Of Balloons and Blue Ducks

For whatever reason I decided to go to the annual "International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta" in Albuquerque, New Mexico in order to see hundreds and hundreds of balloons. I'm not sure what the official tally was, but they average 700+ hot air balloons each year which is about 698 more balloons than I have ever seen before in my life. The actual execution didn't go off terribly well due to poor planning on my part and dilly dallying on my brother and his fiance's part so we missed the morning session. Thankfully, however, we were still able to see the "balloon glow" which took place that night where all the balloons remained tethered to the ground and blasted their burners to light up the night. High winds killed that early too, but it lasted long enough for a frantic scurrying about trying to see all the hundreds of balloons inflating on the massive launch area. Essentially all an eight hour wait followed by thirty minutes of sensory overload.

So I still don't really know why I went; I guess I just really wanted to see a bunch of balloons, but for similarly unknown reasons I want to go back. We missed a lot and the little we did experience passed a bit too quickly. The photos also weren't too fantastic as the upper 40 degree temperatures that evening gave me the shivers making use of my camera's night scene setting even more disorienting, but here they are:

Balloons!

Those Damn Dirty Fish

Some people are incorrigible. Some fish, it seems, will respond only to violence. Despite two separate attempts at friendship, Paul's (my condomate) aquarium fish continue to insist on a tank to themselves. Shortly after moving in in February I purchased two platys who, for those not as involved in the tropical fish world as I seem to be, are essentially the Charlie Brown's of the fresh water fish world. Although they wished only to live peacefully and with friends, within 48 hours they were dead. Chased to death by their tankmates. One of the perpetrators, a skinny danio that Paul never even bothered to name, has since thankfully been smited and passed on, but the instigator of the killings, Charlie the Goldfish, lives on.

After my initial rage I moved into a general indifference to Charlie and his aquatic fiefdom. Recently, however, Paul purchased another smaller goldfish who was subsequently named Louie by another friend of ours, and, inspired by his successful integration to the tank, I decided to make another peace offering; this time with a third goldfish for the tank. It was only 24 hours before he was dead. I am not 100% sure that he was in fact murdered as well as he was stuck behind a rock and there is a distinct possibility that the idiot wedged himself there, but based on Charlie's track record I think I can make a pretty good case.

Now I am faced with the decision on what to do. Do I allow such war crimes to continue? Should I immediately flush Charlie down the sink to the filthy sewer from which he was obviously spawned? Maybe just chuck him into the dirt and debris outside for a slow painful death on land. I have considered pouring a quart of bleach into the tank and shrugging innocently when Paul awakes to find his fishes dead and half-dissolved, but I don't know. Right now the decision I'm leaning towards is simply buying a bigger, meaner fish in the beginning stages of a maritime arms race, but perhaps I just need to sleep it off.

Whatever I do there will not be justice on Earth till those fish are dead.