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- Lou's Kiteboarding home page
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- Lou's Comedy home page
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Note: While not kiteboarding, I plan to update my blog weekly (usually Wednesdays) - or when something special happens.
Thu 7/1 - No wind today so I spent most of the morning working out details and specifications for the KHK restaurant entry area. John Harris, Kitty Hawk Kites' president and Joel and Robby, the restaurateurs seem to like my ideas. I drove down to Avon where Dan, at Ride Hatteras loaned me his electrical tape to push through above my van's headliner from the rear dome light to the front ceiling-mounted panel and then pull the wiring through for my night-time ceiling fan. The fan is a 12-volt, 3-inch muffin fan. Now the wiring is above the headliner and out of sight and out of the way!
- After checking the optimistic wind conditions on iKitesurf, I spent about one and a half hours driving about 20 miles to check it out in the Frisco area on both the sound side and the ocean side. Neither was there much wind nor the right direction, so I drove back up to Avon's Atlantic Coast Café and selected some photos for my website and updated this blog.
- Spending the night in Avon.
Fri 7/2 - Northeast wind maxed out at 24 mph. With just barely enough power using my 8m Cabrinha Switchblade-2, I made an ocean distance record with my Naish Custom Fish 5’2” x 17.5” surfboard without foot straps of 4 miles around Avon from Ramp 34 on the Atlantic to Ramp 38. It seemed I would never get started, with the 3-4' surf and all. The whole thing took 1:10 hours and I covered 7.45 miles with a maximum speed of 18.0 mph.
- I started planning my exit back toward Phoenix, since there is little wind forecast for the next week or so.
Sat 7/3 - Not enough wind for kiteboarding today or forecast for the next week, so continued my exit planning. Woke up about 5:10 his morning and decided to seize the moment and give myself a much-needed haircut in Kitty Hawk Kites rest room. I carry everything in for the project, including a little broom and dustpan for cleanup.
- Spent most of the day preparing for the trip back home to Phoenix. I pumped up all four of my kites, rinsed them off and let them dry. Then I used KHK's digital shipping scale to weigh each kite with and without its bag so I will be able to quickly tell a kite is dry and sand free without even opening it up. Also I devised a test for my new little digital luggage scale using a rack of skim boards and the KHK digital shipping scale. The disturbing thing is that my scale is inconsistent in its measurements. Guess it IS better than nothing. If I leave for Phoenix tomorrow after the Good Winds Restaurant opening, I should arrive at Anne and Robby's in Altus, Oklahoma on Wednesday or Thursday, including a couple-hour stop at the Mawi Cable Wakeboard Park in Guthre, Oklahoma.
- Spent some time on the phone to Toyota and tire dealers, drove to Avon where I washed my van with a fresh-water undercariage rinse, did some shopping, stopped by various places to say, "goodbye," caught up on this blog and spent the night in Avon.
Sun 7/4 - Happy Independence Day! Today was being the first menu customer at the new Good Winds Restaurant, collecting things for the trip back home to Phoenix (My thrift-store knee board, new 2010 Best kite bar/line set, new kite Travel bag) and a sun/run on the beach near Rodanthe Peer.
- Got on the road (see table below) about 3:30pm and spent the night in Claremont, NC where I had a rare positive contact (as opposed to South Padre Island TX's Cameron County and OBX's Dare County) with law enforcement. I was parked in a dentist's parking lot working on this blog and a police officer stopped by just to check if I was OK - no harassment. The encounter lasted about five seconds. What a guy.
Mon 7/5 - I have decided to try a different pattern of driving. Since I am in no rush to get home, I'll try stopping to do things that I want or need to do Instead of trying to drive as much as I can each day. Things like this blog, my driving summary chart (below), email and write notes etc.
Tue 7/6 - On the road at 8:00 am: Rush is now on: hoping to get to the Mauwi Cable Wakeboard Park north of Oklahoma City to ride an hour before they closed at 8pm. It was not meant to be. First of all, approaching Oklahoma City, traffic was slow due to an accident. Then there was a thunderstorm and associated heavy rain. Of course they closed the cable park due to weather. So what did I do with myself for the rest of the afternoon and evening? I checked out Frontier City, the big theme park, soaked my finger in boiled Epsom salt water and caught up on this blog.
- I did some telephoning today, including making a dermatologist appointment and one with my PCP doctor about my finger which does not seem to be getting better. Also I phoned about my little inaccurate scale. They called me back in less than an hour, having tested one against their shipping scale and found it to be both accurate and consistent. They'll mail me that one, along with a label for my return of the scale I now have. What good service!
- Spending the night in the Wal-Mart parking lot, Edmond, OK. Every night I need to shuffle things around before bedtime, as now my van contains the kneeboard, the kite travel bag and two sets of queen-sized jersey sheets, which I picked up at a Wal-Mart store.
