My brother died Saturday.

I came home from a conference on Saturday. Shortly thereafter, I got a phone call from my mother, giving me the news that my younger brother died in his sleep Saturday. Not the kind of news one wants to hear. He was 46, and having some medical issues, but not anything that we expected to do this.

I wrote the news on my facebook page. Support flowed from all over. It was very comforting. My sister-in-law posted, in part:
one can't help but be reminded of how fragile and precious life is. Tomorrows are not guaranteed.

My reply:
Tomorrows are guaranteed, but not necessarily in this life. The bodies we are given are strong beyond belief, fragile beyond imagining. We learn, we teach, we grow. And each in our own turn, we leave. The time we have here is precious. Cherish what you learn. Give freely what you can teach. Hold dear in your heart what you love.

Rest in peace, Jeff.

Take Down...and pack up

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<< FIRST IN SERIES

Once the balloon is on the ground, it's time to fold it up and take it home.


The Bembel Has Landed



Starting to deflate,
basket being
tipped over.









Lots of neighbors getting into the act!






And down it comes!





Balloon neatly down, and the pilot crawls out.

Squeezing the life...I mean air,
out of the balloon so it can be packed.






Squeezed and bundled up.
Everyone gets
into the act.


Walter, on the left
in the "Balloon Team" vest,
gets into the act.













This is why, immediately after, I went out to buy a real camera. I couldn't download the pics from my itty bitty cellphone camera fast enough to clear space for the next pic in this sequence. It was the utterly adorable collection of neighborhood kids, holding up the balloon and stuffing it into its travel sack. And then leaping enthusiastically on the sack to force out the last of the air.



Next day, another chance to catch
a balloon getting stuffed.
Balloon starting to deflate.


















Deflating and coming down.






You can see the handle of the bembel (wine pitcher),
about to get flattened under the rest of the balloon.















Balloon down, basket tipped over.




Balloon folded up,
ready to be stuffed in its travel sack.










The travel sack is far sturdier than the fabric of the balloon, so the sack is dragged to the next segment of the balloon to be stuffed. It's a rather energetic process.


If you're not careful, you'll get
stuffed into the sack along with the balloon.



Why yes, I almost got stuffed in with the balloon. About all the sympathy you'll get is the team telling you when the balloon will be unpacked next. If you're "packed" on the last day of flight, they cheerily tell you that the next time will be back in Germany.





Balloon all stuffed in its sack,
ready to be laced up and sat on. Sat on?







Yup. Sat on.
Squeezing the last of the air out.






Getting ready to hoist the basket into the truck.
Having a few strong backs around helps the process!







Basket's in the truck! Yay!







Securing the basket, securing the team flag!





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Hot Air Balloons: The Chase

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Part 2 of a Day in the Life of a Hot Air Balloon.

Once the balloon is in the air, we have to go fetch it and bring it back. This is called The Chase.

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is ten days of... more than ten days of balloon related insanity. Slap a "Balloon Chase Team" sign on your car, and you can go anywhere. Orchards, fields, back yards, private land, the Indian reservations. The Native Americans get rather testy about you landing on their land, so we try not to. But other than that...

The Chase 

Our balloon is a bembel, or wine pitcher.



Getting ready to head out.




Waiting for the
moment to leave,
and watching the
balloons stream by.






The launch park looks empty as we head out.






There's joy in watching
the balloons go by.




Balloons headed north,
we're headed south
out of the park.

Why yes, that's a skunk.



Our bembel is to the left,
as we chase balloons.




Crossing over the Rio Grande, still chasing all those balloons.





At the start of the chase,
we're all going in the same direction.




Who's chasing whom?






Since all the balloons are heading in pretty much the
same direction, we all end up chasing each other.








We're getting closer. The bembel's next to the top of the pole.





Airabella came down early.
The balloon's on one side of the road,
the basket on the other.





My first view of Darth was between trees, as the balloon came down in someone's yard. Rather disconcerting.




Wind whipping the flag as we
chase after the bembel.








