Christopher's Lives (v5.4) » balloons

LifeStream for 2008-09-20 [fixed]

Automated Post — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 05:59:59 +0000

	6:12am	Yyyyyaaaaaawwwwwnnnnn… SPN was interfered with AGAIN… Was still up past midnight… Now, up making lattes – gotta go see balloons…
	7:12am	Gonna launch a balloon http://zannel.com/u/M4K9FGU67B
	7:22am	Beginning inflation http://zannel.com/u/27YTFAS85X
	7:27am	Almost there http://zannel.com/u/XHHUQFO71U
	7:39am	A 2 year old's first hot air balloons. — christopher… http://tinyurl.com/4z5gkz http://zannel.com/u/W70F7FO8GN
	7:49am	About 10 'loons hanging around. — christopher… http://tinyurl.com/4z5gkz http://zannel.com/u/AFR3YH095O
	8:09am	Different location – lotsa balloons. — christopher… http://tinyurl.com/4z5gkz http://zannel.com/u/4G1Y9M8AGD
	8:19am	Tether rides http://zannel.com/u/6NHRQ78J0C
	8:20am	More balloons http://zannel.com/u/XBL91QG1SO
	8:39am	Witch and cactus http://zannel.com/u/SF9MGL3A0J
	9:36am	Dammit – forgot my phone cam was still set to very dark… Well, those pics are ruined… But, i took tons of photos – stay tuned :)
	9:38am	grrrrrrAAARRRR!!! AND i had audio off on the vids!!! Mannnnnn, this sucks :(
	1:05pm	Getting our hair done. Anber is awesome and she is moving away :( http://zannel.com/u/2G9K32Y5KG
	4:32pm	Been in motion since 530 after only 4 hours of sleep – nap time, slumber party tonight – gonna do blu-ray of Flatliners, great SPN choice :)
	4:35pm	We got some special gourmet munchies and hand-blown Bodum Pavina 9oz glasses (on clearance!!) from World Market in El Paso yesterday :)
	6:30pm	GR shared: HOWTO: Adding a signature/watermark overlay to Photographs using Open-Source .. http://is.gd/2TRo
	7:12pm	Wesley… Screaming, drooling Teletubbies fan. This was a week or two ago – playing a game for him on the … http://zannel.com/u/DCB63MR71H
	7:34pm	christopher scrobbled a song on Last.fm. Sara Bareilles – Love Song
	7:43pm	christopher scrobbled a song on Last.fm. Ingrid Michaelson – The Way I Am
	9:23pm	Eating footlong chili dogs from Sonic, listening to the Dr Demento show from april 5, 1998 – gonna roll the movie soon…
	11:34pm	Flatliners does not strike me as dated one bit, this film could be released today- it is gorgeous and atmospheric… It is as cool as ever
	11:37pm	the laserdisc was garbage and i don't recall even a decent dvd release – the blu-ray looks great but … http://zannel.com/u/GYONBPRLOR
	11:39pm	(forgot to mention that the pic in the first 15 mins or so was muddy and flat and reminicent of previous t… http://zannel.com/u/YOZM5SZFHK
	1:32am	By happy coincidence, i happened to drop in on my Twitter page and notice my update count – this msg gets me my comma: 1,000 tweets :)

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flickr’d photo: hot air balloon season is here!

christopher — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:12:38 +0000

balloon season is here and this is an old favorite of mine with some new modifications to snap it up a bit… here is the original from oct 1, 2005…

this was taken at albuquerque international balloon fiesta with my first real digital camera (lotsa stuff is broke at that link, btw)… i have no idea how it came out so good – it was totally a lucky shot, pointed, clicked, and it was just there… i have always had an affection for it and there was very little to do when i touched it up for this re-post… i enhanced the colors a little and sharpened the whole thing a bit, cropped a bit off the bottom, brightened it a hair, but, that’s it… i am considering doing a fancier edit, but, this will do for now…

anyway, tomorrow is the local, pathetic little balloon thing and we are about three weeks away, i guess from the REAL balloon fiesta in abq and, rest assured, i will be taking my dslr and my little canon p&s with plenty of cards…

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november pics posted (and site fixed!)

