Fluorescent jellyfish

I was in Austria over new years two years ago, when it got close to midnight we found ourselves in this small town with a beautiful little lake, there were fireworks everywhere, with the reflections dancing in the lake. But in addition to fire works there was two guys by the side of the lake that had created a small paper hot air balloon, and when they lit this little fire inside of it it floated slowly up into the dark Austrian sky. . . So cool, first time I had ever seen anything like that.

I don't remember how long after I found out about Loy Krathong. . A festival in Thailand where on the full moon of the twelfth month (Thai lunar calendar) they have floating lanterns that they send down the river, fireworks and hundreds and hundreds of these beautiful sky lanterns are released into the air. . . I guess it is something they do a lot in south-east Asia, but the festival that happens in Thailand is my favorite, it looks amazing. . . this year it falls on November 20th

When I went home for Christmas I had a lot of free time on my hands and I decided I wanted to try and make one. . I tried all different kinds of models, I worked on it solo for about 4 hours. But the paper was too heavy the candles were too heavy. . . I moved from paper to plastic bags, tea lights to birthday candles, wooden dowels to straws. . to big wads of flaming goss.

Then Nate came over and started to help.

After a few more failed attempts, with the family watching us threw the windows our little sky lantern took flight, up over our house higher, ever so softly and smooth. . It was magic, there is no other way to describe it. And it went for about 5 minutes before it blew out.

We were so excited that the new goal was to light of 2010 of them in honor of the new year, from the top of Mt timpanogus. . (or at last 20 of them at Nate's new years party)

But something changed. . the wind? the temperature? our attention to detail? we never could get a 2nd one in the air.

The closest we got was about 20 feet off the ground, stuck in a tree, catching two branches on fire.

Moral of the story- I need to see how the Asians do it. Loy Krathong

With the floating lanterns the act of floating away the candle raft is symbolic of letting go of all one's grudges, anger, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot. People will also cut their fingernails and hair and and them to the raft as a symbol of letting go of the bad parts of ones self.

The sky lanterns are said to look like a large flock of fluorescent jellyfish gracefully floating threw the sky. They are believed to help the locals rid themselves of trouble.