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   october in elma matched sir richard's personality perfectly ...saturday was...sunny-faced and warm-hearted with winds really flukey from the east.    not to pick on rich...there were a whole bunch of us sunny-faced, warm-hearted, flukey-winded nfka rascals on the combat field that day...16 of us ventured down / over to the highschool soccer field just west of beautiful metropolitan downtown elma.   thanks to rich, the peewee football madness in the next field did not bother us a bit...the cyclone fence he erected kept the little cuties well contained.

   heidi's bamboo shaper and magic thumb-saver made their debut..whata' real man's tool...but yet small enough to fit comfortably in a purse.   heidi you did yourself proud...thanks.   we understand he is currently planning to manufacture these handy little items off-shore in taipei using one of brian's blackmarket contacts.    plans call for distributing several million "heiditools" through the walmart chain and making them affordable for the less mechanically inclined among us.

   steve's twin-spined indian derivative was given complete inspection before being allowed on the field...until finally, through battered and bleeding lips, he promised not to win, so we let him fly it...what a nice design...borrowing the asian concept of bamboo structural support for intricate shapes, he designed and built a beautiful swallow-tail design...using two pieces of carbon fibre for continuation of the spine to the tips of the twin tails.   not only is steve a great experimenter...he builds his kites like chuck and brian...no fingerprints on the mylar...too cool.

   so here's some of the other things that i remember... probably not too much...or accurate, even...

jerry was there...not having left for his yearly trek exploring warmer climates with his woman

   bruce and donna pronounced the elma fly the official kick-off for their new darmha bum life together hitting the road to golly knows where in their motorhome.

   chuck had nicely installed a hummer on bruce's big buka... master edwardo was back on his flying feet and showed up with his newest design

brian survived taipei, barely...patsy had a little dog to babysit, cute little thing ( Sugar )

i remember tom flew a buka all morning then chose to compete with his indian and whined about how he shoulda' flown his buka (duh.)

and i barely remember my buka being trounced twice in a row by chuck's overly-aggressive indian ( duh. )...

and al flying a very pretty kite...and a big paper buka down the field being flown by three men...and a couple other friends too far away to reach on 100 feet of line.

   i remember we had mexican for lunch and he tasted very good it seems...great comradeship around the table...rich ended up brandishing a homemade knife in our faces...did you know pope tom is a recovering right-wing, anti-greenpeacetreehugger agitator?...steve got beans ( bad mistake )...i stagger back to the soccer field...competition time ...me losing.

   single elimination best of 3 points...fly off top three flyers best of 5 points round robin...thanks to patsy and donna's clear-headed scorekeeping even blind old sir richard couldn't screw this one up...actually we all helped rich judge...backseat driving and second guessing...mostly very accurate...but, thanks richard... you did great...really...no, really.

   most of the others went to richard's house to get a taipei world cup show and tell...according to reliable sources, richard showed samples of many of the kites flown in competition as well as a hong kong reel he was able to smuggle home.   he also gave each of his guests a sample indonesian kite.   coffee was served and then they viewed a tape that was done by the kite festival, of the kite festival ...and from less reliable sources 'cause my really reliable source left just then...rich went on to show a tape he made himself with probably a lot more detail about the fighter kiting activities. kind of like "what i did on my summer vacation" look through my 50 photo albums stuff.    bet it was really fun.

   so...another wonderful fly with great friends...

thanks for the grins.

d.

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