Finches!

I met with Connor Hopkins of Trouble Puppet Theatre last night at his workshop in the Salvage Vanguard Theatre space.   He's been working on puppets since early January.  We bought a faulty tank of helium, and spent a month figuring that out.  The balloons wouldn't float.  They just dropped straight to the ground.  I watched as Connor sucked from the tank and talked like Betty Boop.  Yep.  Helium alright.  Then why didn't the balloons float?  

I had bought brown balloons, because the finches are dull creatures and from the earth, so I thought maybe all that dye makes them heavier than, say, white or yellow balloons.  And indeed, the lighter colored balloons that came with the tank did float - but just barely.  A string on them pulled them down.  

Then it occurred to me that it was only 25 degrees.  Maybe when it warms up to 70 or so, the helium will fully inflate and work.  Seventy came and went.  No luck.  

Connor then thought - clown balloons - maybe they'd do better.  I bought clown balloons.  They did a tad, but just a tad, better.  They hung in mid air.  Cool effect, but not what I was going for.

Connor finally decided it had to be the tank.  I'd bought it at a party place, trying to save money.  Ha!  I went to Air Action - a true industrial tank place.  They let me know that party tanks do, indeed, do a lesser percentage of helium, especially since prices have skyrocketed in the past few years.  Grrrr.... The friendly guy allowed me to blow up one of my brown balloons from one of their tanks.  Sure enough - it was eagerly straining to meet their ceiling.

So I bought a tank, and here are the results:  Finches 1.0