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one great december fly...

another beautiful nfka fly...   it hasn't rained at a nfka fly for the entire year and this day was no exception.

saturday, sunny, 35-40 degrees, winds wnw 1-3 knots, gusts to 4...    just can't beat that kind of december weather in the pacific northwest...

starting at 10 in the morning as scheduled ( except sir richard who arrived early and awoke art and judy well before sun-up because he just couldn't wait to use art's indoor plumbing...   which isn't available in elma yet...   but that's another story )

anyway, around 10 the nfka gang arrived and immediately scarfed up all the muffins, coffee, juice, and catnip art had judy leave around the house to entertain and delight us.

we all sat around the living room ( judy actually allowed us to sit on the sofa and leather chairs for a whole hour ) warmed by a perfect fire in a perfect fireplace and felt blessed that we were so fortunate to have a dry, warm, and hospitable place to hide from the authorities.    we discussed the upcoming shortline world cup this august at wsikf and richard's neurosis about planning, or rather the lack of it, or even the lack of a plan to make plans to plan...   sometime soon.

then...   we discussed the traveling box heidi is constructing for nfka's portable super-duper weather station.

may I suggest this box will be the engineering phenomenon of the 21st century?   the whole group listened awestruck to heidi's detailed description of corner construction, interior rivets, space age plastic glue ( originally developed by the polaris sub research center in pine bluff, nebraska )...   counter sunk gauges, dials, and whirlygigs, in short, a stunning tactile embrace of neo-gothic verve and subtle variations on the post-modernist theme...   and to top off the whole shebang...   heidi's use of recycled political signs makes a most perfect and genuine nfka environmental statement.

( didn't that thing come in a box originally? )

ok...   so we had to leave the warmth sometime and go fly fighters...   because that's what we tell people we do ( Although ed seriously proposed changing the nfka's name to include "lazyboy by the fire seekers" meaning we would have to change the club's name to nfklsa...   which was so silly we decided to go fly for awhile, then come back and thaw ).

so we did...   leaving instructions with judy as to where we would be flying...   so she could misinform steve as to where to find us when he showed up...   late as usual...   sure is fun to misdirect a fedx driver...   it kind of creates an altered state of consciousness in them...   great fun to watch...   as long as no one has provided them a firearm.

we flew at wilson highschool football field.   the wilson alumni had erected a 6-foot cyclone fence all around the field to discourage mere commoners from despoiling one of america's richest fields of gonadal glory.

this left us to fly from the track field and from the weed-infested sidelines...   did you know that all competition fields in america are assigned according to gonadal size?   anyway it ended up not too different than at most kite festivals...   so we were very happy.

luckily for all of us, chuck had an optomitrist appointment, which included dilation of his eyeballs, and he would meet us later on the field...   if he could find his truck after the appointment ...   meaning that if he showed up he'd have huge unseeing pupils and squinty little eyes and would be perfect pickings in combat ...   we could hardly wait for the chance to whip his retiredarmybehind while he was temporarily handicapped...   so, like the nfka gentlemen we are, we held off competing until he showed up...

Ron flew his "bubbles" in practice against ed's "twisted mother" ( the latest in ed's large collection of orthontal rubberband-tensioned flying machines that he has designed to fully amortize the cost of his daughter's teenage braces )

Heidi flew spot, sir richard flew one of his yingy-yangy kites with mylar tails...   which actually made his kite look almost respectable in the air...   and then he flew an indonesian on a beautiful reel that wore holes in his knees after a few minutes...   d flew his buka of course...   and art flew several of old lambert designs ( only one at a time, though ) that outflew everything else in the air...   of course.

Chuck showed up, blind as a bat...   so competition began ...   best 2 of 3, double elimination, last 3 finalist flew round robin, all points counting...   chuck up first.

ron changed to a black orcon falcon...   art flew a cut-away 1997 model lambert...   sir richard flew his "hello honey" ...   king brian flew one of his top secret nowindbehindthebackmysteryassassians...   ed stayed with his "twisted mother" and d kept his buka...   chuck used a fighter with the nose made of red mylar so he could see which way the pointy end was pointed.

on this day, heidi won his first ever match...   after more than a year of great persistence and fine humor, john finally tasting the sweet juices of the kill.   congratulations!   many stories followed about how many years it took us to win...   some took much longer than heidi...   and heidi reminds us...   thanks johnboy.

and on this day, ron finally won a match from d...   so now he has nothing more to bitch about...   another congratulations well earned!

steve finally showed up about half way through the competition...   bitching just like we figured he would after being misdirected...   after allowing him to throw his kite up in the air once and watching it crash immediately, we had him fly as the ghost needed to get down to the 3 finalists. everybody was sure happy that fedx stood up to the challenge like a real man and let himself lose so quickly.

we all went back to art's where he fed us all the homebrew we could hold prior to dinner...   dos equis, red hook, black beauty, canadian maple ( only after the canadian national anthem was sung, of course ) ...   and even non-alcholoic sasparilla...   this time sitting us all downstairs in the family room because ron had soiled the rug upstairs earlier that morning...

however judy is a slow learner and made us all come upstairs and sit around a formal dining table...   a real table cloth and napkins ...   art even had a very nice nubile young lady college student he picked up on the street detailed as our official nfka serving wench.

3-bean vegetarian chilli, shortbread, roasted chilli peppers, and anything we wanted to drink was almost more than we could stand.   We were truly honored and, although nervous about maybe spilling stuff or absentmindedly wiping our fingers on the walls, we ate until our eyes watered and our jaws ached with the pleasure of chewing...   whata' meal!

for dessert...   ron brought a hummingbird cake...   ed was so impressed that ron had actually removed the bird's spleen, liver and eyes that he ate 4 very large pieces and ended actually making membership in the clean plate club...   but then, ed's a big boy.

then we all made excuses and left before art wised up and asked us to do dishes.

a success...   that's what we had...   thanks art ...   thanks friends...   woohoo!

wished you all were here...   we missed you.

grins.

d.

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