christopher's lives (v5.3)

these are OPP (other people’s pics) selected from flickr…

List of Galleries of Drops and Splashes [via fark]

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…

went with andy this morning – his first time to ever see the aibf, he has lived here less than a year…

it was spectacular, breathtaking, and awesome except for one very major thing…

the wind was very bad and blew the balloons away pretty much as soon as they were off the ground… those who remember my posts from last year recall me talking about how we were totally surrounded by hundreds of balloons and that just wasn’t the case this time… it was still great, but, i am looking forward to hopefully a less windy day next time…

andy and i took about 500 pics (and i took a few vids) and i have them all on my comp, but, they need to be sorted and uploaded, and i seriously doubt i will get to that tonight, unfortunately… if i do, i will post, of course…

next saturday, i load up the lockmans in the van (and anyone else who wants to come) and it will be a group trip… the lockmans have seen aibf once (now twice) from their house (they have a fantastic view from their backyard in rio rancho around northern and 528), but, never from the field… really looking forward to that trip…

Edit:

while waiting for my pics to go up (i am sorting them now, have them down to less than 200), go check out this great, well-written short bit posted today about this morning’s mass ascension on Eucatastrophe (a blog i have been watching as a candidate for my abq links; as you may have noticed it has been on my “looking at” list over there on the right for a little while now) that takes an angle i absolutely love and wish i had thought of first :P
it’s called People Fiesta at the Balloon Fiesta…

Duke City Fix » WANTED: Your Albuquerque pix

where would i even start?

how would i ever stop?

how many pics of clouds and balloons do you figure they’d accept before they told me to come up with something else to shoot?

why oh why didn’t i have my dad make a back up of all the pics in the last webspace before “The Great Disaster”?

so many questions…

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…

here are some of the cooler pics from 2003, 2000, and 1999 in the ABQ Journal photo collections…
see my previous post for more links…

Lone Traveler
Final Farewell
A Great Fall
Tonight’s Glow
Splash and Dash
Smooch
Chilly Breeze
Time for Reflection
Arky
“Two balloons float against the clouds just before dawn”
Cuddles
Jesus, The Hot Air Balloon [biggest in 1999 fiesta]

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…

first, the various…

Ender’s Game
“Intruder Signal” on 40 Meters Remains a Mystery for Now
Creepy crawly blanket
apod: Above the Eye of Hurricane Ivan
me with my LaserDisc evangelist hat on

karl sent me these months ago… yes, i am just now getting to them…

MetaSpy
OpenDiary.com
Web FTP Client Version3.5.0
Phone Phreaking Trips [RealAudio]

these links with descriptions are copied from three RefDesk’s Site-of-the-Day email newsletters i have had sitting in my inbox, meaning to check them out…

MIT OpenCourseWare
   ”Welcome to Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare: a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT’s mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT’s values of excellence, innovation, and leadership. With the publication of 700 courses, MIT OCW offers educational materials from 33 academic disciplines and all five of MIT’s schools.”

Time Capsuler
   ”To begin your trip in this Time Capsule enter a date. You will be presented with your own customized page that includes all the information you’ve chosen, plus typical consumer prices from that year, Academy Award winners that year, etc. Site has data online for the years 1800 through 2002, although data for the years 1800 – 1875 is probably spotty.”

The Yahoo! Buzz Index Weekly
   ”Check out the top 20 search subjects on Yahoo!, complete with a sardonic round-up of all the newsmakers that are moving and shaking web traffic this week.”

and i am posting these specifically for members of my family…

one for mary, one for mom, and one for jeff (i have been meaning to point this one out to him for something like three years)…