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- Lou's Comedy home page
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Tue 7/28 – Fri 7/31 – Made it home about 2:30 Wednesday afternoon after four days worth of driving, got things unloaded and checked the wind forecast for Los Angeles, which indicated pretty good wind for Sunday and Monday, so I went from arriving mode into leaving mode.
- Thursday morning was yard day; deep watering the little Brazilian Pepper tree and trimming the Natal Plum shrubs outside my library window. The bad news is they have lots of thorns. The good news is they are a good prowler deterrent.
Wed 7/22 – Mon 7/27 – Visiting Anne and family for five nights in Norfolk, VA. Highlights were, of course my two grandkids, Katie Rose (about 4), and Brook about 7 months). At her request, Katie Rose and I ate breakfast at the table in my van. I also brought her a skeen of pink yarn to maybe make fuzz balls, hand crochet or braid. Naturally she had her own ideas of tying knots and stringing it all over their two-story house as a pink obstacle course. We also made lots of shapes out of colored pipe cleaners and set up her battery-operated G-scale Christmas train which we used to send our pipe-cleaner shapes and railroad signs back and forth across the oval via the train. We also made a set of five matching T-shirts with my website logo and URL and got some family pictures wearing the shirts. We rounded out the activities by playing in the park, an awesome pillow fight and a bed-time story.
- Sunday, after supper I headed north and spent the night in Williamsburg. It was a good plan because I was not rushed to pack and leave in the morning, missed Norfolk’s Monday Morning traffic and got about 40 miles under my belt toward Phoenix and home.
- Today, Monday, I had one of my best driving days yet: 675 miles to Nashville, where I am blogging and spending the night.
Tue 7/21 – This was the morning I took owners/managers of all the kiteboard shops out for breakfast at the Atlantic Coast Café in Waves to share some of my ideas of how to expand the sport. Only Brian from Ocean Air showed up. We had a good breakfast, discussion and visit. While there I used their free wifi and took care of some business. Then to Kitty Hawk Kites to inflate my kites and let them finish drying out. After lunch there I left Hatteras Island for the season and...
- headed out to U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) in Norfolk to visit my daughter’s family, Anne, Robby, Katie Rose and Brook, who just moved there from Wichita, KS.
- Spending the night in Norfolk, VA
Mon 7/20 – Getting ready to leave the island by scrubbing the white letters on my tires, washing and fresh water undercarriage rinse the van, rinsing and drying my kites, preparing a photo for a picture postcard, changing the default hover picture on my home page from the back of the boat to my kiteboarding the first turnout south of Kite Point with my 14 m Cabrinha Contra on
my Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x a7.5” strapless surfboard (my first strapless photo), planned tomorrow’s 2.5 hour, 120-milee drive to Virginia Beach to see my daughter, Anne, and her family.
- Spending the night in Rodanthe
Sun 7/19 – Got little sleep last night:
- Sheriff’s deputy banged on my van windows etc about 4am, threatened to tow the van and to arrest me. Never told me what law they were quoting that I was supposedly breaking by having my van parked at Food Lion – only that they would show me the law after they arrested me and took me to jail. All this gives me second thoughts about returning to the Outer Banks for kiteboarding next year.
- Drove south and got stuck, backing just off the solid area into the swamap while turning around in the first sound turn-off north of Buxton so…
- Worked on my website mouse-over captions for about two hours during rain and, during breaks in the rain, laid out my tow strap and dug out in front of the van tires
- Folks in a pickup truck pulled me out
- Telephoned the national Leo LaPorte show – a four hour project
- Fine tuned some of the links on my Shops Services WX web page
- Visited with newly arrived kiteboarding friends, David, Deno & Adam
- Sorted pictures from Duane Hall
- Max wind not much over 5mph all day
- Spending the night in Avon
Sat 7/18 – Went to Canadian Hole for breakfast & to check the wind
– Spent about 1.5 hours speed dialing in an unsuccessful attempt to call Leo LaPorte, the Tech Guy, a national radio talk show. Earlier I had a nice visit with Rebecca, the phone screener who thought my website was cool. I thought she was cool too. Typically the phone screeners are under such a time pressure they do not have time to visit.
