Labor day approaches, my adrenaline flows, and thoughts turn, as always, towards the playa. After last years Burning Man festival, Brian Johnson and I decided that while costumes and little projects were fun, we'd come back if and only if we had something really cool to do. So we are planning to lift participants ~100ft above the desert with helium balloons - just like you dreamed when you were a kid (which is what BM is all about...). We are conducting our tests now, and have received preliminary approval from the BM organization. Details and pictures to follow later, probably after we've returned.

For a little while, I was feeling unsure about whether to devote lots of effort to this project when I have bigger, longer-term projects that are more important to me. Its just for fun, and I feel like I spend lots of time having fun already. But reflection today changed my mind. After all, my long-term goals involve trying to safely push the boundaries of engineering in a harsh environment, which pretty much describes the balloon project. And it has something my long-term goals lack, namely immediate feedback. When you have big dreams, it can be hard to feel like you are making progress on them, which is frustrating.

It may not be changing the world, but if all goes well, in 2 weeks my friends and I will be soaring above a desert where anything seems possible, a canvas on which people's dreams are annually painted. Seeing a multitude of crazy visions come to life cannot help but inspire those of us who seek to mold reality. So even if all we get from the next few weeks is a deep conviction that the limits to human ingenuity are few, I believe our efforts will have been amply rewarded.

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