Allotments of Time and Fallout 4

How do you spend your time?

Is it parceled out or are you just winging it through the day, week, month and year.

What is the better spent moment or day. Is it outdoor activities or just vegging in front of the television or computer. Which is more worthwhile. Both or neither.

I would say its dynamic, changeable and up to you what you think is worth what and what is not to bother with. If you enjoy that walk or ride great. If you would rather binge on Netflix go for it. Time will cause you to change and do something else for most people. There are some who can over do things. Unless they are directly causing you problems let them alone is my motto. So go have that bag of chips or watch the Walking Dead season one through five. Enjoy your time. That's all there is...

Enjoy it.

I think I will spend my afternoon enjoying my Granddaughter and see what new faces she can display and what control she has now.. It should be worth the time. She is a hoot to look at and watch over.

Soon the spoiling will begin.

The facebook banners and logos have been interesting. Waiting until I am ready to change the postings to come up with an idea is much better for me. An idea always hits...sometimes its been the whole day that inspires me towards one direction and sometimes I change my mind at the last minute and design a completely different thing. Here are a few from this week.

 Found scratches on my burner knobs. Tried to buff them out. No go. Omage to my old knobs as I am replaceing them.

We did a Beta test for a radar upgrade. It went very well with only a few bobbles. We are rocking a much better receiver system now.

Got a request for shots I took of Fiesta. Very nice to be asked for photographs. I always worry that every shot looks like every other shot.

Ran out of time while working hard and late. Had the thought to scribble a design. The stick men are supposed to be zebras giving thunbs up. One looks less that happy with that finger.

Situations in the ballooning community cause me to have to balance what is fair over what will ruin a good thing.. but if its bad then it should be stopped.. correct?

Cutting cheese for cheese and crackers and drinks after flying at the Sunday AAAA meet...which didn't happen due to the rain and wind.. so it will be cheese sammiches for lunch this week.

The stormy stormy clouds overhead caused a general limit out of limits error in the earthly global computer systems. Rain error, storm error, water damage error highlight level 1, soggy feet error level 3 and a general protection fault kept me in bed texting crew to stay in their beds and warm.

It is one of those days to consider the amount of work that goes into getting ready to fly and then the niceness of just sitting in your chair with a hot cup of coffee playing games instead. I miss the conversations and the impromptu breakfasts at which ever restaurant is nearby but it was nice to be at home.

Listening to a version of Matjora Is Still Alive by Johannes Schmoelling. Its very good music for a day like today. Rumbly and a beautiful chord dance.

Next up with me sections of Adele and some Tangerine Dream. Then the kids get here with Emily.

I had a good time ( figuratively ) with Fallout 4 this week. Rebuilding of settlements continued with the new building materials. Before it was hunt wood up as much as possible.. buy wood when you could.. now its steel. Steel and copper and rubber and ceramic. There is a new generator and its fusion. I didn't think there would be a need for a thing that big or powerful.. hah.. Yeah.. retrofitting every place with them. 100 power. I can use that up now fast installing powered gun turrets and lights and lots and lots of water. I have to go back and adjust a few things but about 26 settlements have been updated and set with loads of water processing. Water is the life blood. It even sells very well.

If it was not for the raiding that happens it would be a o k. Sadly the game keeps hitting me with three or four attacks on settlements at the same time so I have to race from flare up to the next.. wipe it out or oversee it then jump to the next one since if I don't show up in time it breaks things in the settlement I have to then fix. One bad one was enough for me to upgrade a wall of guns. Warlord class Mutants in a group. Took me standing toe to toe with my explosive shot gun to knock them back. You would think the game would wise up and stop raids but that would be too astute of a "game".

Some of many screen shots.

Big decisions with limited supplies is to rip apart a settlement and upgrade it. You always loose part of whatever you are salvaging. Since I moved to community living in a secure strong structure with facilities and a single room for each settler..this was the easiest and most economical way to go about it. Twenty rooms on two levels with bath and toilet and beds and a community living and dining area.

THis is the Starlight Drive In. Completely revamped. From this spot you cant see the furnishings inside but you can see the water plants in the top right corner. All surrounding the "hot springs" in the middle. It even has a basketball court. Hah!

Night shot of the area. Wish you could have more than 21 people living there.

Another tough mod. The Slog. Huge amount of area to manage and locate the housing. Power and water are protected behind curtian walls. Power Armor ready to go on its mount.

By day The Slog is quite nice. Tempted to take the water filtering units from the pool...Loads of weapon positions to protect it.