- Drove up to Salvo Day Use Area (SDA) and kited locally for about an hour with my 14 m Cabrinha Contra and Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x a7.5” strapless surfboard. I was the only person to be able to stay upwind in 12-16 mph winds averaging 13 mph. My best GPS speed runs are usually on a portside tack (going to the left), but today it was on a starboard tack (going to the right) at 21.5 mph. As you may know, you get your best sailing speed on a broad reach (going somewhat down wind). Naturally after my last speed run when I was down wind is when the wind quit – completely. I had a beautiful walk back to the SDA beach with my kite down on the water.
- I can't believe I was not bothered by a single mosquito an Ocean Ramp 28(?) parking lot from before sunset to 9:15 pm. Of course there was a little breeze the entire time. Did my blog & sorted videos of Sam Bell's riding the 13th
- Spending the night in south Avon
Fri 7/17 – Received my Garmin Foretrex 401 GPS receiver just in time for this afternoon’s kiting session at Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe after making some necessary phone calls. There were only two of us out at first and then only me. The wind was good, gusting to almost 30 mph.
Thu 7/16 – Days like today are the reason I come to the Outer Banks. I kited five hours today from Planet of the Apes (my GPS waypoint haPLAN
) with Matt, Lesyk, Stas and Dave, all from Washington DC. All but Stas are good kiteboarders who had done the the Planet run before, but had never experienced it until they did it with me.
- We went on most every inlet there was. My favorite was going into a Salvo dock with a T
canal at the end. For the first time I went into most inlets toeside and carved to healside to exit. Of course we did the three canals. It was the first time I went back upwind and did the cross canal a second time – and a third time. That was Matt, Dave and me. Lesyk was jealous, being overpowered on his larger kite to the point that he could not navigate the canals and the inlets. All the time the four of us experienced kiteboarders were having fun; Stas had his own fun practicing getting up on his board and actually did quite a bit of riding. Everyone was happy when we arrived at Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe.
- Before we started the 6.8-mile downwinder, Mat and I rode about locally at the Planet. I spent about two hours practicing foot switches with my Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x a7.5” strapless surfboard. I had plenty of power with my 8m Cabrinha Switchblade-2 the entire afternoon/evening.
Wed 7/15 – I got all excited about this morning’s forecast for good winds for the next four days (tomorrow afternoon through Sunday morning). NOAA popped my bubble with this evening’s degraded forecast. There will probably be some good riding, but nothing like originally forecast.
Tue 7/14 – Good day for patching a row of little holes in my 12m Cabrinha Switchblade-4’s canopy with self-adhesive repair tape and getting my weather station back up running. Oregon Scientific finally UPSd the correct one to me. It is so nice to have all my temperature and wind monitors functioning with appropriate alarms set. I monitor temperatures outside, inside, in the pantry and in the refrigerator.
- To the gym for a very short, abbreviated workout and shower.
- Spending in south Avon
Mon 7/13 – Cloudy and mild wind (14 avg. 11-16 range) @ the first turnout north of Avon (my GPS waypoint HNOR1
). I could have gone out with my 14 m Cabrinha Contra low wind kite but instead drove 15 miles up to Rodanthe where there was less wind and eventually some rain… and more rain... and more rain. Not real heavy but most all afternoon and evening.
- I spent my time mostly holed up in my van still trying to figure how to implement hover picture captions on my home page with Javascript. I didn’t get the captions to work but did correct some unclosed HTML image tags on my home page.
- Plan to drive down to south Avon for the night.
Su 7/12 – Pretty good wind today: three kite sessions
HANOR1&
HANOR2) with Oto from Chapel Hill, NC who is practicing getting up on the board. He did well. He is very good at going downwind, as he overshot HANOR2 twice today. My new strapless challenge is to repeatedly switch, on the same tack, healside to toeside to healside etc. on my Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x a7.5” strapless surfboard using my 12m Cabrinha Switchblade-4. I managed 8 consecutive switches to port and 4 consecutive switches to starboard at approximately five-second intervals.
Sat 7/11 – This morning I added a 2008 Brazilian video (ocean downwinder from Cumbuco to the Cauipi Lagoon) that was taken from the kite’s point of view from the launch to the landing with a kite cam. Check it out at the bottom of my Locations web page.
- Also did shopping; to Canadian Hole for lunch/sun/run (pulse = 149 after 4:13-minute run); to gym for workout & shower; to Dollar Tree for ASA & Pecan Spinners for Monday night’s treat; resolved checking account; updated this blog.