Thu 7/8 - On the road about 9:30 am.: Finding a wireless connection today was a bit of a challenge. The Amarillo Super 8 Motel required a sign-on password, so with the help of my GPS receiver I phoned the Tucumcari Library who said they had Internet but failed to tell me that it was not working until I arrived, so I phoned ahead to the Santa Rosa library. I spent about three hours there online but could not change my website through my Windows FTP server. Finally thanks to a Holliday Inn Express and a little luck tweaking my internet connection settings, I got it to work, so you have my latest here (as if you care).
- Spending the night in Grants, NM.
Fri 7/9 - This morning I analyzed six different scenarios for my drive on home to Phoenix, like stopping by Payson to say, "Hi" to my X; stopping by Mesa to visit my younger brother, George and driving directly home. Driving to Gallup, NM where I got my van's oil changed, I made a bunch of phone calls to put the whole thing together.
- Ended up driving to Mesa, AZ for dinner with my Aunt Juanita and her husband, Cy, along with George and family and my older brother, Stan, who had flown in from Hutchinson, KS. After a lot of good visiting, Stan packed his things in my van and we headed to my house. It was certainly good to get home and to have Stan help me unload my van from my three-month trip.
- Spending the nights now in my own bead at home in Phoenix
| 2010 | Overall Avg mph |
Moving Avg mph |
Total Time |
Miles Today | Total Miles |
Forecst Low Temp | Night Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Su Jul 4 | 50.5 | 63.5 | 7:24 | 380.2 | 380.2 | 65 deg. | Claremont, NC 28610 |
| Mo Jul 5 | 46.0 | 63.5 | 13:42 | 598.9 | 970.1 | 75 deg. | West Memmphis, AR 72301 |
| Tu Jul 6 | ?? | 62.6 | ?? | 471.0 | 1441.1 | 73 deg. | Edmond, OK 73034 |
| We Jul 7 | 55.1 | 62.4 | 5:24 | 297.7 | 1738.8 | 65 deg. | Amarillo, TX 79104 |
| Th Jul 8 | 47.0 | 62.9 | 5:24 | 361.5 | 2100.3 | 60 deg. | Grants, NM 87020 |
| Fr Jul 9 | 27.4 | 57.0 | 13.51 | 379.3 | 2479.6 | 89 deg. | HOME in Phoenix 85024 |
Sat 7/10 - Today Stan and I made shopping lists and went grocery shopping, as there was no food in my house. Also I helped him install the necessary software on his new little 10-inch Acer net-book computer.
- This evening Stan and I went to Codfathers (greasy English and American sea foot) for the Saturday-night feast of area ham radio operators.
Sun 7/11 - This morning I tried packing all my kiting equipment in my two kite travel bags (the old Liquid Force one and the new, larger, Cabrinha one) and discovered that everything fit within the airline weight limit of 50 pounds each, at least according to my new little luggage scale. I helped Stan open a new Gmail account. We went over to George's in Mesa for noon dinner and had a good visit with most of George's five kits and families. His daughter, Carla, had an old train case (remember those things?) full of old pictures that my mom had left her. We had a great time going through all them, figuring out who was who for generations past and getting them organized. Carla did a great job.
- This evening I sorted through all the mail I received while I was gone and caught up on this blog.
Tue 7/13 - I've been and will continue for the next several weeks, researching online and communicating with Toyota dealers regarding a 2011 Sienna minivan.
New Van Wish List (revised 7/26/10)
Reasons to NOT buy a new 2010 Sienna are, my 1996 Dodge Carravan is/has:
Because of today's down economy I decided to spend the van money on two parcels (7.3 and 5 acres) of repossessed raw desert land near Wittmann, which is exciting and should prove to be an excellent investment.
- I repacked both kite travel bags within the airline 50 lb domestic weight limit, sent some thank you notes to OBX, pulled weeds, front and back and planned my projects for the next few days.
Wed 7/14 - My dermatologist, always thorough, said I was good to go and the mole on my left arm needed no attention unless I wanted it removed. I didn't.
- From Goodwill I upgraded my hand iron to a Panasonic with a CPU, auto shut-off, motion detectors and a cord reel.
- This evening I drove down to Chandler for Gangplank where I tweaked my website by adding a couple definitions, adding Gangplank's new address and updating my home page since I am now back home in Phoenix. It was good to be back among all my techie friends.
Thu 7/15 - I phoned The Retirement Clinic, a weekly program on a local radio station with a question about Roth IRA roll-overs, taxes, withholding and penalties. Good thing I called in, as I was the only caller during the hour show. I already have a question in mind for next week.
- The BIG job today was to spread out and photograph all my old windsurfing equipment for Craig's List.
- Re-inked my Dymo electronic time/date stamp and updated its link on my Technology web page.