christopher — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 23:02:45 +0000

ok, i finally posted the rest of the photographic miscellany from november…
this month, i have finally begun something i have thought about doing for awhile… pretty much every month i post pics of hot air balloons i see from my balcony, but, this month i now have the pic with the name of that balloon, the home city, and pilot… there is no website i can find that is a visual guide to balloons and that’s a shame because they are all unique vessels with their own story, etc., so, i intend to start posting the name and other info about every balloon i get a pic of… i would love for enthusiasts who know something i don’t to post what they know… thanks to this album maker, every pic has a comments form, so, anyone who wants can post info… there are many balloons that are not in the book i am using for reference, so, every month there will be unknown balloons, if you know who it is, just leave a comment on the pic and let me know… i also know some balloons have a website, so, i also want to start adding links with the pics…
this could be fun and, if this collection grows large enough, i will make a dedicated section for it…

i know, scott… i’m a sick man :P

ok, that aside, there are less than 40 of the “various” pics this month, mostly from a night at paulette’s…
click here to view the november pics

(and, if you didn’t see them previously, november also had a hundred or so pics, most of them amazing, from my flight to L.A. and 62 pics from the church thanksgiving hootenanny…)
.

in other news, come to find out my site has been seriously screwed up in internet explorer this whole time and no one told me about it until a couple days ago… my sidebar was loading on the right where it’s supposed to, but all the way at the bottom of the rest of the content… this has now been fixed, thanks to Doug… if i had asked him first, i would not have had to spend half the day pulling my hair out, beating my head on the table, etc…. thanks a bunch, dude!

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what a ballon pic

christopher — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 22:10:37 +0000

i love this one so much, i just had to make a post…
it was just posted yesterday by phrog8v8r to the AIBF flickr pool…

*right click, save as, set as wallpaper* :)

.
.
and, btw, not to take away from that pic, but while i am pointing out pics, this is one of the coolest special shapes i have ever seen… and be sure to read the comments under it…

and this one is like Skies of Arcadia come to life…

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AIBF2k5, day one

christopher — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 02:45:14 +0000

The pics are finally up!

not as good as the pics i made last year, but, meh…

i used the Experience skin again and it is annoying no end that it labels videos as directories… i even added comments to the vids, so the comments would appear under the icon, but, it didn’t do that… so, you will have to keep that in mind… i do recommend the vids, there are some good ones this time… also, remember, my host is weird about streaming, wants me to put them under a subdomain and such, so, you will have to right click, save as and view them on your computer…

also, this time i have sort of a guest photog… as mentioned in the last post, Andy Shreck went with me and took a bunch of pics himself, so, there is a folder of my selections from the pics he took… he has the entire collection in his possession, but alas, no site of his own, no flickr account, nothin’…
for the record, as i was sorting through all the pics (from a collection of over 500, i whittled down to 177 pics and vids) i was more and more certain that he took better pics than i did :(
anyway, i also added a few that i took to my flickr photostream and added a couple each to the three flickr groups i am in…

while i was playing around in flickr, i went ahead and grabbed the flash “flickr badge”, which is fairly cool… see it over on the sidebar right above the albuquerque section… i may or may not keep it…

anyway, i am hoping for no wind on saturday so i can get much better pics…

oh, and not only are all the photos in albums, i added comments to many of them, rather than write up a whole blog post, pointing out certain pics… you will see a truncated version below the thumbnails and the whole comment when you view the screen size version…
i took a few today hanging out behind the church and will have a whole new batch saturday, so, i will force myself to learn how to add albums to the one already there and will post when they are up…

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AIBF – day 10, big finish

insidious_plots — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:03:18 +0000

remember the Smokey Bear balloon i took a pic of?