Pain Wall. This is at Summerville Place. Since the game pops raiders into the middle of it regardless of the huge walls I have put up and the weapons everywhere.. I have made a wall of pain. All powerfull automatic rocket launcher and laser positions. If they still pop in I might add another level.

Tenpines Farm. This was the first place I upgraded using the new building materials.. It didnt come out well but gave me the ideas to hone into what I create now and how... with as little extra supplies necessary. Now all the crops are farther down and protected. There is a large open area for traders to arrive in. The housing has windows all around and its subjectively nice to come to.

Norhagen Beach was a tough nut. It was a large area but the housing I had there was ok. I completely changed and raised the curtain walls and the housing is up another level and wider. A nice platform for traders to arrive at. Its nice too. I still have to flip the crops around.

Opposite view showing the housing and support columns. I try to create supports for all this as you would have to in the real world if I can.

Jamaica Plane. A very limited place to build. You cannot build high here. I have the roof of the housing as high as you can go.

Daylight in Jamaica. The odd angles is due to the odd angle of the building space. It was very hard to get that right.

Spectacle Island. This place. Its so huge that the supplies needed to make it right would be enormous. I decided to try it and see if I could get the people out of the scrabble together wood shacks they were in. I decided to cover the very rough terrain with flooring and grow crops in orderly places instead if in and around bushes and crap. It in the end turned out very nice indeed. Ada hamming it up in front of the camera again.

Looking South East. A very nice terrazzo and wonderful place to walk and tend the crops. Lighting and benches and gun turrets to keep it all safe and sound. The big box in the middle that is now the Local Armor point is a shack you cant remove full of dead people who never go away. So I covered it.. added up-lighting and a place to set my Armor. Turned out nicely. even added lion statues and a fountain.

Inside the community's great room. Art on the walls. Seats to sit and silly Ada in the middle.

Looking North at the Armor and fountain. Shops are on the main terrazzo.

Front the North East corner. There is even cows behind and a little patio in the back to let off steam with an overlook of the Atlantic Ocean. Even the dog box has a sun and rain cover.

The fusion generator in Jamacia Plain. Armor above in case you get ideas.

I have spent a lot of time on this game. I love it because I can build what I want to build... perhaps not as wildly or where I want but its fun... Much more fun than the other Fallout games. Think how fun this would have been in New Vegas and 3.

Was or has it all been a huge waste of time..... No... for a few reasons... Its fun to go blow things up or save people or just remove raiders from existence after a frustrating day... its cool to see what you can come up with for living arrangements for people who only exist inside the game but after a while of dressing them in clothes and giving them jobs its nice to see them going about their days... and seeing the happiness meter going up.. silly huh.. And the game has let my mind sit on that instead of reality's harsh crap it was driving through every night instead of letting me sleep. I was dreaming of building instead of going over conversations in my head incessantly... Back to almost normal sleeping patterns.. And silly dreams of silly things. So the game and the amount of time I have spent playing it have been worth it for the peace it gives me... Blowing things up is fun too.

On the 19th a new segment ( DLC ) drops with a large zome and new storylines.. Far Harbor.. and supposedly.. ELEVATORS!!! I get to add elevators to some of my settlements.. that should be fun.

I hope you have been wasting your time in things that make you happy. Go waste some more.. because its never a waste if it help you get through those rough spots in the life we live. Enjoy.

Happy Mothers Day! and sites.

A quiet Mothers day...as we usually run these things.. Just like Father day and Valentines day and every other concocted day to remove money from your pocket for some made up event. Don't fall into it. Though I will wish a wonderful Mothers day to my mother and wife and daughter and friends now..I am not going to go buy things for them because its "that" day. I can do that at any time of the year and its much more heart felt if its spontaneous than set to a day or date. If you note Walmart you can see that they have a holiday set up so that one leads into another so you are forever buying stuff your loved one really doesn't want or need. If... and I qualify this.. If your significant other insists you buy expensive stuff on specific days..... maybe its not you but what you give that has drawn them to you... Just saying. My opinion.

The most wonderful person is the one that is not into things or bits of stuff. For your consideration.



I have spent that last week or so refiling my files. I had split my photographic files into Raw and Jpg but it got out of hand trying to back those up and onto multiple drives and all through a Windows Surface computer that will not allow more than 7 items to be hung off a USB device. That is one of the most annoying things about a Surface is that limitation that they still haven't fixed. Seriously irritating. But I digress. So... Moving files around.. verifying.. finding bad or corrupt files ( that's why they are backed up ) and moving them.. we are talking terabytes of data. Its a pain in the butt. I am re-backing up a drive because due to a corrupt file I cannot delete it. So for one folder I have to format the whole drive if the chkdsk wont clear it. Ugh! I have hopes.

