Potentials.... and other things

I've always told people... friends, acquaintances, family...to back up their data.. be that pictures, videos, music, whatever...

After the loss of a favorite file of photographs or a set of videos ( guilty of both ), I made it a rule to back up my files as much as possible.

What way you do that is wholly up to you though. You can buy an external drive and copy files there. You can buy a raid box and back up to there. You can even buy chips or thumb drives and back up to there... but you NEED to back up your data!

I didn't go the RAID way though that is pretty much the easiest way to back up files.

Reason?

Its only one device.

What I mean is... Let's say you have a Raid unit ( you can go on Amazon and type in RAID hard drive and it will come up with a ton of devices that are easy to set up and use ) in your home. You diligently copy all of your photographs and videos to it every day.... you go to work.. house catches on fire ( G Forbid ) and your Raid is a melted hunk of junk. Oops!

Raid arrays or boxes are great if you have them secured...

What I prefer and though its a bit more work I think its the best possible process...

I have mirrors. By mirrors I mean I have an 8 TB drive for pictures and an 8 TB drive of an exact copy of that drive. I usually label them Pri for Primary and Bak for Backup. 8 TB for Videos and an exact copy 8 TB for the backup videos.

As the picture above shows.... 6 drives..

This way when I go off on a wander I can take three of the drives and store them at work. Normally I have the backups at work all the time. House gets broke into ( again GF ) ... still, have copies...

Saying this, you still have to drag them home and update the files on them so they are exact..and sometimes that does not happen for weeks... but mostly I have the best chance of never losing anything again.

As of this moment in time, I am fully mirrored!! Yay Me!!

And so along comes another problem.

I edit continuously... so what I do is have a 256 gig thumb drive I drag around with me and when I want to edit a picture file Ill copy it to the thumb drive.. edit then recopy everything back to the mirror drives... but along the way I edit or pick up other files I want to use or modify or copy...whatever... the thumb drive gets full. What do I do with all those miscellaneous files?

Can't go on the video drive as that's videos.. cant go on the picture drive as that's only pictures....

I decided I needed two mirror drives for all the other stuff. Amazingly through updating my hard drives from 2 TB to 4 TB to 8 TB I have drives available. So two of my old 4 TB Samsung drives will become the new Editor Drives 07 and 08.

Now to consider a filing system and naming solution.

My videos and pictures are by year, then inside that the labels are Year Month Day Device Reason... or
2019 02 24 Nikon D7100 18 200 Sundays shots of nothing.

But with the editor drive it will have to be different.

I'll think about it and let you know what I decided.

At the end of all that talking... or typing... I just want to get you all safe and sound and backed up!!!!

Here are a few shots of what I took this week. I tried to take a picture a day but I missed one day and got more then next...

Tuesday's snow event. For New Mexico and Albuquerque, it's impressive.... We have a blizzard..LOL

Trying to focus and capture a single star snowflake on my own arm.. yeah.. so not happening.

Flags they are a flappin!

Day after... blue skies and a 7am moon.

Contrasts were cool so I had to get the shot.

Then there was a Hawker jump jet just sitting there. Let's see if the focus can lock on it behind the fence. Nicely done.

Tower against the mountains.

Close up using the standard optical... good but lots of stuff in the air between causes some softness.

More snow and the warming of the rocks.

The bridges own wood grain is showing in the snow above it.

Just trying to last till 12pm....

Snow in Albuquerque is usually gone by lunchtime unless it's snowing all day. One of the nice things about living in the desert.

Snow Time Limits.

I did also do the youtube blah blah thing again. I surf youtube looking at what it recommends... More narrow boating, some camping, and some RV type stuff... then for some reason I got a bunch of model building things and some very out there stuff .. so whatever algorithm youtube uses.. .. it has a flat spot on it.

I took this shot in the Walmart parking lot.. a nice quarter million survivorist RV...

Some are as high as 2.5 million but this one I think is one of the cheapest. I like it but really.. when would I ever use it..... says the person who wants a narrow boat ( dreaming ) Even less able to use that.... Hotels and free breakfast for me...LOL.

I get distracted easily.

Alright.. so for next week... get the camera out once a day and get shots of SOMETHING!!!..

Figure out what naming convention to use on the new Editor drive.

Think about dusting... Seriously.. do not move to New Mexico if you hate dust. You will kill yourself trying to keep it down to a minimum.

Oh.. yes... As soon as 22 gauge speaker wire shows up relocate Pioneer subwoofer to a less irritating and more listening pleasing area.