well, he made big news today…

with headlines like Balloon Gets Caught In Radio Tower [koat tv] and Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta ending with a bang: “Smokey the Bear” balloon is wrapped around the top of a 670ft AM radio tower, four people in gondola [fark]…
and someone in the fark thread mentioned it was even on cnn…

behold…

i ALMOST saw it happen… i was recording the mass ascension coverage on tv this morning and popping downstairs once in a while to see if there was anything worth taking pics of… last trip i had made down, i saw smokey and almost took a pic since he was in a good spot, but, i have not been taking many pics since we went to the event, not much chance of topping those… anyway, so, i then came back upstairs… within a minute or two they were talking about it on tv… i bet i missed it by 30 seconds…

by the time i ran out there, all i saw was this…

the reports are still coming in, but, it is now confirmed that there were three people aboard, all ok, they were able to get out of the gondola to the ladder that runs inside it and climb down… it took nearly an hour… there was the 70-year-old pilot, and two passengers on their first balloon ride ever… they were 14 and 10 years old… he sent them down the ladder first…

here is the pilot climbing down the tower, and here he is after they got him in a cherry picker, as he and a rescue worker look up at the tattered remnants of the balloon…

of course, the big question now is how they are going to get that thing down from there…

garth’s informal predictions at America’s Outback didn’t include radio towers, but, turns out he was right about the power lines…
Balloon catches on live power line, no one injured
Balloon Fiesta Pilot Trips Up With Power Line

other headlines the last few days have included…
Balloon Fiesta Brings Injuries, Power Outage
Rough landings, snagged balloons mark morning
Pilots Injured As Balloon Makes Hard Landing Near Chama
Gas balloon makes hard landing, injures pilots

here is a google news search if you want to see more…

and the whole 10-day event has also been well blogged…

America’s Outback has great pics from the day 7 special shapes mass ascension…

mr. bohnsack posted many pics from the day 9 mass ascension with links to over 400 high-res pics from the three previous years… he also links a few other abq bloggers posting about the aibf… (including me; plus, i fit his comment about those with “freshly purchased digital marvels”…)

and Quirky Burque even gave us the Balloon Fiesta Avoidance Plan…

i am probably not going to keep up with posting all the follow up news and/or blog posts about it all, but, i will definitely get pics and vids again next year, and post ‘em all here…

there are a few pics and one vid from the last few days that i did not comment on, and now that it is all done, the vids will stay for a while until we need the space, so, take one last trip to the now completed AIBF collection…

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AIBF – day 2

insidious_plots — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 22:06:49 +0000

so, this morning was the dawn patrol and mass ascension… the dawn patrol was pretty damn cool, but, the mass ascension was indescribably amazing…

it was pretty much impossible to count, but, there were definitely over 100, but definitely not 200… and there were a few “special shapes”, like a cow, a bottle, a scarecrow, a kettle of some kind, a couple that were what looked like bees maybe, and an american flag…

there are 13 pics and 3 vids, whittled down from a collection of over 350 combined that i took… the videos were the hardest to narrow down to the best of the best, so, i settled for the ones that best showed just how big this whole aerial display was.. check them out before i delete them tomorrow… 1, 2, and 3

a few more besides what i commented on above, all the pics from this morning’s set start with “2a-”…

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AIBF, day one, second event

insidious_plots — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 03:44:19 +0000

the “Fiesta Challenge Competition Flight”…

a bit underwhelming, i must say…

it was cool, at first; a whole bunch of ‘em taking off at once, but, there weren’t THAT many (c’mon, people, you said seven hundred!), it took up a very small section of vision, and they only went a very short distance and then landed (except for one blue one that darted up, leaving the others wayyy behind, headed north, and last i saw him, vanished over rio rancho), so, the main entertainment was over pretty quick…
at least from where i was standing… for this sort of event, my location is not close enough, it seems, because it is starting to look like this thing does not do well at long distances… or maybe i’m just doing it wrong… either way, i keep getting these pics of specks, ranging in sharpness from fuzzy to blurry, which isn’t very interesting…

anyway, to be fair, the whole thing really officially starts tomorrow and i see some very cool stuff coming up on the schedule, so, as i am wont to say, we shall see what there is to see when the time for seeing comes… (wish i could remember what that is from…)

this time, there are 4 pics and 1 vid… the pics are rather similar, but, it is kind of cool how you can see a helicopter in the vid, though…
they are all in the ABF subdir and the files from this event all start with “1b-”, as previously mentioned…

btw, i made something of a connection… i was thinking of those window air conditioners growing up in hellishly humid dallas suburb summers… the underside would be practically an upside down puddle of condensation… the water forms into droplets in random places, and the drops fall, usually more than one drop at a time, sprinkling whatever is underneath… that is what the balloon launches remind me of, as you watch many of them inflating at once, some get to fully inflated and then “drip up” into the sky…

big day tomorrow, including the first dawn patrol and the first mass ascension… no idea what the dawn patrol will be like, but, the mass ascension should be mind-boggling…

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HA! got one!

insidious_plots — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:49:27 +0000

i said i’d be ready next time and at about 9am i walked out on the balcony and had to dash in to grab a camera…

and then it was gone…

but, the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival starts friday morning!
expect lots of pics!