- Night in Avon.
Fri 7/10 – I should have known better than to go out on the Atlantic with insufficient wind. I started a downwinder like yesterday from Ramp 34 with my 12m Cabrinha Switchblade-4 and 130 cm Lite Wave Stealth twin tip board. Since there was not enough wind to do my normal beach butt-scoot start, I used the kite to drag me out, holding the board, beyond the breaking surf and put the board on my feet. That was neat! I did a few kite loops to have enough power to go; even did one on a start-up. Probably my first, and that was neat! Alas the kite got down in the water; not enough wind to relaunch; got into the surf; was not damaged and ended up with about 80 pounds of sand on it. Without going into detail, I’ll just say that all this challenged my safety and recovery techniques. Ended up walking back about a half mile holding the kite inverted in one hand and my board in the other.
- This morning, while waiting for wind, I added six more areas to
Stupidity. The web page is now ready to accept my thoughts when I get around putting them on paper.
- Spending the night in Avon
Thu 7/9 – Good day; did two four-mile ocean downwinders from Ramp 34 (my GPS waypoint HAO34
) north of Avon to Ramp 38 (my GPS waypoint HAO38
) south of Avon. Winds Were 18-21 mph. Both with 130 cm Lite Wave twin tip board; the first with my 12m Cabrinha Switchblade-4 and the second with my 8m Cabrinha Switchblade-2. First trip kite never touched the water and my board never left my feet.
- Spending the night in Frisco Haven to be ready to ride early on the sound.
Wed 7/8 – No wind so went to the gym, then to Canadian Hole for sun & run (4:11 min. run w pulse of 149) and to hang out, then back to the gym - only up stairs to work on my website. I spent over three hours on my home page, trying, unsuccessfully, to write JavaScript to add a caption that would change when the enlarged hover picture changes.
– Black and blue is mostly gone from my right hip, which I am still icing a couple times a day.
- Spending the night is south Avon in anticipation of northeast winds tomorrow. They downgraded the forecast this evening from NE 15-20 to NE 10-15.
Tue 7/7 – I offended some horsemen probably a father (lower 50’s) and daughter lower 30’s), in the ocean parking lot near the ferry docks, by inquiring if they cleaned up after their horses, as a couple years ago horsemen left a big mess of manure on the parking lot after they left. I tried to be polite and use my magnetic personality (?) but it seems they were just waiting to be offended – so they were. Did I do wrong?
- Got my Garmin Foretrex 201 off for repair then Spent about two hours at the Hatteras Library for lunch, a couple of phone calls and pulling together some loose ends like updating my video VLC Media Player and pulling yesterday’s videos off my camcorder’s SD card. There was not much wind all day today, although I learned that Mary, Frank and Paul (all kiteboarding friends of my generation) did a 2-mile downwinder to the Washout on an approximate 15 mph northeasterly wind – likely with the Jet Ski support of Arthur. That group makes a good team.
- This morning, for the first time I noticed a little black and blue on my right hip. Seems funny that the discoloration did not appear until eight days after the injury (see 6/28). I won’t worry about it because Gladys, a nurse I met at the Avon Pier this evening, recommended I keep icing and compressing it and give it another week.
- Spending the night in south Avon after some grocery shopping.
Mon 7/6 – I was attacked this morning! I had checked for a good west wind and the weather radar (due to rain) and headed down to the Washout sound-side beach with my 12m Cabrinha Switchblade-4. The wind was dieing fast and about 100 mosquitoes were waiting to attack me. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough! As a result I spent about a half hour trying to suck the poison from the bites with my Extractor and applying ammonia-based After Bite treatment.
- On a mild 10-12 mph NW wind I was the only one riding at Frisco Woods Campground. Alex (Vanessa) tried his 11m kite but it was not big enough for him to stay upwind. Another person was out with his kite down in the water most of the time. I did ok with my low-wind combination: 14 m Cabrinha Contra and Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x a7.5” strapless surfboard – until the wind died almost completely. At least my kite never touched the water and I did few jibes. Alex got one of my jibes on video, from a distance – a carve then foot-switch.Sun 7/5 – First order of business after getting acquainted with Pastor Steve and his wife Peggy and breakfast was to arrange towing of my van 1.4 miles to Steve’s to install a new fuel pump. The flatbed tow truck was prompt, but got stuck in a sand hole
in the church parking lot. It was in pretty deep but got out in a neat way. Mitch tipped the bed and extended it to lift his rear wheels and push the truck out of the sand. Charlie, from Ride Hatteras, picked up the fuel pump from Advanced Auto Parts (which happened to be open on Sundays) near his home in Manteo and delivered it to us in Salvo on his way to Avon. Installing the fuel pump took longer than expected, but at least the wind was not blowing. For $500 the van is now running fine. That sounds like a lot of money, but is less than one new car payment and the van is paid for (eat your heart out) so the rest is free!
