Festivals

The American Kitefliers Association convention wrapped up a week ago with the awards banquet on Saturday night.

Congratulations to all our friends from the Midwest who competed in the AKA Sport Kite Grand Nationals at the convention:

Huge congrats to Elizabeth Gordon who took first place Novice Individual Ballet in her second Grand Nationals! Elizabeth also took fourth in Novice Individual Precision.

Dave Bush took first in Experienced Individual Precision and third in Experienced Individual Ballet.
Steve Rothwell and our teammate Paul Koepke finished in the top ten in Experienced Individual Precision and Ballet.

In Experienced Pairs competition, Blues Brothers (Spencer Shubbe and Steve Rothwell) took first in Precision and second in Ballet. Sky Jesters (Dean and Vicky Proudfoot) were third in both events.

Zach Gordon took home top honors in Masters Individual Precision and third in Masters Individual Ballet. Zachs crowining achievement was sweeping both Individual Quadline Ballet and Precision.

Zach's brother Josh finished just ahead of Zach in Masters Individual Ballet and was third in Masters Individual Precision.

The brothers had a busy week - their pairs team EOS finished second in Masters Pairs Precision and third in Masters Pairs Ballet.

The pairs team O2 (Mike Delfar and Dan Newman) edged EOS for second in Masters Pairs Ballet and went to a tie-breaker to win Masters Pairs Precision.

Fire and Ice (Paul Koepke and Kathy Brinnehl) to fourth in both Masters Pairs Ballet and Precision.

In Masters Team, Chicago Fire returned to top form, taking first in Masters Team Ballet and second in Masters Team Precision.

That's pretty much a wrap on the AKA convention from here. You can read more about the event on the AKA website or on Kitelife.com. Next up: the Corona Extra Pro Surf tournament.

2nd Annual Everybody in September's Birthday Party

The September birthday group - at least the ones who could make it. We celebrated with the ones who made it and missed the ones who couldn't.

Last night was the 2nd Annual Ola Lola's Everybody in September's Birthday Party. It was a great party with delicious lechon asado (pig roast), favorite dips by Ola Lola's, and lots of amazing different foods brought by the party-ers to share. We've always loved pot lucks and getting a chance to try other peoples' favorite foods and special recipes.

Many thanks to everyone who came and celebrated, and all those who brought foods to share. Also, thanks to our friend, Billy who helped out serving cold beers in the "beer garden." Juan, our favorite DJ, was back and kept the party rockin'. After we stuffed ourselves on all the amazing food, I couldn't believe people could get up and dance but get up and dance they did!

This year's party was a little more laid back than the total blow-out last year. But that's okay. It was a ton of fun! We had cake and fabulous desserts and everyone at the party with a birthday in September got a personalized gift from Elaine.

Even if you couldn't make this one, make your plans now to be here at Ola Lola's for the Huge Happy Halloween Bash. We'll also celebrate our good friend David's birthday (even though we know he won't be here) Halloween is on Friday this year so...And as Bette Midler said in her Halloween party invitation, "costumes or else!"

Happy birthday to all our September birthday friends!

Computer woes

There's a lot to write about right now, but we are computer-less (I'm writing this on a borrowed computer). Three computers - two desktops and a laptop - and none of them work. They are all in the shop. The laptop and one desktop both crashed. The other desktop won't connect to the 'Net - a bad card we think. We;re hoping to get at least one back this afternoon. We're working on a huge proposal for Chiringa Fest and we desparately need it. Anyway, if you email us and don't get a quick response, that's why.



This week is the American Kitefliers Association convention in Gettysburg, PA. Good lunk to all our friends competing in the Grand Nationals sport kite competitions. And EVERYBODY - have a great time and lots of fun at the convention. John Baressi and the boys from Team iQuad are posting daily reports with photos from the convention on Kitelife.com. Check ém out. And if you want to know more about the AKA and the convention, check out their website at http://www.aka.kite.org/

Dodged another one - so far

It's been another interesting week.

We've managed to dodge another storm. This one didn't have a name, it was just a "little" tropical disturbance. It formed due south of the island and the forecast models predicted it would go right over the island with moderate winds but a lot of rain. The storm in fact moved west. Right now it's over the ocean between PR and the Dominican Republic, in the Mona Passage.

We were SO incredibley lucky! The south and eastern part of the island got up to 25 inches of rain in one day in some areas. It's been cloudy here all week and we've had some rain but only a couple of inches all together. WHEW! We're not out of the water yet. Looking at the satellite photos, we're still well with in range even though the center of the storm appears to have passed us by. The forecast is for thunderstorms through the middle of the week.

So far, it's missed us. Let's hope it stays away!

Have you noticed...

Even in today's world of aviation and airline technology - GPS, radio directional signals, airplanes that fly nearly around the world on auto-pilot (while the human pilots doze off, some pilot buddies told us this actually happens - can you imagine?), when the plane lands, when you finally get to your gate, it is still a person with two orange flashlights that direct the plane to its parking spot?

Long time gone but we're home again

It feels like so long since I've written anything for the blog. I guess two weeks IS a pretty long time.

We had a really hectic week two weeks ago - lots of storms, power outages, etc. Plus we were rushing to get some things done for the kite festival and then to get ready to go to Milwaukee to perform at a kite festival there.

What a crazy week! We dodged tropical storms and hurricanes here only to run into a major storm front in the Upper Midwest. Chicago and Northwest Indiana got over 10 inches of rain in 24 hours - a record for them. Roads were flooded and closed. Interstate 94 - a major east-west highway across Michigan, Indiana and Illinois - was closed for three days in northern Indiana. Our kite festival was on hold most of Saturday and completely washed out on Sunday. That's the first time that's happened in 30 years at this event.

We did get to see a bunch of friends over the weekend. And we got to spend a little bit of time with our daughter Amy and granddaughter Kennedy. That was pretty hectic also because we spent all day Monday moving Amy and Kennedy into an apartment.

But they're settled now and we're back on the island safe and sound and glad to be home. The puppies were glad to see us. Even though a friend was exercising Chocolate everyday, Elaine said he was a pistol and quite full of himself when she rode him yesterday. I guess he's glad she's home too.

More about the trip soon.

Hurricane update

Well, I'm gonna type fast because we don't know how long power will last. We've been without electricity and mostly without cell phone for two days - and Hurricane Hannah didn't even hit us! We have gotten a lot of rain and occasional wind out of the outer bands of Hannah as she went by but nothing bad - no damage and (knock on wood) no flooding.

It looks like Hurricane Ike is going to miss us which is a very good thing because right now out over the Atlantic it is a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. The forecasts have it going well north of us. We may get some rain but it shouldn't be anything too bad (we hope!).

BTW - did you know our word "hurricane" comes from the Taino word "hurican?" The Tainos were the last native people on the island before the Columbus and the Spanish came.