How was your week?

A white and citrus yellow cloud.

She might look like a light bulb, a bright distortion in the sky, or a little white and citrus yellow cloud in the sky but she flys like a dream. Patturns In Czech aka Terpsnickery is a fun balloon all around.

Today she flew along side her builder's first balloon, MOJOs Reverse Gravity Machine aka YTIVARG!

For me, I got to fly a person who has never flown before and so did Morghan. Along with their parents who had flown in a ride balloon years ago, they got to enjoy a personal flight bouncing about the stretch of Unser Blvd between Southern and Westside and even past Cherry road up North.

I was able to get a few shots in and this was my favorite of them all. Below you can see the full shot.

Just the depth of field on this shot made it great. Its like just there is the edge of the world and Mo is cruising right for it.

I decided to have a shorter flight and landed next to a Five Guys restaurant... maybe I was hungry. I know I had a crummy direction that I could not get changed regardless of the height I was ( without getting silly and going up to 10,000 feet ) so we had a fun little float over a school, some houses and a couple of trees and landed nicely next to a dirt road.

Crew roared up right after and taxied us down to a bit of road going the way we wanted ( and the envelope would want to go due to wind ) to lay down. We did and packed her away while the balloon that took off next to us landed next to us and proceeded to pack up too. That was fun.

After that, we decided to see where Mo had gotten off to as one of Mo's rules is if he has propane he can find a landing spot near when its all gone.... yeah... in an arroyo North a bunch of blocks. Getting to him was a fun run down some very unimproved roads and then into a very sandy arroyo. The Ram enjoyed everything but dragging the trailer through the soft sand. She never bogged down but she did swish about a bit.

They were pretty much packed up by the time we arrived and so we watched and laughed then drove back to real tarmac roads.... then back to the field to tell the story of hot air ballooning and give out pins.

Then it started to snow.... so my rule is.. snow... go home and have coffee or cocoa... so we did.

I was only able to take a few shots ( really ) with the Sony RX10V4. They came out nicely even with the funky light... A little tweak to the curve and they were light enough.

Here are all I took.

Seth lifts out. Seth got a lot of cover from me today as he was or I was or we were each other's shadows.

Another balloon heads out. I think they found the very slow West but it was too slow for my hyperactiveness. A Top Gun Target is laid out to the left.

The full version of the banner picture. Mojo rides the waves to the edge of the world.

A close crop ( with the Sony RX10V4 I can crop all day without losing resolution ( It seems )) of Mo and Unser Blvd. There is a line out there that you don't want to go past unless you have LOTS of fuel.

Seth drops out and finds a bit of South or that is what it looked like to me.. but then he came back up and was overhead.

WORLD BALLOON cruises into the area. Bold Bright and some of the best pilots flying these ride balloons.

A slight crop on the second shot I took of them coming North. A fun ride for the 10 or 12 passengers.

Going high to look for some steerage... nope.. none! ... Left this size to show the edge of my basket and the arroyo and the houses with no paved roads and the soft browns of it all. Running / biking track directly below.

Dropping down at about 700 feet per minute which for In Czech is trying as she likes to stay up... but the Flytec 6040s were giving me a drop alarm as they should.

We leveled out about 100 feet up and dropped down to do a simulated landing on the bike / running path before heading back up to play with Seth. Mo down low chasing rabbits..

Shadows... Never close enough to touch but nice enough to talk if we wanted.

Mo does some landing preps next one of the Top Gun Targets.

Seth and his passengers trying to go for the target I was blocking them from... LOL.

Dropping back down into a little faster wind....

After that Mo headed North... we landed.. Seth came in behind and did a touch and go and then another balloon landed. A load of fun but I had to put the camera down to control the minute burns and vents to get exactly where I wanted to be...and I did .. which makes me very happy.

Nothing like hitting a landing spot picked out over a thousand or so feet away and in a different wind level.

Other than that we enjoyed a bit of a quiet day sleeping off the morning.

What I was listening to while blogging this.

One of my favorite songs.


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRSNy8DcIDk&list=RD65n3Wxg0c4Q&start_radio=1

During the week and even now I am still watching the narrow boat vlogs on youtube. Some sad shots of trash and hypodermic needles were strewn all over the edges of the canals... very sad.

