November 20th, 2007
Guess I picked an ideal day to be home sick:
Subject: Gas odor
A gas line has been broken in the new college construction area. The fire department has been called and is on the scene. In the meantime, the fresh air intake to Duncan Hall has been shut down. Environmental Health and Safety is monitoring the situation and advises that, despite the odor in the building, the gas concentration is lower inside than out. We expect that the leak will be capped soon, if it hasn't already been, but I imagine that it will take some time for the gas to dissipate.
November 4th, 2007
In 2004 E and her mom read about the Ballunar Liftoff Festival, an annual
hot air balloon/race/get-together, down at the NASA Johnson Space Center
(about 45 minutes’ drive southeast of here on I-45). On a whim, the three of
us got up early on a Sunday morning, got drive-thru coffee and breakfast, and
drove down to Nassau Bay to see the sky full of balloons.
We drove up and down Nasa Road 1 to chase them. Not knowing where they were
headed, we ducked into some subdivision (which we have since been unable to
find on the map—Brigadoon Estates, maybe?) just in time to see a few of
them passing low—including this guy:
We offered him coffee; he said he’d really love some, but if he touched
(anything in contact with) the ground he’d be disqualified.
2005’s Sunday morning launch was cancelled due to a storm
that tore through the balloon crew camps. Weather wasn’t a problem the
following year, as you can see from my roll
of photos from the 2006 event.
This year, however, commitments with family and friends took
priority. We’ll be back in ‘08, for sure, but in the meantime here are some
of the best photos already posted to Flickr by other photographers (who made it
to yesterday’s launch):
More in the Ballunar Flickr group’s photo pool.
