ft. worden kitemaker's conference.
well, since i just went to fly and die on the gory fields of
combat, i will leave the sharing of the entire ft. worden kitemaker's
conference to others who attended a fantastic series of learning
experiences... my job being simply to report semi-coherently
on a very bloody saturday nfka fly.most of the nfka die-hards were there... except for bruce and donna who were too busy doing strange things to each other in arizona...
and the fat kid's brother who got lost in his closet trying to find his kite bag...
and fedxsteve who, it was reported, was engaged in one of his own meaningless life dramas making him much too neurotic to fly...
and, although present at the conference, brian, gary, and karen were too busy building kites in class to compete on this day... rumor has it that they were using the conference exactly as intended, not taking a day-long fieldtrip like the rest of us hoodlums.
yes, there were a couple other important no-shows, but why continue to bore you with such trifles?
there we were on ft. worden's parade grounds acting exactly like the rag-tag airforce we are... with heidi's official nfka field weather reporting station towering over our heads - looking ever so much like a major piece of storm-damaged rigging off the ship of fools - telling us it was 52f with the windchill @ 46f and winds wsw @ 1-18mph, depending on when we decided to check the digital read-out... while the parade ground flags 20 meters downfield told us the winds were blowing from the wnw quadrant... don't we just love science?... anyway, many kudos to chuck who conceived the idea of having an official nfka weather station and to heidi who worked so hard at making it transportable and weather-proof? and giving it it's quaint erectile disfunction.
So, here we go... single elimination, best 3 of 5, winner takes home nothing but glorious grins... normal for a monthly nfka fly.
The wind was fluky, inconsistent, and challenging throughout
the day...
edwardotheengineer beat tom using another rendition of his
holy kite design... now that I think of it, it seems
delightfully ironic, ed beating the pope with a holy indian...sir richard beat larry... which would have never happened had the match been held in a biker's bar like larry proposed.
the fat kid nailed heidi with three straight points after
flying like a complete dunce during their first two engagements...
i was wondering if we were just watching the old portland
pool hustler in action, but I observed no money changing hands, i suppose
it was only jeff's supreme effort of ego that drove him to take the final
points so decisively.
arthur took a point from chuck before remembering that it was
probably a huge error to do so... chuck does not forget lost
points, nor to whom he loses one... chuck being a firm
believer that he who dies with the most points, wins... so
arthur folded under the pressure, losing the match with a few submissive
mewing gestures... but I do believe that this one successful
point has wetted his appetite for lopping off the king's head sometime
soon... just watch.
then, ron, flush from celebrating his wedding anniversary,
absolutely nailed me and my innocent little buka on three straight
points... the last point during a sudden and radical 90 degree
wind shift that left me completely vulnerable... i felt like
pollyanna exposing her tush to godzilla... ron attacked with
that windshift faster and better than any other flier I have seen...
which made my previous two groundings on underpoints
meaningless in comparison.
much less to report since I was defeated and stopped paying
attention...edwardo easily outflew sir richard...
chuck humiliated the fat kid...
ron lost to the phantom flier (tom)…because he was so totally overwhelmed with his recent success against my buka that his knees were still wobbly in post-erotic afterglow... silly boy.
final results...
chuck first... of course.
edwardo second... so good to see him getting back in form.
ron third... the rat.
an absolute great time was had... much laughter, many chances to learn, and grins so huge we could barely stand the horizontal strain on our ears.
thanks to all for a wonderful time...
... and thanks to chuck for allowing me to drink his tequila and sleep on the couch.
next...cannon beach shudders at the thought of our arrival to fly in april.
grins.
d.
Gary provided bamboo spines and CF spars for the students to dress up in the latest paper fashions. Everyone came out with some of the best fighters on the market today.
Gary Goodenough leads a class through building a paper, bamboo and ricepaper kite
Gary giving good advice
| Gary's first class on Friday | 
| Gary's hand painted Rokaku kite
A hand pieced paper kite
| 
Gary's WTO Memorial kite
| |
| You do it *this* way | 
| Alright yous guys! |
Sharon Musto ran a class building Della Porta kites.
Here, Sharon takes pictures of Bill Gates
( darklordofallthatsevil ) house across the storm tossed sea from Denny
Park on Lake Washington.
George peters held a cocoa making demonstration that went over very well
with everyone involved. We roasted the cocoa beans, shelled
them by hand and then ground them up very fine along with spices to
flavor the paste. The paste is then rolled into balls for
later use, or heated in water and mixed half and half with condensed milk
for genuine Grenadian Hot Chocolate. Can't be beat.
In the dorm Rick Miller showed off one of his giant fighter kites to the admiring crowd.
Robert Trepanier flew one of his quadline dogs over the cafeteria field