April 2002

I forgot my camera cord so I can't put picture till I get home tomorrow night... sorry.
We are having fun tho!.

Got there Saturday afternoon to find Jim Strealy moving his new kite bag.

Dan Whitney,  Jim Streally  and Brian Blatell were there already there and soon the Gibian's, Pete Hartman, Derrol Hammer, Susan Shampo, Al Stroh, Ron Despoajdo showed up. O and so did Ben Lumas and his folks Mark And Jeanette. We flew for a while and then headed off to the Pizza parlor for the pizza party.

After dinner we went pack to the field for a night fly, the wind was great at first, enough to get even me with my two ton night kite set up and in the air.....then the wind dropped!

Here's a shot of my kite......actually I had a dead battery so the lights on the spine and spreaders were out  (lights that look like they are on spreader are actually a bout 4 inches above) I have clear plastic pockets sewn in for cylume lights but didn't put any in tonight..

There was a group there Saturday with a Trebuchet and the were throwing soccer balls a few hundred feet!

My new Graeme Pool Dragonfly got lots of air time and "nice kite!" comments

Dragonfly just stays up in anything!

As the sun went down I tried to fly my newly rebuilt Zaggi wing, with no success......Then Mark Lumas took out his radio control paraglider and flew it perfectly into the sunset. Just to make me look even worse! Here is Mark Lumas flying the paraglider.

Ron and Sandy Gibian at a California event for the second time in the same year!

HI DEBBIE!

He was flying one of the new Premier Gibian kites

The wind was up and down ,left and right all day long and had anyone that had kites up working on overdrive to keep everything up and happy.. Dan's teddy bear and octopus were show stoppers Brian Blatel had his 252 up and I had mine up too . we had three Pyros up way high and they proved again to be great kites , Pyros just stay flying through most garbage wind. Ron Gibian did the announcing and had a few kites in the sky during the day. He was being punished for not being seen for years, and they banished Ron to the back 40, that will teach him!

Ron did "get out" long enough to fly this beauty.

And this one too, this is one of Premiers Gibian kites, looked great and flew the same. he also flew one of Premiers Squids, that's a real nice kite, I may have to get one of those babies..

We did a couple candy drops, we used Everet's big Raptor for the drops.

Holler "candy drop" and thousands of kids appear from nowhere....They all had a blast and we tossed pounds of candy to make sure every one got some!

They had made that cute Pokka dotted drop box, it worked perfectly. It was a cloth covered box with a lid, cloth made a hinge and Velcro made the closure.  We hooked a line to the Velcro flap and a pull rained candy down from the kite! Vince McMillion (holding box ) and Jim Streally  did a nice job organizing this event for the second year.

I had my crown up and down all day, everyone seemed to love it...especially the kids.

After a while there were twice the number of kids. and I couldn't control them anymore!

They were climbing all over it in the bridles and hanging on to it...the only thing I asked em is to NOT touch the black part where the vents are (they rip very easily) BUT now they were sticking their legs thru, arms thru, tugging on it, and even smacking each other.....SO down it came.

In it on it and under it! Even after I took it down they wouldn't leave it alone! I had it half packed in the bag and there was still a kid in it!  I have had to put it away before because the kids wouldn't listen  but never like this this was a kid mob!

We did have lots of fun and flew kites all day and we were all exhausted!

Day is done! Dan and Sharon too tired to get off the bumpers and get in the car!

Hey what's that?  Purple, teal and white....could it be?...........

YES, it is my mystery kite!

WELL...Lets just say the 2002 Lee Toy fun fly was a mind blower. and body blower, pie blower...IT really blew I guess it blew near 30 at times and a constant 20 or more....I think I was the only one there that was NOT in danger of blowing away! I'm sure the wind was to blame for the low turn out, we did have 20 or so folks out there leaning into it! And most kites had to come down early in the day...I never took anything out of the car except the mystery kite that stayed on the lawn with stuff piled on top of it....like all the other mystery kites!   Early in the day Dan's big octopus was staked down with two metal stakes on each side and before long it had pulled out one side and was swinging the two stakes about till we got it down.... which is another story... getting one of those things down in a high wind!

The weather guy said the winds were up to 75 miles in the Oakland and inland hills!

Even George Hamm braved the wind for most of the day!

Everet and Joyce Irving hosted the lunch..... and what a lunch spread they set out. BBQed beef,  actually TWO different kinds of beef! they brought out three different kinds of salads ,smoked salmon and cream cheese, breads, pies, cakes and the biggest pot of beans ya ever saw, it was a memorable lunch buffet for sure, Thanks Everet and Joyce!

Everet Irving fussing over the buffet table...see that pie on the table to his right...it actually got airborn!

So the mystery kite judging never really happened, it was impossible to fly most of the kites in that kind of wind, so everyone was declared a winner and that was that.  I kinda wished they had judged em as best the could but alas it didnt happen.  The kites this year were significantly better than last year....I took photos of most of them on the ground and a couple actually in the wind..