Fri 7/16 - Today was mostly a big trip for getting Styrofoam to add to my Naish Custom Fish surfboard fin protection scheme, grocery shopping, buying two welded stainless steel rings for $10 each (ouch!) at West Marine for my Best Bar safety augmentation project, stopping by Bell Road Toyota to look at Sienna interior colors, etc.
- To bed early (before 10pm). Good for me!
Sat 7/17 - Today's projects involved some frustration and some success. Frustrating was getting the third-screen software installed for my Kensington USB docking station and finding that it slowed my computer down by a factor of SIX! Uninstalling the software did not speed things up and, so far, I have been unable to restore the computer back to before I installed the software. Now I am, again, stuck with a slow computer… but the third screen is very handy. The success was finding out, by experimentation, that the best way to glue Styrofoam together is with a low-temperature hot-melt glue gun.
- To bed early (before 10pm) again. Good for me!
Sun 7/18 - This morning's project, before the day heated up too much, was to deploy my new 2011 Best Redline Performance Bar, measure it and install a stainless steel ring to give me the additional safety option of flagging the kite on one front line and still be able to spin the bar. It was a bear, with their safety line and stopper ball.
Mon 7/19 - Strung out, measured & tweaked a couple kite bars; stopped my semi-monthly automatic investing in Vanguard to save up more for a possible new van; measured the table socket location in my van relative to a new van; did some Social Security calculations and found:
In spite of what the Social Security Administration might tell you, unless you are in financial straits, you do not want to take your SS early unless you intend to die young. If you take it at 70 instead of 62, your monthly SS check will be about 70% higher. It would take you about eight years to make up what you lost, at the lower rate, between ages 62 and 70. The rest of your life it would be gravy, as they say.
We took our SS at about 62 at the recommendation of our SS advisor (big mistake). Now it would cost us about $80k to pay back what we have received so far in order to reapply at age 70 and get the higher rate. Since we do not have the 80 grand laying around, we'll probably just stick tight and spend the rest of our life kiteboarding and with the puny SS payments. Hind sight is always 20/20! (The above information was current as of 2010)
Tue 7/20 - I phoned my daughter, Anne. They saw Inception and said it was good. I'll have to put it on my to see list.
Wed 7/21 - I planned early
morning projects for the week, to include moving my weather station to the back yard, washing my van & engine, trimming the front yard shrubs, installing a new safety line bungee for my Cabrinha ISD bar and start moving the granite in my back yard.
- Arranged to get an AWD 2011 Toyota Sienna up on a lift and determined that the floor was suitable for installing a socket for my table.
- Enjoyed going to Gang Plank this evening
Thu 7/22 - Researched & talked to salespeople about new van.
Fri 7/23 - Drove a 2011 Toyota Sienna; parked it in my garage, closed the door and it fit! and bought some famous used books at St Vincent de Paul.
Sat 7/24 - Went to garage sales until I found a wheel barrow: 5 cu ft; rusty; $3.00
Sun 7/25 - Found that moving a wheel barrow full of granite (yard gravel) with a flat tire is impossible. Ended up dumping the load!
Mon 7/26 - Aired up the wheelbarrow tire and it held air long enough for moving a load of granite. Got Slime at Harbor Freight and got the tire to hold air, but the tire is still cracked from age, although it looks new.
- First contact with my new DUETAZ.COM shopping partner, 94-year old Mildred.
Tue 7/27 - Moved a wheelbarrow load of granite - tire still holding air with the Slime.
- Took the wheel off my wheelbarrow and paid Discount Tire $17 to put a new pneumatic tire on it. Grocery shopping today.
Wed 7/28 - Moved a load of granite using my wheelbarrow with the new tire; sunned; two sessions on my exercycle; gym; window tint reinstalled on driver's side due to a bubble; got a chin strap for sleeping; went to gang plank.
Thu 7/29 - Now moving a wheelbarrow load of granite (gravel) in my back yard most every morning; Raked my front granite so it looks a lot nicer without all the footprints.
Fri 7/30 - John Robinson left Lake Havasu City in his SUV at 1am and arrived at my house at 4:40am to buy all my remaining windsurf stuff (see photo, 7/15). He, his friend and I had a nice visit. He had seen my listing on Craig's List. He also had looked at my website and brought me some goodies, including a big bowie knife, and several LED light combination devices.
- This evening I met George, my brother, and his wife for the premier showing of Sacrifice in Tempe. It was the first premier for me and interesting to hear the story behind the film and comments from the director. George, on his flute, furnished the background music for one of the scenes.
Sat 7/31 - With my eeePc900XP I backed up all my modified files; Mailed in my passport for renewal in preparation for October's kiteboarding trip to Brazil; decided to not buy a new van this year (see 7/13 Reasons to NOT buy a new Sienna); my first time in Chuy's Mesquite Grill for the Saturday-night HamFeast.