On this eve of the New Year

Do you look back or look forward... Or just bury your head like I do?

Highlights from this last year..

Granddaughter turned 1.

Son flew in the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for the first time.

I thought there might be more but I now cant come up with any more.

Its not that there were so few highlights I cant remember but as much a year of smoothness and not too many insane portions. I like that. Not stasis but calmness.

Ok... Also went to California ( Cali ) for the second time since I escaped the first time. Returned safely. Flew a clear bottomed basket... Twice! Flew a great photographer. Bought camera said Photographer said was the most excellent camera out. He was right. Upgraded my home computer to run faster, stronger, better... Not 6 million dollars to do so. No sound effects. Last and most important is that my Granddaughter is still healthy and getting bigger and stronger and smarter each day.

So a good 2017 for me over all. Lets hope 2018 will bring us all the needed things we can handle and have it not throw any wrenches in our peaceful lives.

That said....

Went to the River of Lights here in Albuquerque for the first time on Wednesday. A nice invite from my ex son in law and fam to walk it. Me...as usual.. the hermit...said.. but its at night and it will be dark out and you know I like to be locked down in the house prior to the crazies coming out!!!

Nope.. Braved the roads and the crazies to get to the Bio Park and walked around and saw the lights and enjoyed the friends and the sillyness of it all.

Took that cool camera ( Sony RX10V4 ) with me not expecting much since I knew that free handing the shots I could get through the press of people would probably be sad.. but I shot off about 500 or so anyway.  Some are below.... but before that.. let me mention my loss of memory. I edited a few and put about 60 up on facebook and thinking I had transferred them to the mirrored hard drives deleted the files on my thumb drive where I edited them.... three days later and tonight I go looking for them..yeah.... I didn't copy anything and they were gone...

Brain ( after screwing up so bad ) popped Recuva  up as a way to recover the files. I downloaded it for free and ran it under deep and it brought all the files up. Copied them by clicking separately ( you have to ) on each of the 620 shots ( more because the edits were there ) to the mirror drive then copied that to the other mirror drive. Whew!

So here are a few...

Aloe plant but the sparkly out of focus lights made it.

More the shadowing of the reeds than the lights.

Reflections of the light

Bokeh and I didn't even see it right away...just liked the framing.

Reflections of Rabbits.s

Contrast from the white rabbit to the green.

What else.. the red and the cool pancake cactus.

Again with the red / green colors.

This area was a dirt path and the people kicked up a lot which made this shot. UFO was sucking up a cow.

Again the reflection onto the leaves made it for me.

I looked for contrasts and diffusion and the odd shot as everyone in the world were taking shots of just the lights shapes.

This would have been a good venue to use a tripod and play with some time lapse shots. Get all the people as moving shadows and the lights static glows.  Maybe Ill have the chance next year.

Ends of 2017.

Decided not to fly again in 2017. Various reasons surrounding no fuel.. though I had time to get fuel my brain kept bouncing the thought of ...why.... Its the last of the year.... What does it matter really...

Then I thought the cool thing to do was go out at 1130.. by myself and pull the basket off the trailer and set up the burner in our regular launch area and at midnight just blast off a good double burn on the burner to strike a chord for the transition... but then thought that one little tiny speck in the infinite universe that has little regard for one lone human standing in a field somewhere at the time an arbitrary time shift happens was quite silly and bagged the idea.

Maybe Ill go out back at 9pm just before getting in my bed and flick a lighter... yay...

It would be a midnight somewhere...  heh.... Reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbies strip.

Im just not into midnight, large groups of people, noise, over drinking.... just me really.. not because I am really old.

So happy New Year to you all.. Just turned in England.. so Cheers to family and friends there....

To all you other passengers on this big blue ball.. Happy New Year.... Fingers crosses for the best for rest of you nuts.

60 days until AIBF registration 2018

Bahahahahahahaahahahahhahahahaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.........zzzzzzzzzz

Merry Christmas! Almost

Its Christmas eve and we are all alone this year! So very weird. Waiting for the Twilight Zone music to start and Rod to come out and say.. "Picture this if you will, Two people in one house on Christmas Eve, not a sound, no mice, no carolers. What do they do.... "

We relax. We would rather have the family here but that just the way life is some times. Makes it sweeter when they are about.

