[Balloon-makers] behind the scenes on the Ron Paul blimp

[Dan Nachbar]

For those watching the Ron Paul blimp project's website
(www.ronpaulblimp.com) will see my smiling face
along with 4 of my colleagues on their home page this
(Wednesday) morning. (The folks in the photo from left
to right are Jenn, Jon, myself, Kevin, and Michelle.
More who's who below.)   My guess is that our charming
visages will soon disappear from the Ron Paul website
and be replaced with a photo of our product.  So click quick.

Not wanting to "clutter the message" of the client, I've been
keeping our involvement low profile. But given their choice to
splash us about, I thought I'd let you folks know what's up.

I got a call last Thursday from George Spyrou of Airship Management.
(He is supplying the blimp.)  The folks he'd lined up
to get the banners made had fallen on their faces. George asked
if there was any way I could put together a rush job to fill the gap.

By perverse chance several of my usual sewing crew are unavailable this
week. So I made a round of calls to some very talented out of town  
people
I know including our own Jon Radowski (of PA), Kevin Herschman (of LA),
as well as my friend Michelle (of FL). (Jenn is a regular in our shop.)

All of the out-of-towners were available and I managed to scare
up enough white 1.9 urethane fabric and a print shop (Renee of VA)
that was willing and able to start running the job over the weekend.
So I told George we could help him out.

George gave the "go" signal Friday morning.  Jon went to work laying  
out the
design and getting it to the printer. (A large and tricky job done in
what must be world record time.)  People started flying and driving to  
my
shop in Massachusetts. The whole team assembled and first fabric arrived
from the printer on Monday evening at 9 PM.

A flurry of cutting and sewing (and not much sleeping) ensued.
The first 90' by 30' (28 meter by 9 meter) banner was finished 17 hours
later at 2 PM Tuesday.  Go team!

The original plan was to ship the finished banner as "passenger-less  
luggage" on
a Delta flight from Boston to Norfolk and then have it driven to the  
AMS hangar
for installation Tuesday night. However neither of the Delta agents  
with whom AMS
or I spoke bothered to inform us that one must be a "TSA pre-approved  
shipper"
in order to use their service. So the banner went UPS overnight.  I'm  
waiting
for the phone call to tell me if the darn thing fits.

Printed parts for the second banner are due to arrive this morning via  
UPS.
The rest is scheduled to arrive Thursday morning.  I expect to carry the
second banner to North Carolina myself sometime Thursday afternoon/ 
evening.

Dan Nachbar