal mean people.

SO... I went out to go fly with Eric in Kisses Of Fires reincarnation. It's a Kubicek 90+.. its has extra feets... or meters. It was a nice day for it too. Soft and swirling winds. We watched as others took off and went different ways due to their different speeds going up. Eric got it inflated nicely and it was tight and ready to go quickly. I hopped in and we took off only to have to avoid another balloon that got kinda mixed up. This led us to go higher than we wanted and threw us North farther than we wanted to play at the moment. No big deal but it did mess up the fun a bit. Eric gave me the option to fly her but I was having more fun feeling how it flew. I will fly it in the future sometime but not a problem for me.

We landed after a bit on a dirt road and I got out and my son Mo and Shawn got in and off they went again.. for a longer and more zig zaggy flight. We chased and caught them when they landed a few blocks away ( an hour later ). Ballooning is never usually about distance ( there are some that are all about distance ) but about the fun. This was fun.

Here are the outtakes from the 360 video camera....

 Fear overflies

Firing it up.

Close Flyby.

The boys get lost.

What road is that down there?

That a way.. while I drive below.

Land and pack.

So that was all fun...

Next weekend is a two day AAAA rally called Friends and Lovers since it's right around Valentine's day. I have registered for it but have not decided if I am going to fly off of the field or just take pictures. I'd really like to take pictures from the air but it's hard to fly and shoot... really..

Debating and the winds have to be right and the right way. Its also time to get Highperactive out of her bag and in the air.

Highperactive pin design is in with a complete edit of the original file.. hoping it turns out better after it's been processed than the first one.

Emily came to visit with the kids. They had just gotten back earlier in the week from Cali. They didnt get to go to the Winchester house so we have to plan a time that I can go too.. It's something I think would be novel to try and shoot... Maybe with the fisheye. How cool would that be! Emily is much more able to get around and is less about lying and eating and more about seeing what she can get up to.. which with me is whatever she wants except going into the kitchen and on the hard tile. It was fun but ya get tired real quick and she is just all energy and doing things.

Didn't watch any football all season... forced ( tied with ropes and had my eyes forced open... torture ) to watch the final and was disappointed in the play at the end. Glad I didnt waste any more time on it. Not taking any more time up thinking about it.

Boring!

This week.. Propane! Work and strange things and processes to deal with... Will it be warm enough to do some outside work around the house. A positive... my rear outside water tap is fixed and should never freeze ( and possibly crack a pipe ) ever again.

To do this spring.. Buy a round water trough ( 3ft deep & 8 feet across ) and have fish people come get my fish out of the old in ground pond. Pull the plants out and separate them and resettle it all in the water trough. After that I am going to fill in the old pond which has become overrun with mint the last owner let go crazy. Grade out the complete back yard and re-lay nice rock with a 20 by 20 cement pad for a pergola and then relocate the water trough / fish pond black onto the yard and plant in pots around to make it controllable beauty instead of a frustration city.

Plans.. with alternatives and such.... I have high hopes it will happen.