I expected to do this blog earlier in the day but decided that I wanted to share some of the activities we do on Christmas Eve so I waited and now at 9pm am at last filing it.

On Christmas eve in the old days when the kids were younger we would drive about the neighborhoods looking at the Christmas light decked houses and the luminaria set out everywhere...

But now... We have a different tradition. We glow our balloon at the Arroyo Del Oso Golf course and then have a pot luck at a friends house.

Sometimes we cant glow but the party after always happens and when we do glow we can chat about it after and enjoy our friends in the comfort of Carol and Rays house.

I normally let my son glow and I run about taking pictures.. but this year I only got a few shots before I had to do the glowing. Mo did the most and I got in for 20 minutes and laid the envelope down when we got a bit of a wiggle from the breeze. Nothing major just that it was time.

Below are a few shots I did get...

So much people in the basket to keep it on the ground. Light envelope.. hot air..wants to go fly.

In Czech ( aka Terpsnickery ) and we had lights this year!!!

Looking West at our friends...

In Czech is a lightbulb!!!

Looking North for a full balloon shot. We were a sammich.

Love that blue.

Not enough time to get many pictures.

Looking East.

Another East shot hoping to get everyone glowing.. nope.

Maybe next year I will let Mo glow his balloon and I will get more pictures. It was a fun evening. Had some hot food and some sweet food and lots of talk.. whew!

Now the balloon trailer and truck are in the side yard and all locked up, Out of the jeans and shirt and in some lounging clothes... Christmas Music on the computer... Not bad.

The only unfortunate of this holiday is the present we got my son didnt show up and its missing somewhere..... but he will enjoy it when he gets it..

A very classy coat with his balloon on the back and Pilot and his name on the front. Totally designed and made by Digital Stitchz ( http://digitalstitchzandelementz.net/) in California!!

So far the only complaint we have is we keep ordering black jackets and the dust we get all over the coats is dark tan.. so the coats get dusty quickly. Next iteration will be tan dang it!!!

Pretty awesome!

Other than all that is Mo did get to fly Saturday morning.. and yes..I dragged my tired old bones out.. it was fun... Swift flight Northward with a little dog leg at the start to the East.

Sunrise... with streamers...

Mo and trent. So fun to see these two flying off together.

Nice glow from both of them. A good day. But it was cold and my two small fingers on each hand were numb.

A good weekend so far....

Oh I also picked up a new computer a while ago to replace my Lenovo that just cant keep up. It took some time to set it up the way I wanted it but its on line now and I am typing this on it now. I have a larger SSD arriving some time but its swift. It has a SSD C drive or an M.2 drive which allows for instant boot. Its true too. Its a Alienware Aurora. Its glowing at me as we speak.. a nice yellow not unlike my envelope colors.. hahahaha..... So some more work to do with it next week.. some mirroring of the M.2 drive and swapping of stuff but all in all it rocks.  Half price too so that is a plus.

Other than that I believe I am getting a thermos for Christmas. Exactly what I wanted.

So to all my friends far and near.. Merry Christmas! I hope all your wishes now and in the future come true for you.

Good night!

( Twilight Zone Music fades out....... )

Brrr.. its cold out there.... But Ballooning!

It was cold out this morning.. 30 degrees. Okay.. not as cold as it was in Gallup nor cold as yesterday but it was cold. Glad I bundled up .. though the ends of my fingers were what were cold. Just that.

We are an emergency vehicle! We recover errant balloons! We needs some lights and a siren though.

Straight to it.

Last weeks shots that I hadn't got to till now below. I still have not done them all.... Lots n lots!

I shot for Single envelopes in the air, baskets as close as possible and active as possible and larger than life shots..

So larger than life... with people.

Larger than life with two envelopes raising at one time.

Larger and in your face.

Hello to you trying to weave out from in between all those balloons.

Up is the best way to avoid contact.

Now we are all ready to lift off.