- Spent a little time hanging out at Kitty Hawk Kites in Rodanthe, Ride Hatteras in Avon and headed south to spend the night in the Frisco area, because tomorrow’s wind is forecast to be early and from the west.
Sat 7/4 – Happy Independence Day, although it would have been a little happier here with wind. I went to the Avon Pier before breakfast to get some ice for my right hip (see 6/28) and they were using a Cushman cart to haul trailers full of fireworks out onto the dock for tonight’s fireworks display. While there, we learned that they just had a big fireworks explosion in Ocracoke (next island southwest); at least one person dead and many with burn injuries. We continued to watch the fireworks going out onto the pier, and the man bringing fire extinguishers arriving after the fireworks were already out on the pier.
- After breakfast I went to Ride Hatteras and helped Charley for about three hours by straightening and organizing The Cage
, which is an enclosed area behind the shop with windsurf boards, surf boards, body boards, kayak paddles, life vests etc. Next to the gym for a quick workout before they closed at 3:30 for the 4th and found shade for a short nap, icing my right hip and for updating this blog. Although the flies do not appreciate it, I certainly have been enjoying my new 50-cent fly swatter, and keep it handily tucked in the pocket behind the van’s passenger seat.
- (revised noon 7/5) Scot, Ben and Kay invited me up to Rodanthe for a celaboratory BBQ cook-out. I never arrived because my van quit at mile post 25.6, about five miles south of Salvo. Charlie stopped and his friend Steve came out and got it running long enough to get to Salvo's Life Boat Communty Church’s parking lot where I spent the night.
Fri 7/3 – This morning I did some shopping, checked the wind, phoned some kiteboarders, went to the gym and then down to Canadian Hole.
– In the vicinity of Canadian Hole I saw about three kites in the air and an equal number in the water – not a good day for kiteboarding.
- This evening I did a little research: The Garmin Foretrex 401 GPS receiver is not yet available; Oregon Scientific is closed for the 4th, so I could not check up on the main display panel they were supposed to send me; I ordered a Windmaster 2
wind meter (expensive by my standards) to replace the one I lost.
- Spending the night in south Avon.
Thu 7/2 - This morning was spent getting the van to start. I concluded it was a fuel pump problem. After I gave up a mechanic, friend of Jim, came out and hit the gas tank a few times, which fixed it. Put Thermo-Aid to get the water out of the gas and a fuel injector cleaner in my gas tank at his recommendation.
- HOT day w little wind until about 4:30 when it started building - a little. Did the famous nubie one-mile downwinder from HANOR1 to HANOR2 with four others - two new kiteeboarders. Kay was very happy that she was riding both directions, for the first time, by the end of the mile. Scott was happy that he helped her and Ben was happy that his dad, Scott, gave his kite and board back after barrowing
it out on the water. I was happy, as I did so many strapless jibes I quit counting them. I was probably batting better than 55%.
- Spending the nigght in South Avon
Wed 7/1 - Set your DVR/VCR to to the Weather Channel on July 13th. They interviewed me, among others, for an OBX special – They couldn’t say what time of the day, only that it would be sometime on the 13th.
– Kited twice today: This morning for about a half hour around 11:00 with my 14m & surf board. Then around dinner time took Scott and his son, Ben on their first Planet Run. They were both stoked after the 6.8-mile downwinder Scott said it was the most fun he had ever had in any sport. And just to think I had the privilege of introducing them to the Run.
- Spending where we transferred my kites from their vehicle to my van at the first ocean ramp south of Salvo - technically illegal, but my van wouldn't start, but cranked well. Couldn’t update my website or blog, as no wifi and almost no cell phone coverage. Conserving the van's battery by increasing the refrigerator temp from 41 to 49 degrees, taking phone, GPS etc. off the charger.
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