I've got a few more pics from this past weekend's antics. Let's get right to it.
Balloon unrolled in preparation for inflation.
They used a high powered fan to blow air directly into the balloon and it filled up in good time.
Action shot! They told us that you better use the bathroom now before the balloon finishes inflating...
Almost there...
And just a bit of heat to help top it up.
Birthday Boy and Birthday Planner.
Got lots of good aerial views of the farmland in the area, including these corn fields.
Not content with flying high above the corn fields, we dropped back down to brush buzz past them.
We passed over Putah Creek and if you look carefully at the center of the picture, you can see the balloon's reflection!
Another large field, this one filled with tomatoes!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
About 460 ft in the air. Approximately...
The other balloon floating through the morning sky just a little ways behind us. Gorgeous photo, and a good example of the clarity of the skies.
And finally back on solid ground watching the balloon deflate.
There it goes.
Happy Balloon-goers.
We also helped stuff the massive balloon back into its storage sack.
The flight crew, including our pilot Mike.
After catching a bit of breakfast in Downtown Napa, we hit the road to visit some wineries. Can you see our excitement?
Grapes on the vine.
The four of us enjoying the amazing, warm Napa valley weather at the Beringer winery.
Outside of the Beringer mansion.
Inside one of the many tasting rooms at the Beringer estate.
We settled on the food (in this case chocolate) and wine pairing tasting. Pretty good stuff I'll say. The friendly man behind the bar substituted the Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($$$$$$) for the Port (< $).
And we stopped by Rutherford Hill next so that Diana & Nick could try the rosé. They found the taste unimpressive.
This looks somewhat fake, but I stand by the legitimacy of this photo and the white balloon which we took the picture with.
It looked pretty neat the first time, so why not take another pic?
The view from Rutherford Hill before we called it a day and started heading on home (well, with a stop-off in San Francisco for some Belgian style french fries).
Pretty busy, full up day of celebration. We started the day not too long after 4am in order to make it to the launch on time and we didn't make it home till about 10pm after watching Limitless on Blu-ray at Nick & Diana's. Happy Birthday Nick and I'm hopeful that we'll all have plenty, exciting birthdays to come in the future. Go the All Blacks!!!
So, more photos to come, but too exciting of an event to keep unshared.
Headed up to Napa for a Hot air balloon ride planned for Nick's B-day celebrations w/birthday boy (Nick), the party planner (Diana) and Mari.
Unluckily, Napa got overwhelmed by a thick layer of fog early on, so we had to redirect and launch from Davis/Woodland/Winters Airport. We floated about for just over 1/2 an hour and enjoyed some amazing views from up in the air. Pretty brilliant I must say.
For those of you in the States, Happy Labor Day weekend!!!
So, I mentioned I'd do a little update about this new job I've got so here we go. At the beginning of August, I started a new gig working at Abbott Vascular (yes, NYSE: ABT) at their Structural Heart division. I've traded my previous role as a Manufacturing Engineer working in the "vascular closure" market for the exciting and unfamiliar world of R&D Engineering. At Structural Heart, I'll be involved with the MitraClip device, a minimally invasive (via catheter) mitral valve therapy designed to repair mitral regurgitation through implantation. Moving into R&D marks an exciting departure for me from a career perspective, but I'm also extremely thrilled to gain more experience working on a mechanically complex device. I learned a great deal from the projects and people I became involved with at AccessClosure and I look forward to applying those lessons at Abbott. Onward and upward!
P.S. The photo above shows my desk. It only took four weeks, but I've managed to clutter it up and give it that "lived in" look.
Posts