No zebras on the field and you see what happens! Pandemonium!

Not really but it was fun to see the leaping into the air here and there without any rhyme or reason. No problem for these seasoned Pilots. Heh! We do very good formation flying.

So that was a fun week and I really do have to spend some time getting the remaining sets done.. then uploaded to my web site at Invisibleblack.zenfolio.com ... Ive been busy so no time yet.

Soooooo... up to date easily from last weekend and the weekend before.. busy busy.... Now for this weekend.

This Sunday was designated.. get Highperactive out of her dry bag and in the air.. shake the dust off her and see the sky..

I was watching the weather and we were first supposed to have high winds and then snow... and then it all went away.... so we headed out and parked next to Dean and his hopper. Didnt know it but they were going to fly. Cool!.. Some shots of that...

A hopper. One man balloon rig. Neat! Needs to be a barco lounger.

An experimental basket.. no really... but it had an envelope in it this time. They had another little single seat hopper to the right.

Dean gets some cool snake moves to his flame.  So that was fun.... once he got up and away we pulled out the basket and Highperactive.... wow does that envelope feel heavy after the Soarcoat 90.

Since it was cloudy I didn't take my camera on the flight but I did have the Kodak 360 running.

It caught some fun.

Rory releases us and we head East.. No.. not East!!!.. Hit the burner some extra second and up we go at 800 fpm. Boom! All the Southwest I wanted!

Roll out at about 6000 feet and head Southwest. Good track but flying the racer after the 90 Soarcoat is a bit difficult. Getting the right burn set to keep somewhat level flight was 20 minutes of ...ooops!! oops... oops... but then it got cool.

We flew over Paradise and the school and a black Aerostar right in front of us decided to drop out and went almost to ground level and we were still moving forward when he decided he wanted to come back up very quickly.

Seeing that, I could do one of two things. Hit my burners and go up about 200 feet to get away from him and also screw my flight plan to heck or descend as he ascended and slide past him.... which we did. I dropped about 200 feet and he came up next to us instead of under us. This is because the wind below was moving somewhat slower and he was coming through a push Southwest so he missed us easily.. If I had stayed where I was he would have been too close. He knew we were above him. The racer can move faster than he could so we were good to go up if necessary. Of all the space up there...hahaha

Crossing Unser and Paseo. Plan was to get across to the spot we were at and drop into the winds going Eastish. It worked very nicely making a quick and direct left turn in the sky.

Ground tracking above Paseo to a nice clear space next to the road. Smooth descent to get closer to the ground.

Shadow chasing. Down to about five feet at 5mph. Nice little sign in the way so I held it at 4ish so it was easy for Rory get grab on.

Rory the human wall grabbed and stopped us in the air using english or flex and stance control. Awesome!

Laid down in the nice "fine dust"! Yay! LOL. The envelope is re-coated in find dust again. Going to have to find some grass to roll her around in to get it all off.

Patturns Highperactive is a wonderfully reactive Lindstrand racer envelope. She moved and controls so very quickly. Since I requested Diamond Weave fabric completely she is also heavy. So packing her away will wear you out... for the moment. Really just need to take it slowly. I think this envelope is going to be still flying in 13 years or more. She is 7 1/2 years old now and there is no stopping her when she is in the air. Now that we have the Kennedy 90 she is only getting half time as I am switching them out each flight.... I like that.. and its fun! Changing the codes in the instruments is a bit of a pain though.

Packed up and put away we cruised back to Einstein bagels for some snacks. Had to park between two emergency vehicles and play possum while we went in to get foods. Back to the field and good conversations with everybody!! Nothing like standing in a dirt field in the middle of almost nowhere with 30 or 40 of your friends and sipping sodas or mimosas and nibbling on snacks. Its a good life!

Ive also this week been loading software on a computer. Its always a pain in the butt as you never remember what you had on the old computer and what you really use.. and then before I could side by side verify microsoft decides to update my computer and clear all my menus and such! Lovely. Thank goodness I had just taken pictures of my start menus.. so I could recreate them on the old as well as the new. 