I watched a lot on the railroad system in England and the changes over the years and that is a nightmare of oddness. Open stations.. close stations.. move them a block here.. or a block there just to close them again... Seriously! Stop already! What a waste of material, energy and scrubbing the beautiful countryside on and off with buildings.. ugh! So many train track routes that are disused, equipment tossed aside to be overgrown... one thing I do have to say is the English countryside will take back over in a hot second and I like that. Go nature!

Out here in the desert, it takes a bit longer... Mostly with the trash dumped out in the desert the sun and dry kills it first.. and if it doesn't then the rabbits or coyote's take it back to their dens for that rustic furniture look. It's sad that we have dumps all over the city that are super cheap to use but lazy people think it's okay to drop that Barco-lounger just anywhere.

Go sun! Go Weather! Go nature!

So much fun running off the rails or thought.

Enjoy your week! Next weekend I think we are resting and the flying the weekend after that... or something. I want to get out and get more photographs of things other than balloons...

When you have Friends and Lovers... The Rally.. The Rally!!

This weekend was the AAAA... you're going to make me write it out, aren't you....The Albuquerque Aerostat Ascension Association....

The AAAA's Valentine's rally called the Friends and Lovers Rally. This event runs every year and is hosted on the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Park.

Around 150 hot air balloons.... let that sink in.... a "local" rally had 150ish balloons.......

We have lots of people come in from outside the state for this little bit of fun....

The first day was too frisky in the wind department so the only thing to do was to do the crew games... with horrible cheating going on all over!!!!...

So off to breakfast some of us went while others decided to just start the tail gate early inside the Sid Cutter Pav.. Or as we call it.. The Sid!

On day two you could tell people wanted to get some air under their feet... and luckily the weather reports were okay..... with some questions.. but okay to try it.

Out the Pilots and crews went to the field... scattering all over via the roads only to go on the grass at the last moment to save it any undue damage...

Setting up and shaking the dust out was done quickly...very quickly. Three balloons were up in what seemed moments.. and they were off...

There was a hesitation waltz set up.. that means there were two targets but you could only throw a baggie at one...

Looked like the task was quite doable.. and they did do it...

There was even a nice Albuquerque Box in effect and people used that to get better locks on the targets or just to zip over the field...

See... about fifty feet up to around one hundred feet the winds had come up and were doing in excess of 15mph.. and those balloons that sat in it very quickly went right overhead and gone South.

Most picked up the higher winds and went North again.... In the end, there were a lot of balloons whos Pilots were able to re line up on the field and land back on it. Some were nice and swift..some were a bit bumpy and others were quite interesting....

After all that fun there was a brunch and raffles and silent auctions of items. All of it came off fantastic. It was a good weekend for everyone.... Though I think Bob hurt his leg.... we think...Could be an old injury he is milking.... we will check on that.

What I did was sit just at the South East corner of the field and take pictures of anything and everything I found interesting. I have taken a lot of pictures of hot Air Balloons but it's always neat to find another angle or a different way to shoot them... plus.. there are the crews and pilots ... and they are always doing novel things.

I ended up shooting about 2000 frames over two days. More the last day. It's so easy with the Sony RX10V4. You cant hear the shutter and if you rest your finger on the shutter button you get five shots before you lift off it.

Below are some of the shots from the first day and a few from the second. I am nowhere near going through day 2.

Normally I shy away from taking shots of people close up but I decided I was not close up if I stood across the room and used the 600mm reach... so... animated my friends are...

The Special Events team did a bang up job with the stuff.... These bar towels were sweet!

Family... Family is big in the ballooning community....

What Pibal?

5am comes so early...

Please use the exits at the front and back of the building...... seat trays should be up and stored.

No really!!! More colorful things in the air?

Laughter makes everything so much better... One of the best smiles.

This small crewmember is quite ready.. why are all the tall people so slow.

Carried along on the shoulders of parents. Lots of people came out just to watch.

Fully inflated and ready to go and partially inflated and trying hard to make it happen faster.

PITAS KISS serenely floats over the slow people below. Bob made three loops over the field in the Albuquerque Box winds.

Coming through.. or around.. or... that way....

I'll tell you when we get there or I am turning this thing right around!

Hot and floating....

Sometimes you have to get on things to get this on... Setting up an Aerostar basket is always a lot of fun with pins.

A baggie is seen hanging down the outside of the basket... ready or not it's going for a target.

Just a few... so many fun shots to show still and so many good people to put up to make you smile.

I expect I will have all of the shots sorted by next weekend and I should be able to upload everything to my website as well so I will set a link in next weekends blog to that... and there are a lot I didn't post here because it would kill my storage.

