My friend Ron, who was born four days after me in the same hospital, we grew up together, and there is not I time that we can remember not knowing each other, sent me a photo of my horoscope as part of his wishing me a happy birthday. He commented that 41 days was an odd number of days to be extraordinarily lucky. Forty-one is truly an odd number, and prime, as it is only divisible by 1 and 41, and I told him it was odd because it was between Biblical and the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The horoscope is very positive. Another interesting aspect of the horoscope is that the first four of my lucky numbers add up to be my age, and the fifth number is Biblical.
I ended up doing a lot of errands on the way home from work, and a lot of different chores after I got home this afternoon. The weather was clouds moving through, being pushed by high winds and the temperature had dropped significantly from yesterday. Well after sundown, facing wind and cold, I walked out to the river and got photos of the cranes in the darkness, the wild clouds, and the colors lingering in the dusk.
Splash and Dash are when pilots land their balloons in the Rio Grande and then take off again. The river is low enough right now that the gondolas can sit on the bottom of the river since there are only a few inches of water in most places. When the river is running higher, they truly “splash and dash”, or they risk getting carried away by the current if they linger in a higher, fast-flowing current. In 2015 one balloonist hit the water like a Kamikaze. You can see the post at https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/10/splash-down. Today the pilots mostly sat their gondolas in the swallows for a few minutes before taking off again. Several balloons splashed in more than one location. The 5-minute video below shows balloons floating in for their splashes and dashes.
Early balloon at dawn.
The green dragon is popular. Here he is from three sides.
The stork balloon belongs to the doctor who delivered Tristan. She was born during the balloon fiesta. Poor Dr. Komadina was going to have to miss the balloon event that morning, but there was a freak snowstorm the night before leaving a foot of snow on the ground the morning Tristan was born. The balloon event was canceled that morning.
Four balloons inflated and launched from our neighbor’s field. Below is a video of the inflating and launching, photos of the burners, photos of the animals watching, and three new balloons.
Some people will find this parody really creepy. It will certainly bug the hell out of other people. While a few people might even like the photos and footage of children of the earth, also known as Jerusalem Crickets and Potato Bugs. However you react, you might get a laugh out of me trying to fit “sweet child of the earth of mine” into the space of “sweet child o mine”. The lyrics are at the end of the post.
Off Center & Not Even 