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NINE hot-air balloons from my balcony

insidious_plots — Sat, 18 Sep 2004 16:40:33 +0000

yes, at 8am this morning, there were five visible out the window from where i sit on the couch now, so, i went out on the balcony and counted a total of nine…
none of them were very close, but, what a sight as they just hang there in the sky…
i tried to take a couple pics, but, no chance with the dreameye…

and it seems to me i may be better off waiting to take pics until october 1st to 10th, when the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta takes place just down the street from us…
said to be the largest hot-air balloon event in the world… i saw a panoramic poster of the event in a poster shop the other day…

mind-blowing…

and, yes, it is literally just up the street from us, so, i think it is time to quit putting off the purchase of a real digital camera because these things are going to be filling the sky all around us…

here are a couple pics…
keep in mind that these things are, on average, from 30 to 60 feet tall and there are HUNDREDS of them! (in 2000, there were over a thousand balloons!)

these pics were taken from TravelManiac Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta and they have a lot more pics worth seeing…

and here are some more links i collected as i looked around for info this morning…
i have never been here for this event before, but, i gather that the highlights include many balloons in odd shapes and sizes, the “mass ascension”, presumably all the balloons lifting off at once, and the “Glowdeo”, a night-time event with lit-up balloons…
so, keep that stuff in mind when following the links…

Google Image Search: albuquerque mass ascension
Google Image Search: albuquerque balloon glow
VirtualAlbuquerque.com: The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta [this one has vids]
ABQjournal: Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta [coverage of last year's AIBF, with lots of links and AMAZING pics, if you only follow one link, make it this one]
FAA Notices to Airmen

HowStuffWorks: Hot-Air Balloons

expect more posts about this in the future…

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start your morning with a heart attack

insidious_plots — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 16:06:44 +0000

so, it was an hour or so ago, somewhere between 8:30a and 9a, i guess…

i am standing at my espresso machine, waiting for it to brew, and i look up out the kitchen window and there is this HUGE blue hot air balloon… i mean, this thing was CLOSE and LOW… MASSIVE…
it looked like maybe the pilot lived here and he was looking for a parking spot…

i picked up my jaw, dashed into the bedroom, “mary! mary! hurry! come look! you gotta’ see this! it’s better than goofy golf!”
poor girl probably got to sleep about 5a, but, she managed to stumble to the window, i look out the living room window and there is another balloon a little ways out, in the place where i usually see a balloon or two in the early mornings (somewhere around here, you can take rides between like 7a and 10a)…
i go look out our bedroom window, and AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!, one very low, floating right above our bedroom! dark dark blue, almost black, HUGE, and just hanging there almost right above my head…

then i come to my senses…

CAMERAAAAAAAAA!!!!

so, i run and grab my camera, run out on the balcony, point at the blue one and beep beep beeeeep…
NOOOO!!!
so, i run inside, and grab her camera, run back out to the balcony, the blue one is seriously getting away and is nowhere near as close, turn the camera on, sight it up, and beep beep beeeeeep…
NOOOOOO!!!! DAMMIT!!!!

run inside, fire up the software, hook up the cam…
EMPTY???!!! other one, also empty!!

BATTERIES!!!!!!!

to the cabinet, stuff falls out, dig up the AAA’s, dump the dead ones on the floor, load up two new ones, run outside and…

gone…

run down the stairs, look west…

nothing…

south…

nothing…

run around the building, look east…

nothing…

look around for an animal or something to kick…

nothing…

(nothing i feel like getting in trouble for, anyway…)

go back upstairs, mary is back in bed, sound asleep, i look out every window, nothing…

like i had only dreamed it…

so now i sit typing this, going and looking out the windows every couple minutes, drinking my espresso, which is cold after all that…

next time, dammit, next time…

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