balloons and fog do not mix, or so I am told

Hot air balloon people are morning people. We rolled up in front of Old Parliament House just before 6:00 in the morning and there were already about 20 trucks and trailers sitting on the grass with no activity; never a good sign. We found out that all the pilots (I still find it odd to refer to someone expertly drifting along with the wind as a pilot) were at a meeting to see if they should take off. Luckily, since hot air ballooning is an activity enjoyed in the morning it only makes sense that there were two cappuccino stands ready to provide us with some mocha while we waited for the decision.

Apparently, going up in fog is no problem at all. It is the coming down part that people were worried about--something about not being able to see where they land, and running out of fuel before the fog burns off... I am not sure why people willing to go up in a craft with no parachutes, no gliding ability and definitely no steering, suddenly become worried about being able to see where they are landing.



The event goes on for 10 days and it is typical not to launch for some reason or another. Last year, one of the mornings we went to watch, they didn't take off because the wind was blowing towards the airport (another missed opportunity for excitement). A few of the balloon owners were nice enough to inflate their balloons and give tethered rides to a few spectators and at least give us something to take a photo of.



The shamrock balloon and the kookaburra balloon were the two most interesting from yesterday. There is a windmill shaped balloon in town, but they didn't see fit to blow up their balloon. I like watching them fill up and if you are very lucky, you will get an owner who lets you walk inside the balloon while they are blowing it full of cool air. Then they blast it with the burner and it slowly tips up and takes shape. Beautiful. It seems very ungraceful and graceful at the same time.

We were at the event with Mary's mom and dad, her sister Katie (from whom I stole some of these photos) and my nephew Christopher. It was good to do another family outing before we move away from Canberra. I am looking forward to the warmth and sunshine of Brisbane, but I will miss seeing balloons over parliament house in the winter.

Searchme

A friend sent me a link to a new search engine that scrolls similar to an ipod.
http://beta.searchme.com/Initial.html

I don't own an ipod, so I don't know if the functionality is the same, but this search engine is pretty sweet. I imagine the boys at Google will be copying this soon.

New office in Toowong

We are moving to Brisbane. It is our hope that this will be the last time we move to a new city for at least the next 20 years. Just when I am finally starting to get the tangled mess that is the Canberra road system figured out too.

This past weekend, Mary and I were up in Brisbane. Mary was there to look at houses to rent and I was there with my boss to build desks. Our office space is on High Street in Toowong, conveniently above a Chinese restaurant and an Indian restaurant. And as if the gastronomic gods weren't smiling on me with that little bit of fortune, Gloria Jeans Coffee is just a few blocks away and there are four other coffee shops on the block for me to choose just to spice things up.

The fit-out of the office is pretty low cost but I think it looks great and is quite functional. We built the desks Friday afternoon and Saturday morning and then painted them. Good stuff. Now I just need to finish documenting my building in Kingston and I can move my desk up there and get started on a new project.

I should also add that I won't be the only one in the office. The Northrop Structural section will occupy the left side of the office (Peter Ryan, and myself will be doing structures and Vlad will do drafting for us. We will also have another draftsman coming in part time)
and on the right side will be two Northrop Corporate people and two BCA building certifiers and then up front will be our office manager. I am happy that there will be enough people in the office to bring in birthday cake every few months.

After the painting was done, we still had a few hours before our flight back to Canberra, so we drove out to Bribie island to get some fish and chips. I could get used to this.

Hammock

A few weeks ago, It was a chilly Autumn day (I am still not used to having Autumn in April) but the sun was shining and I brought out the hammock while the kids were napping. After Cole woke up from his nap and discovered I was outside,
he joined me. We don't use the hammock that much. I don't really know why; it was nice to lay down in the breeze with a wool blanket over me to ward off the cold.

I took the kids back into the house after they started getting restless and Mary spent some time relaxing.

It is definitely not used enough and I think hammocks are retro enough to be super-cool. I bet Brad Pitt has a hammock. He probably got it at the same place George Clooney bought his.