Work related... I had to take some leave as I had run past the permissible limit on a type of time.. If they paid it out on time it would have been a lot less and I was also not aware of the limitation so... regardless I had to bring my time back down..which I have almost done. I have 45 minutes to clear off still.. Probably next week I will leave early. Its put a crimp on my work load. Works still there but times not so I have to consider what is more important first and that changes as people walk into my office. It makes it all the more interesting. Fun most times. A great job but don't tell anyone I like it.

The facebook banners have been dark this week as I am in a mood. Not explaining. No.













The last one came to me while my mind was thinking of something entirely different.  A good tether is very important in ballooning and the only time its not used is if its dead calm and its still a good idea to use it. It keeps your balloon from taking off before its hot enough to go up. Surface winds will at times take a balloon off the ground while it is not inflated of hot enough to lift.. which is called false lift and you will smack down right after if you let it happen. Bad things happen then.

Which reminds me that I forgot to add something to the CB so I will be doing that right after I finish here... sheesh. The CB has been problematic this month.

Fallout 4... Irritated.

With the new building mods available its still a pain in the ass to figure out how to build things around objects you cant move.. some are so irritating ... wow... just reverted to an old save for the third time since the location I wanted to mod was so unfix-able. Ugh.

Some of the others...

County Crossing is one of the easier places to upgrade except for one tree and two power poles.


Coastal Cottage sucked due to trees again. If there are trees they should be removable damn it.


My Army awaits. Heh.


Yeah.. frustrated and a new DLC is on its way... Maybe I should just wait for it to arrive. Sigh.

Now back to your regularly scheduled viewing.

Oh. I had my burners out of my hands for a while and my pilot light switches got damaged. Well I received a nice call from the builder about how to fix them.. Which I will do this week. No time to hit a store for supplies  so I will get to it. Nice that I am able to remove the knobs myself. Hoping I can polish them out without changing their look. If not......

It may be May but it feels like January. FALLOUT 4!!

Cant work outside and even the garage is a bit chilly.. whcih means... MORE FALLOUT 4!!!

Who can hate that?

Okay I know one person.. but they cant hit me from where they are sitting so... hahahahaha....

First though..I hate paperwork hoops, red tape without the ability to correctly clear it. Nuff said.

Changes in Fiesta.. Since my Son got his private Pilot licence last week we decided at this time to enter him into Fiesta as my second pilot.. and since his balloon is working ( my first balloon ) I thought it would be great if he could fly his own balloon in his first Fiesta. It is a very great responsibility and it is a daunting task to fly with 500 plus balloons. Yes.. in Albuquerque we do fly with more than a regular rally ( 25/35 balloons ) usually but 500 plus is a very large number to be working around. SO.. I will be having a chat with him about it here and there so that he really understands that your head has to be on a swivel at all times in a 360 degree sphere and you cant relax until you clear most of the traffic around you...which is usually 30 to 45 minutes into the flight.

Its am amazing thing to do. It is THE bucket List thing if you ever did a bucket list ( of which I do not ). I am just happy that the wonderful people at AIBF ( Jenn and others ) make it so easy to do. So for the 15th year I think we are going to do what so few get to do. Maybe this will give me an incentive to finishing off last years videos.

I did get to fly this Saturday.. it was excellent... So shots...

Another PIT on her practical flying examination. She did great..even with me getting in front of her and bouncing around... and she was also doused in syrup and sparkles like my son... sigh....

Trent and I drop in and land in the arroyo. Took the moment of non movement to get some up pictures trying to recreate a shot I want to make huge.. missed it again. Damn. Then we went up and out then back in.. touched and left a strange mark in the sand then way up and away.

Looking back at the gaggle. Great shot of Olaugh ( sp) and the city.

More balloons chasing us ( hah ) See the shadow in the arroyo.. just back from there is where we touched down. It was a load of fun though the winds were squirrelly enough to have me land after 45 mins.

I headed for a nice open zone next to Unser and lined up as the winds showed but when we started to drop down lower the wind shifted us East where there was no wind before....dropped more just to see what was there along the edge and found a cooker heading North West which brought us right to where I wanted to land.. and it was a nice one over a building and pretty clear of mess except for one chair.. so strange. Landed, packs and put away with only four of us. Only bummer for the day was somehow my pilot switches ( knobs ) got scuffed up and that made me mad because I take very good care of it and that means when it was out of my hands it was treated less kindly than it should have been. Now I have to get replacements unless I can polish it out;.. sigh.

