Hot Air Balloon Gifts

The Artist in Me says:

Good morning…the pad still lies by the bed. the pen just waiting, lonely and longing for the warmth of fingers to grasp it by its shaft and bring forth a spew of ideologies and idioms and other idiosyncrasies that for three months, was focus of the morning beckoning call…i thought i would continue every morning as i had so faithfully for the better part of a quarter of a year..something i had never done before but adjusted to so readily…but only now and again does the pen press up against the page, and never for longer than a few brief moments…about the time it takes most men to wake up with a hard on and then just as sudden be relieved of it…but this morning it beckoned a little harder than usual. Maybe because I went to a funeral of a choir member this week. You know what's funny about funerals, is that no matter how humorous some of the stories and reflections are that people may go over their three minutes with, there's very little “funny” about funerals… and yet, the word “fun” is how the damn thing even begins…funny…maybe two kids were having “fun” and that's how many of us ended up here in the first place..hmmm…maybe it was “fun” to see how many children a man and a woman could make in accordance with the “Word”…at any rate, the “unfunny” thing about funerals is that i think it reminds those of us left behind, how much stuff is still left undone, how many dreams unfulfilled and how much we haven't accomplished. As we sit there listening to those who would extol the virtues of the one that has passed on to the other side, wherever and whatever that is, we start to take inventory of our own “dash” – born 19?? – died 20?? and we find, at least many of us that there is SO MUCH MORE that we want to do, or wanted to have done…take a ride in a hot air balloon, publish a book, go to Egypt, own a gallery, perform for audiences around the globe, see our name in print or in the corner of a painting that hangs in the Louvre…yes, funerals are for the living…the dead could probably and honestly care less…so when i awoke this morning, once again how frightened i am of death, not because of the unknown, but more because of the KNOWN…I KNOW i haven't succeeded as I want to and I haven't nearly done all of the things of my heart's desire…I haven't loved as hard as I have worked…i haven't worked as hard as I have dreamed.. i haven't dreamed as hard as I have loved…in other words, i've been in a circle..a cycle… of going around and around and not yet up…and beyond…and to cap it off, am born yet to die with the clincher being, I don't know when or how or why but only that i will…as the preacher so aptly phrased it, to the humor delight and surprise of the afterthought of the audience, “no one gets out of life ALIVE!!!

AndyJ says:

I have to assume the height of the balloon did not change as it traveled the 100 feet. Let x be the height of the balloon, and y the distance along the ground at the 61 degree point. Then we have two equations:

tan 61 = x/y
tan 54 = x/(y + 100)

Divide the two to get:
tan 61/tan 54 = (y + 100) / y

Solving yields y ≈ 321.84 feet. Plug back into the first equation to get x ≈ 580.6 feet.