 I have to say the kite made by David Wagner was the best, a exquisite kite that included appliqué, screen print and air brushing and a bucketful of talent! One nice kite!

The kite "vented" kite Arnold Stellema made flew well in the high winds from hell and was nicely done as well.

Aaron's kite was a nice one too, he did a compass needle variant.

Aaron would' a gotten extra points from me for sanding his glass rods down to a taper so the tails will bend them easily.

Jerry and Jane Kibbler made a different kind of kite...it has a spine....only, a big square kite with elaborate bridles, this kite I really wished I could see it fly....I'll be watching for it elsewhere this summer!

This is Jerry and Jane's kite, spine only job..... kinda looks like it flies like a delta.

Nathan Sendans kite did ok in the wind too, but I didn't take a shot of it till it was on the ground with its nice tail all rolled up

Dave Wagner trying to lay below the wind!

Nathans kite, the tail is really long with the different colors inserted  at angles in the high wind the wing tips bend back so far the tips nearly touched! Also a nice kite

Then there is Tim Hedwig's kite, last year Tim made a kite out of the brown bag all the stuff came in. This year he even out did himself.  The instructions for this years contest rules were printed on a small phony bill, Tim made a kite out of that!
The back of Tim's "instruction kite"

I didn't rotate Tim so he is totally upright, o well its the kite ya wanna see not his ugly mugg!

There were two other kites made but didn't get shots of them, Sunny and David Toy both made sled kites , they flew well but in the winds we had Sunny's split in half!

The wind just kept increasing as the day wore on ,We wee all losing our sense of humor chasing our hats and dodging flying chairs , we were out of there around 5..

I hope next year we have some screen material included in our bags and maybe some rebar!

O here is one more picture of a happy boy trying to fly his new kite!

George Hamm gave Everett one of his "square foot foil's". George Hamm's little foils are hotly bid for when they appear in auctions around here!

...I wish I had one!

Mystery kite explanation:  At the annual NCKC Christmas party participants can purchase a bag full of kite making supplies. Everyone gets the exact same supplies and has to make a kite out of what in the bag ONLY. with a few exceptions like bridle line and knocks.

I have registered a "kite month event" for Berkeley today Dan Whitney and I  and anyone that wants to join will fly "Big kites over Berkeley"! we will be out there around 11 am.

What a beautiful day we got for a kite flying day, warm blue skies nice winds +great kites= GOOD DAY!  Ole Dan never showed up neither did Joe Tait or Michael North as I had hoped, so we didn't have any great monstrous kites like the octopus and gigantic teddy bears but Tim Helwig and Brian Blatel and I filled the sky with plenty big enough kites....JR Tolman had a tiny kite up with a gigantic tail so he fit right in!

Between us we had 4 Pyros up!

My crown got plenty attention !Everyone seems to just love that thing.....and I have a problem taking it down when I should!....the winds were climbing, I had it on two point tether for the first time, this worked great, kept it from sweeping back and forth like they like to do and it never gets off to the edge of the wind  and collapses ... but the pressure does build! First it snapped the bungee on the back then it pulled out one stake set and as I ran for it I noticed it was straightening up the other two stakes! I had just clipped a carabineer on the bridle lines and started walking it down when the other tether pulled out and it was just me and that big ass crown... traveling down wind FAST! It all worked out just fine and I learned yet one more lesson!

You can see the two point tether I had it on on this photo. On the hill in the background you can just barely see lots of people flying dozens of kites... another local flier, Derril DelaTorre had his kids entire school out for a kite flying day. It was great to see so many people out, and kudos to Derril for his efforts!

Tim and I had our 252's up and they played nice al day!  My Deb Lenzen wasp hex flew with the big toys.....in fact up there it kinda looks like a huge kite

JR's kite!  That kittle kite was only about 8 inches by 10 inches but it pulled up a mile of Mylar tails!

In the middle of the day a group of Hanglider nuts came out and cleared a path, I was not impressed that they had decided to pick a day when there was hundreds of people and kites in the park...with a concentration of both right where they decided to play ....in fact I thought they were crazy and acting irresponsibly... well with there hollering for everyone to get out of their way and their having a modicum of control of the thing everything was ok.... I guess I was just being an old fart again!

They flew down the hill for a couple hours and nobody had a problem... glad I resisted the urge to point out how stupid it seemed to fly that thing there today!

Tim's 252 took a sky sweep and ate my new dragonfly kite... that's the wad tangled in his line banners... dragon fly survived OK!

Even, Tim and JR holding down the back of Tim's truck... Sorry Brian I didn't get a photo of you!

AND Dan, you're on my  *s* list!

         

Top of Page

This page was last updated March 14, 2003 01:45 AM