All Things Balloon - Fresh Ideas for Young & Old

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1. What's new on our Web-Site: 'Our Very First Video' and 'Where to find Christmas & New Year Balloon Bargains'
2. Weird & Wonderful News from the 'World of Balloons'
3. Tip of the Month
4. New Year Resolutions

As the end of the year draws closer, time seems to fly even quicker than normally. We have to apologise for not sending out a November issue, and would like to thank you for staying with us since the launch of 'Balloony News' in June 2006.

Please enjoy ... and, as always, your feedback is most welcome. Just reply to this e-zine and let us know your comments, suggestions or requests. We'd love to hear from you!

1. What's new on our Web-Site: 'Our Very First Video' and 'Where to find Christmas & New Year Balloon Bargains'

Our first video is not a balloon decorating video, yet it does have balloons in it. So, if you'd like to find out how a simple balloon can reveal the essence of the classic 'Get Rich Quick' scam and how YOU, too, could embark on an exciting journey to freedom on a personal, geographical and financial level, then please watch our video on the 'About Us' page.

Looking for Christmas & New Year balloon bargains? As mentioned in our last ezine we're going to feature a few online resources every now and again that we consider to offer good value for money.

We're sure you'll know the shop we recommend for the festive season, but maybe you weren't aware what a great selection of Christmas & New Year themed balloons you can find on ebay. We did a search for you, check out the results here.

Our topic today fits perfectly with the custom to celebrate the arrival of the New Year with loud 'BOOMS' & 'BANGS'. We are going to answer the question: "Why do latex balloons go BANG! when they burst?"

That's easy, you might think. Of course, the loud noise one hears when a latex balloon bursts is due to the sudden release of high pressure gas contained inside the balloon ... sorry, wrong answer, the pressure inside the balloon isn't that great after all.

The BANG is caused by the tightly stretched ends of the torn latex balloon pieces exceeding the speed of sound as they quickly snap back to their pre-inflated size. Ehm, and what exactly does that mean? Let me put it this way: when a tiny crack develops in the surface of an inflated latex balloon, the resulting rapid release of energy stored in the stretched latex accelerates the crack to near the speed of sound in rubber.

Since this speed is much higher than the velocity of sound in air, the running crack actually breaks the sound barrier! Wow! No wonder, I still jump when a balloon explodes ;-) The loudness of the BANG depends on how intensely the latex is stretched before it bursts. That's the reason why even small latex balloons stretched to their limits will make a much louder BANG when they burst than a larger balloon that is not stretched as tightly.

Take a deep breath and relax! The end of 2006 is NOT the end of the world ;-) In fact, blow up a few balloons (cheap ones from the supermarket will do) and burst them ... by sitting on them, stomping on them, squeezing them or - my favourite - by using your finger nails ... with the BANG goes the stress, try it!

We'd like to lift the veil a little bit on what we've planned for the Year 2007!!

• Add more impressive, yet fairly easy to make designs to our web site (e.g. Link-a-Loon Arch, Spiralled Arch, Bride & Groom),
• Add balloon decorating movies to compliment our step-by-step photographs,
• Show you some fun games to play with balloons - our 5 year old daughter is a fantastic 'guinea pig' for testing them :-) and
• Invite you to share your balloon decorating masterpieces, funny or 'it-drives-me-mad' experiences, creative ideas and inspirations with us (as soon as our incredibly innovative & generous web hosting, building and marketing company will release their new tool called "Content 2.0", that will allow us to feature YOUR contributions on the Balloon Decoration Guide).

We wish you a wonderful time over Christmas & New Year ... wherever you live ... and look forward to 'seeing' you again next year!

Margit & John