Today its so nasty outside everything I had planned is shot. No dump runs.. no more shed cleaning, no garage clear.. all I can do is work on pictures, files, and play FALLOUT!!

Okay.. I only played a bit.  I ( cover your eyes anyone who does not like video games.. shhh ) Am upgrading my settlements now that there is cement walls, windows, doors and a bunch of other stuff to work with. It makes it a bit easier to clear area and raise housing up and get separate rooms for each settler. I kept to a formula build with two rows of five rooms to a side with an open center space for living. Even toilets and bathtubs.. damn fine! Here are some shots of a few places upgraded.

Warwick... ( okay.. if there was a way to structurally support some things I would but you work with what they give you ) Open area.. nice grated flooring on the main settlement rest area... Seats and stores.

Neat new lighting choices too.

Warwick provisioner rest area with dog and box. I have now started moving my doggies up to the main area.


Kingsport.  The back of this is a massive cement wall build. Took ages to get it to sit right. MASSIVE! Upper area on housing block is the settlement generators. Hidden away from nasty people with guns. I put my armor up on the roof since Kingsport has a limited footprint.


Taffington. I really had to adjust the back wall and side walls to allow for the unmovable and unworkable items in the game. Lots of frustration sitting walls down. Note the floating roof line to the right. Yes.. I did float a roof here.. because the game creators do not allow you to rebuild roofs on existent housing and you cant move the beds nor settlers that are there. Stupid.. I also have a problem with dead people who do not go away. It made me mad so I made them a roof.


Taffington from across the river. The new cement walls let me really secure the river side and right corner. Before it just wold not let you sit anything down right. Water filtration plants below the housing. One of my big moves is to have all settlements support as much water filtering as possible. Oh and the floating roof to the right. HAH!


Sommerville. Had the original housing over the top of the roof I cannot repair ( but I can make huge cement forms! ). Here I had a huge span and if possible I would have a support pillar on each side of the house but I cant. This block house is not attached to the back wall but has a walk way between the outer wall and the rooming area so that windows could be placed in each room. Upgraded all the weapon emplacements too.


Zimonja.... whatever. Bad place to build anything. You cannot remove the center shacks and they are a jump in point for raiders and other creatures all the time. Very small footprint to build so I built way up. I moved the crops and water out of the way of where the raiders jump in and surrounded that spot with laser emplacements. Here is the housing and main rest. I decided to completely cover the area with grated flooring to allow sunlight into the well. Housing is again detached from the exterior wall for safety and light.


The Zimonja well. See that crap off to the left.. irritating. That big metal wall to the right hides all the water filtration plants. Turrets everywhere. Again if I could have put a pillar in the middle I would have.



Latest hard build site is Finch farm.. or now. Finch Fortress. Housing separated from the exterior wall. Crops below with cow and water filtration. This is the first settlement I decided to use a fusion plant on the roof instead of small generators. Since this settlement gets hit by high level attacks all the time I surrounded it with the most powerful weapons and ran electricity to everything. Nifty and pretty nice place to live.

Interior shot of housing.. not great art on the wall but it beats severed heads of cows...

Finch Fort looking North East. Armor on display over the main gate with two guard posts and massive weapons on the wall above.

Fusion! 100 power points per. I didn't need anywhere near that much but it was more compact than the other generators and its not belching smoke. I probably should have run multiple lines for back up but it was not necessary.

FFort. Looking at the lower provisioner waiting area on right...and the nice new lighting set up to use some of that fusion power.


FFort from the outside looking at the gate. Why such a small stairway up and in. Cause raiders love to run up them and get inside. This stops that. Tried dual nice stairways and ramps. No way to close the gateway so this is the fix.


Zimonja and Finch were probably the hardest to build but Finch worked better and faster than I thought. Now.. Now I have to go farm my settlements for water and supplies so I can buy more steel and cement and wood.  It takes a while to do that with a stop in the middle to buy stuff and scavenge and the attacks on settlements.

Its been a lot of fun so far. There are rumors of elevators coming and some other building options so I am not working real fast to rebuild every settlement.... and I know I will go back to those I have done and add elevators in for sure.

I had nine settlements attacked almost at the same time yesterday. Three, two, three, and one. I and my settlements repelled every one. A few all I did was stand there while my auto turrets erased the attackers to the point I was looking for eyeballs in the grass. Excellent.

Trying to screen capture that is very hard as it happens so fast once I have popped in.

More to do but its almost babysitting time for the granddaughter so... I am off to see what else I can get done before then.

Have a good one.. Stay safe.. always drink Nuka Cola!

PS I keep setting up my shots of the game with my camera eye.. hilarious.