The bembel isn't a dot any more.



Coming in low,
looking for
a place to land








"Where's The Bembel?"
Hiding behind the house




It looks like
a landing!
Now we need to
find a road.







No, no landing.
The area was
full of corrals.
There's this thing in the sky...


And people just keep on
driving like it's the
most ordinary thing.
Well, during the Balloon
Fiesta, it is.









We caught up with it...
until the wind went one way
and the road another
It's a lovely thing, our bembel.









There she is, waiting on the hill top.







Safely down, ready to deflate, pack and carry home.









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A day in the life of a hot air balloon.

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NEXT IN SERIES >>

My second year at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta!
(Pics taken on different days.)

I took Amtrak from LA to Albuquerque, arriving Friday, October 1. Up at 4am. Yes, 4am. Showered, caffeinated, dressed, and out the door by 5am. Karen, Kevin and I head for the mess tent, where the pilots and crew get fed breakfast and discuss the weather. Out on the launch field no later than 6:30, to find our spot, and get ready to unpack. The sun isn't up yet, and I'm bouncing around with several hundred other balloon teams, getting ready for the day's excitement. 

The excitement really starts when the first pilot balloon goes up. It's an itty bitty thing, with a bright light on it, launched from the area of the pilots' briefing. We all watch it go up, as it will tell us how the winds blow. Any ground wind and most balloons won't launch. That's why balloons launch at dawn, when the ground winds are calm, before the sun heats everything up and makes for exciting times on the ground.



Small time out to admire the sunrise. One of the benefits of getting up at 0-dark-thirty is getting to watch the dawn.







As the sun comes up, the national anthem is played, and a balloon is launched carrying the American flag. Every day it's a different balloon who has the honor. This day, I caught the Pepsi can, for a friend who's a die-hard Pepsi drinker.


The balloons that launched first on Sunday went up and then south at a good clip.  We were all a bit disappointed, as we weren't going to launch our balloon again. Then someone noticed that HEY! the balloons higher up were coming north again. The winds above a certain height above ground were blowing south, and winds several hundred feet above that were blowing north. Balloon launch time!

The Setup

If you ever want to teach anybody about wind layers, come to a balloon festival. Not one where there are just a few balloons. You need to be able to see what dozens, and in our case, hundreds of balloons do. For example:

On Saturday, the day of the Mass Ascension (everybody who can is supposed to launch), we didn't. Why? All the winds were heading south, and the balloons would come down somewhere in the city of Albuquerque. Probably downtown. I'm crew for a ten-story bembel, or wine pitcher, and there isn't anywhere to land a ten-story anything in downtown Albuquerque. When a balloon lands, it not only lands on its basket, but the balloon must completely deflate. Ten stories of deflated balloon takes up a lot of space.

I know this because inflating a ten-story balloon takes up a lot of space. Because on Sunday, that's what we did.
First the consultations with the referees, also known as "Zebras", for some rather obvious reasons. No one of them wears the same patterns, just like the four-legged zebras.


Unload the basket,
hook up the fuel lines.







Tip the basket over, ready to hook up balloon.





Hook up the balloon
straighten the lines.





Start unfolding!





And unfolding...




And more unfolding.







Sometimes starting inflation
while still unfolding.



We have achieved
Flat Balloon.





The excitement is not in
watching the bembel inflate,
but also seeing the
balloons all around.






Attaching the crown to the body of the balloon.




Crown rope keeps
the ballon from
blowing around.




See those fans?
They really "blow up"
balloons!





Holding open the mouth,
so the air goes in.
She's almost ready for...




Lighin' her up!
Heat the air...




And up she goes!






She's tethered to the back of the truck until everything and everybody is ready for flight.




You can't see the zebra in this shot,
but she's 'way out there
making sure there's no other
balloons above ours.






Now, only people are holding her down.




And she's off!













This is a good idea of the size of the balloon.


I started this with the intent of putting it all one one page. Didn't work. So, this continues on The Chase

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