Ankle Troubles...

So awhile back I was flying my 5m Ace (which isn't nearly as floaty as my 15m synergy) and was doing some kite jumping. I remember one specific one that i came down hard on my foot and i felt somethin happen on my left ankle. I walkedi t off and didn't think anything of it. (this was like a year ago). On and off since then my ankle has come out of socket (or seems to be). I thought it would fix itself but doesn't seem like. So off I go to the foot/ankle doc. We shall see what happens!

Don't Leave me Wind!

I was able to get out again on Friday last week (November 20, 2009). I had the opportunity to go in the early afternoon at about 3PM. I got out to Simplot and this awesome guy, Bob was out there flying his 4 line Revolution kite and his 2 line stunt kite. Winds were doing pretty good at about 15mph+ and so I decided to go over and talk with him. This is the third time i've seen him. The first time I saw Bob he was taking his walker out onto the field with his kites right on top of the walker. Bob's a 72 year old kiter, he used to be a sailor for many years and windsurfed till 1977 which is when he got arthritis. He now is an avid kiter and is my personal hero. This guy was out there and we chatted for awhile. After talking with him I went back over and setup my Synergy. Got that thing up after one inverted launch and i was goin good! Doing some good jumps and grabs etc... Bob was totally living vicariously through me because he was watching me the whole time and making comments. Bob, you ROCK!


About my session:

It was freaking awesome, I flew non-stop (except for one inverted kite line tangle) until dark from 3PM so it was probably a solid 2.5 hours. I was out there and it was just perfect, a bit chilly but I couldn't tell the difference. Joey showed up with his gimp leg, dangit. Gotta get that thing healed up so you can get progressing on your landboard again!!! Anyways he was out there and asked me if I wanted to fly his 10m synergy. "nahh... i don't want you to have to set it up"(I was flying the 15m already) Joey says "Dude... at LEAST it will give me SOMETHING to do!" Me, "Ok man, if you end up wanting to set it up, I'll fly it." So Joey sets it up as i'm boarding and next thing I know i'm looking back and he has it in the air and he's standing on one leg flying that bad boy! HA!! Joey that was freaking awesome. So Joey flew it till dark just sitting down letting it pull 'em, standing up etc... Good times. Tyler showed up for about 15 minutes cuz he was in the area but only had about 15 minutes to stay and didn't end up flying. I was able to show off one good big jump and landed a perfect backloop 360. Awesome day all-in-all!

Oh, and I also attempted a good amount of 360s, i'm pretty sure i've got it down now. I over spun on one of 'em and landed on my back, knocking the wind out. Good times... :P .

Let your spirit FLY

Over the past few weeks i've just been going crazy with things to do. School, work, etc... No wind, or if there was wind, I was at work or in class. Yesterday was the day that i only had one evening class and the wind was blowing. it was warm, abnormally warm, and I was at first thinking YES! I"M GOING! I'm going to skip school and GO!. Then, it looked like the wind wasn't going to survive till after i got off work so i was like "yay... i don't get to fly... i get to go to class instead.....*scowl*" That was what i was thinking. BUT!

Things turned around and the wind kept blowin'! Weird winds though during the day: at one point 5mph at another gusting to 43mph! When I got off the wind was a 18knots, steady as ID winds can be. So off I went, red bull in hand, music blaring and driving to simplot (Meridian and Nampa were already peetering off). I got out there and my good ol' (he's probably in his 70s) friend was out there flyin' his stunt kites. Last time I saw him out there he was walking out on the grass with his walker and his stunt kite on the walker. This guy's my hero.

Anyways, he was out there already flyin' and so I set up and started to preinflate the kite. Got it all set up and launched it. I had a few difficulties at first, like it inverted itself, and i had a line stuck but after all that it was fine.

Flying felt GREAT! BTW: it was like 50+ degrees outside. I hopped on the board and off I went. Took me a bit to get back to feeling comfortable (since it's been like 4 weeks since my last flight) but after I was feeling good I started to attempt my 360s :) . Landed ONE finally! I didn't have enough wind to keep going but I at least landed one...

It was a great evening of flying, I flew till it was dark. After I got done, I came home, ate a couple things and went to the gym to run a mile and do some weights. HA! Good times... :)

The Journey to Synergy

So it's been crazy lately so I haven't had any time to blog about what's been up. I have recently made a change in my kiting quiver. One day I was attempting to fly my 16m scorpion and it was giving me fits on launching it in the light/gusty Idaho winds. I went home frustrated YET again. I ended up deciding I was going to sell it, I also decided that I wasn't flying my Ace 5m anymore so I was going to sell that. I sold both kites in an attempt at getting the new Peter Lynn Charger. I was hoping to get enough from that and a few other things but just when I was able to have enough they pushed back the release date and raised the prices on me.

I ended up deciding to get the last year's model for cheap. Synergy!! So now I have only one kite a 15m Synergy and Kristi has her 2m Hornet.

Now that there's some background of what's happened with regards to the Kite Quiver.

I've had the kite for about 2 weeks now and I've had one really good kiteboarding session and 3 other times where I just flew it static. The first time I flew it in about 15+mph... i was quite intimidated because of how fast it was in the air. The new bar/lines is AWESOME! I was able to get back and forth down the field with no problems. I came back to where I started every single time. I also was coaxed into attempting my first 360s. After doing some nice 6ft+ jumps with tail grabs etc... I attempted my first 360. MAN it was scary!!! I got waaay up there (or so it felt) and did a nice and slow 360. I ended up on my face all 5 times I tried but by the last try I was SO close but I had to head out. The next few times i've flown were pretty good. I did have one scary session though:

The wind was NUTS it was gusty and nasty. Gusting up towards 30mph with lulls down to almost nothing. I was at Simplot and I had 2 soccer fields to myself. I launched with the help of my lovely wife and soon after I realized somethingw as wrong. The bar was WAY further out than I normally had it. I looked down and realized that my spreader bar was not hooked into my harness correctly! The spreader bar is where the lines attach to my harness so that meant that if i lost the spreader bar... bye bye kite/bar/lines!! I attempted to fix it impromptu by pulling it in towards myself but to no avail. I had the kite fully depowered, and at zenith it lofted me a good 3 feet off the ground, just SITTING there. I ended up pulling the emergency line shortly after that and packed up and went to get pie instead.

Yes, I said... I decided to live another day and go and have pie and coffee with my wife. I think it turned out to be an excellent decision. Gotta love PIE! :P .

Soooooo that's about it. I'm hoping for another good kiteboarding session soon to land those 360s! Oh, I also decided recently than next summer Im' going to hit the water and learn to kitesurf. Ohhhh yeah.