A good weekend... even if it was terribly early mornings and way late evenings.

Tomorrow is Monday and I get to go to work and sit and do regular things and drink coffee... no cold air up the back of my shirt nor numb fingers or running noses... but I will miss all that fun we had...

Until next weekend!!!

Next weekend I am flying friends friends family and friends. Hopefully, the weather and winds are a lot less frisky. I need to do some hops. If it's not nice then no hops.. and maybe no fights..

Fingers crossed!!

See you next weekend!

Distorted days. Surviving bronchitis induced wobbliness.

Coming to the end of my medication and nothing has changed. Even local and remote ideas for cutting this cough down have failed miserably. Plans to return to the urgent care to see what new dizzyness inducing meds might possibly help me kick this out of my chest is top of my thoughts.

My head is full of ducks!



After multiple days of youtube watching insanity... yes.. because moving about... breathing deep is a very bad thing.. so it's all .. sit still as possible.. breath shallowly and try not to reflex cough.

Good luck if you have to sneeze!

So nothing but a lot of thinking .. disjointed... unspecific and nonlinear has been done. Trying to have a cogent thought or even a line of thoughts is next to impossible!~

So let's watch more things that won't make you laugh.. because laughing means breathing and breathing is pain.. so find interesting things... like All the Stations ( its British humor so you can control the laughs .. most times ) and Narrowboat people doing narrow boat things and station visits... and some asides of people who might be interesting.

Reflex pain!!!

One short excursion for some over the counter meds and a stop at the local pond to see about ducks outside my brain pan...

All shown without reservation.... All shot while trying not to fall on ... the ground, into the pond, onto own face. Surprisingly crisp.

Lots of ducks.

Other than all that the jumbles of trying to sort out youtube video upload processes, adding music that isn't copyrighted, editing in different ways... and thoughts of panels for an intro video.... And brain isnt working right.

What else can be done then...

Not interested in Fallout 4 gaming...just skip this next bit.

Fallout 4 the game.

1. Completed game with no mods on Xbox. Fun.
2. Completed game with mods from Xbox. Fun but things were breaking.
3. Completed game with mods that were added to see if they were better than the Xbox so so mods.. broke game.
4. Tried a different way of modding.. broke game.
5. Bought Alienware Aurora R7 and Steam Fallout 4 and modded it in increments....

Still going strong but boy can I get some fun things and crashes.. but its what I wanted it to do. Been playing it for years now. Fallout 76 is so bad that I didn't even think about buying it.

Here is what I wanted... to play the game but also build what I wanted somewhat where I wanted and how I wanted. A bunch of mods later I can build outside ( a bit in places, a lot in some others and not at all in other places...) Same with height and then there are the additions.

Things you can't really change or I'm not going to try and change.. Games spawn locations for enemies. They spawn them inside a ten-foot thick walled enclosure regardless so I get to add overwhelming auto weapon positions.

No ability to build supports for long floor spans.. none used. A bunch of other things too but this isn't the time to go into all that.

Below is a settlement called Finch Farm. You will note a few things. All the gardens are on raised platforms... because the game pops raiders in and they trash them if they are on the ground. All housing and beds ( have to have beds for the settlers,,, as well as food, water, lighting and weapons or protection. )

I adjusted this site so many times but now I think it's enough.. added a place at the center top for all the special weapons you can get or find or rip out of the hands of enemies. Then added living quarters at the top for my character... not the only one in the game by far.

If it works and you can watch the walk through.. enjoy... if not... Ah well I will try again.


Tried to clip a Fallout 4 video of a settlement. Full mods on.

VIDEO DIDNT WORK.. so uploading it to my website then i will fix the link.

New link .....

https://InvisibleBlack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/ec38db39e



I thought this was funny....

START HERE AGAIN...

So the next step in all this is to get back to the Care center... see about new meds.. get better.. go to the Winchester... no  no.. wrong plot... Hmm... not as much excitement... Back to work.. get things done!! Would love that... Start working on Youtube channels... Have some fun ballooning.

I was going to go ballooning this weekend but ended up not being able to due to the.... the.... yes!... Meds!!!!

So I an watching for the next chance.

Next weekend is the Friends and Lovers rally on Sat and Sun. Hoping the weekend after that to get out the balloon and go fly...

Plus I got this nice doc bag to use in highperactive....

So much coughing going on in all this that you ... luckily don't have to listen to...

Hope you all are healthy and relaxing.