Today a bunch of hot air balloons flew over our place! Like, close enough where the people in them were saying, not yelling, “Mornin'” and taking pictures of us while we took pictures back. Apparently in this area that’s not a big deal, but it was by far the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.

Well, I decided right then and there that I would get totally into hot air balloons for at least the rest of the day. “How do you steer them?” I asked myself! “How do you pilot them?” I asked myself!! “WTF?!!” I asked myself! Then I stopped screwing around and reminded myself “Hey, there’s probably a hot air balloon simulator somewhere.”

There is! It’s only 2D, but in terms of learning how balloons work and simulating control of one, this seems pretty spot on, as there are only two controls: make the air in the balloon hotter, make the air in the balloon not as hot.

Using those controls you are tasked with completing… a task (going somewhere, then turning around and landing where you started), and like all great human endeavors, it seems incredibly stupid and simplistic before you start, but then you realize it isn’t.

So my COOL OF THE DAY is:

http://balloonsimulator.com

And the most frightening thing I learned today was the answer to my original question, “how do you steer them?” Which is, in a very literal sense: You don’t.

The above link will give you due appreciation of that fact.

Enjoy!

Here was the balloon that said “Mornin'”, if you want to play along at home. They eventually landed in the backyard of the house about three down from ours.

I mean, imagine walking out of your house in the morning, looking up and seeing this. Wouldn’t you be, like, “whoa”? We were like, “whoa”.