Saying all that, I screwed up and loaded all the programs to the small SSD and not the 2tb drive.. oops.. damn!.... Not doing that again.. so getting a larger ssd to mirror and then replace the drive in there. Once that is done I can swap out computers and carry on. 

Now if I could only remember the name of the mirroring software.... hmmmmmm......

Age.. memory... no work well together.

Next is Christmas! Merry Christmas.... Well I will write one more blog before that... and I wont be showing you pictures of the glow next Sunday evening.. you will have to wait for those.... 

The Sony camera is still rocking it with its versatility. That was a worthy buy.

So we enter a new week.. and at work it will be quiet as we are under a moratorium. No routine maintenance until after the holidays. I will be creating paperwork and processing more paperwork. Its not bad.. just a lot of eye strain.

Hope your weekend rocked as well as mine did and if it didnt.. maybe you need to come out and crew and perhaps fly with us! Its never a dull moment.... ever!

A week later and still the glow is there

Red Rock Balloon Rally is a week in the past and still we are chatting about it! Bill Lee and Bill Noe and the other movers and shakers of the rally did a fine job and we keep coming back to that!

The Albuqueruqe Aerostat Ascension Association.... whew.. say that fast five times... put on the Jingle Bell non Rally this weekend. Two days of flying off the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Field without ZEBRAS!!! Woooooo...

I took over 1100 shots the first day and stunningly 875 shots the second day. I didnt mean to.

With the silent shutter on this Sony RX10V4 ( Auto setting chooses between the mechanical shutter and the digital one ) its blinking easy to fire off five to twenty four shots in one press of the shutter button. Looking back at the shots  though it would seem that that only happened a few times and I just took a dang lot of shots. I do know the first day I had the buffer bumping and lagging my ability to take more pictures.

I was doing a mass shot. I was shooting for envelopes, baskets in the air close up and then people. I wanted a shot of each balloon that took off in the air. I did that but it was hard. Okay.. so I expected I would go out the second day and maybe take a shot or two and be done.. nope.. Im not sure why but it got up to that 800 number. Its gonna be a long edit.

But I cant show any of that to you because I have to show you shot of last weeks ballooning in Gallup.... I only did other things last weekend for the Red Rock Rally.. So here goes....

Not all by far but some of my favorites.

Lindstrand Jetstream burners are powerful and very beautiful. Friday Night Glow.

With Mojo ( Ytivarg ) center stage the glow was great.

Those up against the canyon walls got nice reflections.. these are lights ( reflecting )  that were on in the area.

Dawn Patrol slips past the first peak.

PITAS KISS cuts across the knife edge of the first canyon and the people who climbed up strung out along the edge between dark and light.

Bill Lee in his sugar skull balloon gazing down on the brave.

Someone said lunch? Humpty slips down the back side of the canyon wall.

Who's next in line? Stop by, say hi 100+ feet up. Don't have a number.. back of the line!

Looking back at the out canyon launch area. There is an in canyon and out canyon launch space.

Mojo drifts across the top of a ridge heading for the next canyon.

Over the top and down into the dark. Touch the walls gently.

Easing into the crotch of crotch canyon. Everyone wants to give it a go.

Lemmings.... Not that real lemmings really jump to their death but this is more like follow the leader..

Dawn patrol touches the glowing rocks above our heads. ( this was shot at 600mm from across the field )

Red Rock Rally will still be talked about for a long time to come. It was worth driving out, staying three days, flying one time and driving all the way back home. It is a rally second only to the Balloon Fiesta and for flying it is a lot more fun... Or different fun. Fiesta.. 550+ balloons and the river...Gallup.. Canyons and Rocks.. Canyons and Rock!! Awesome lucky to live in this area.

Now next week I will have to combine what we did this week with what we plan to do next week.. unless next weekend is a bad weather weekend and then I can catch up on this blog.

I have been processing the video from my 360 video camera from Gallup and that video so far is awesome! Cant wait to have the time to edit it and show it off.

But many things to do and many pictures promised to people.. so that is what I will be doing next!

Cheers.. Stay Warm... Drink Eggnog!