balloon.com

I just got paid 16p in the £ from the administrators of Adams Childrenswear Ltd….. it felt like a bankers bonus.

So – I waited 3 years 4 months for 16% of my invoices and it feels like a bonus?

What’s tough about this is not only do you lose cash (and give 3 years free interest on it) you lose all the future orders of a great client.

I don’t feel bitter towards Adams, they were genuinely trying to run a decent High Street store – they were buying balloons to promote themselves.

Nothing muppetry about this, it’s just what makes a recession tough.

P.S. PWC, received £929,149.54 for liquidating the company – nice work if you can get it.

I’ve been making a few of these lately so I’m using this post as a place to keep the measurements:

Conwin set to 55psi – balloons below start from the bottom and are in seconds:

Cluster 1 – Feet

Cluster 2 – 1.0 Seconds

then – 1.2, 1.2, 1.5, 2.1, 2.4, 2.4, 1.2, 1.2, 1.0, .8, .8 – top cluster 5″

My LinkedIn nightmare continues.

Look at the above screen shot, it makes it look like I’m not logged in when actually I am.

So…. sooner or later I give into an invitation from a Muppet who uses LinkedIn. I click on the link and the above screen appears. I’m in a rush so I input my google account details and the site invites everybody from my google address book to “Join David Saker’s professional network”.

Then…. it keeps emailing them (spamming them forever).

Now then…. I have some email addresses that forward to me, for example b@lloon.com. So – I am getting invitations from myself to join my own network, it’s driving me nuts.

Also – I have an email address where I can post content to my daughters blog. LinkedIn is posting “You are invited to David Saker’s professional network on LinkedIn” on my daughters blog, every couple of days.

The sensible thing to do is close the account, but this goes against every bit of Social Network advice.

All I want is for my own LinkedIn account to stop bothering me and everybody else in my address book.

Uncontrollable Muppetry.

I’ve given myself the task of delivering 23 x V Size to 23 locations over the next 2 days.

This is not usually my style as I’d rather sub it out to BOC. The client wants the cylinders for 3 months and I don’t want to pay rental on filling kits – so DIY.

Once I get to the first drop each location is only 3 – 4 miles apart so @ £35 a delivery I can live with that.

Also….. I might collect a few part fulls at the end of the contract.

On the subject of cylinders – has anybody got any AP empties – I need 3, probably best to email me direct on this.

Interesting article from physicsworld.com relating to the film UP, how many balloons would it take to lift a real house?

“The authors found that it would take almost 10 million helium balloons to lift the small wooden house and 400 million helium balloons to lift a typical UK house! They note the downfalls of this particular method of relocation though, by concluding that the balloons would “deflate very quickly at high altitudes” and that the “foundations and drainage of the house would be removed, making the structure very unstable, if by some miracle the journey is possible.” Pity, balloons would make moving so much easier!”

The other issue here is that the 10 million balloons will need to be inflated in less than 10 hours…..or the first balloon will have next to no lift.

Great advice from Millers Balloon Blog if you’re thinking of working outside with balloons:

“the most important thing to remember is to make sure you discuss with your client the alternatives and possibilities, and that they agree to them so that everyone is on the same page on the day of setup. This way they can be assured of getting great high-quality decor in any type of weather!!”

Some balloon companies avoid working outside. This weekend I had to decorate the outside of a bar with sets of 3 balloons (on Friday, Saturday & Sunday). I bunched the balloons really low so they were all at the same height. I tied them to railings and kept them away from trees.

When standing next to the arrangements they looked a mess blowing around in the wind (compared to indoor decorations) but when I drove past the front entrance the overall effect was awesome.

Nothing better than a really high balloon drop from Matthew Lewis Displays.

Cool – My Own pet Balloons have a selection of balloon pets (sort of Airwalkers in 2012).

Anybody fancy a Giraffe?

I can see what balloonatics are trying to say, Black balloons are cool:

“I want to do a wedding with all black balloons, but I need to find a special bride to catch my vision on this”

You might be waiting a while for that.

OK – before you read this post you really should have a look at what happened last year on this job. Then (if you haven’t already) you need to read about the difficulty I had aquiring these Hollywood Balloons.

(If my Mum is reading this – Mum you need to touch the Orange words to follow the links, then touch the back button to return to this page).

Right then – back to business.

These 74 bouquets were a no brainer because they were all foil balloons so there’s no problem inflating them early.

I inflated 100 the day before the event. I had a choice of inflating boring plain Black & Gold stars or exciting Hollywood balloons – I decided to leave the excitement to last and inflated 50 Black & 50 Gold Stars.

I arrive onsite early and inflate a few more Black & Gold stars – Ha no chance of running out of helium – I have a BOC ‘L’ size.

I finish the plain balloons and off I pop for a Starbucks without a care in the world.

On my return I decide to save the awesome Glitterific Betallic Stars to last. I inflate the discontinued Pioneer Hollywood balloons and 1 of the 41 goes down. I now need 34 of the Betallic stars and I can then start bouqueting.

I inflate the first one and it had a hole in the bottom right corner. Who cares, I have 16 extra. I inflate the second balloon and it has a hole in the same place. I grab a balloon from the bottom of the pile and yes – it has a hole in the bottom right corner.

Just for the hell of it I inflate a few more at random and 10/10 have a hole in the same place.

Now then….. there are 2 balloon wholesalers in Birmingham, Budget Greeting Cards and Fun U Need – but don’t get excited they are both closed on Saturdays.

Lucky I have 30 extra plain Black & Gold Stars (I’m not such a bonehead after all) – over the 180 I inflated I had a handful of the Pioneer foils go down, basically I needed 6 more balloons and I could then alternate the bouquets – printed / plain from table to table.

Now then….. I know Aly from Balloonprint was shocked that I had spent £2.95 on a printed glitterific star foil balloon, well I managed to beat that @£2.99 for a flat plain star from Clintons:

The client was not best pleased but there really was nothing I could do – I was just happy to have completed 74 bouquets.

As there were so many tables it really didn’t take anything away form the overall effect.