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Saturday morning, Ryan and I headed out to Chapin beach in Dennis to try and get in some kiting. I threw on my 3/2 wetsuit and Ryan let me borrow his hood. We got out there and found the beach occupied by about two dozen kiters

Chapin is a great beach for beginners. The water is quite shallow and, except for a small area of rocks, the beach is clean and open. I met a few of Ryan’s kite friends, specifically Ed and Roger. They were both out there on slightly larger kites. Ryan was all sorts of excited because he had just purchased a fantastic 11m off e-bay. Soon, he would rule the school with his sick tricks.

We pumped up our kites and Ryan got me out there with a 7.5meter. The wind was working, but my attempts were mostly weak. I was unable to do much more than struggle out of the water. I’m not highly disappointed because it was my first time out this season, and I’m just pleased to have been on the water. I was also a bit paranoid about neighboring kites. But, I’m going to just have to get used to it.

The other kiters seemed to be doing pretty well. There were even two real life Kitechicks there (real in person!). Apparently they had taken the Real ZERO 2 HERO training course in hattaras, and were now riding strong. All the more reason why I really need to get to kitecamp.

After struggling for about 30-40 minutes, I headed in to grab my camera and Ryan took off to do some mad jumps including a just where he was able to fully remove his foot from the straps, pose for glory, and then strap back in before landing on the water.

It was a pretty great day for kiting.

Mike D: What part of you is sick? do you have a fever?
Ryan: no fever anymore
day 1: sore throat, fever
day 2: sore throat morphing into sinus, fever
day 3: sinus, cough, no fever
day 4: cough, sinus death
Mike D: Death eh?
Ryan: yes, death
Mike D: if you die, can I have your bow kite?
Ryan: no
Mike D: Come on!
Ryan: i’m taking it with me to the grave
offshore wind, just strap my dead corpse to it and sent me out to sea

From May 17th - 24th 2008 I think I’m going to try and plan a trip to Hatteras NC for kite-boarding camp.

mind you, that says 2008.

Planning Vacation is so ridiculous. This is especially true when you have a 3 year calendar on your wall with class dates scheduled through February of 2009. I get about 11 weeks off over the course of a year, which isn’t terrible. It’s just a matter of timing. Outside of the four weeks in August, there aren’t really any breaks of consecutive weeks without class.

Anyway if you’re interested in learning the ways of the kite, you have about 9 months to think it over. We’ll talk about this again in January of 2008.

Also, potential new t-shirt silk screen design. Comments?

I don’t know if I like the text. It might be better with just the image.

BACKGROUND:
Ryan Schenk wrote a program called CapeWind to be used as a Widget. The program reports back wind speeds at various buoys across Cape Cod so that windsurfers, sailers, and kiteboarders will know when the right conditions exist to rock out.

Earlier today, Ryan received the following e-mail:

Hello,

Your product “Cape Wind 2.1″ has been tested by the Softpedia labs and found to be completely clean of adware/spyware components.

We are impressed with the quality of your product and encourage you to keep this high standards in the future.

To assure our visitors that “Cape Wind 2.1″ is clean, we have granted it with the “100% FREE” Softpedia award. Moreover, to let your users know about this certification, you may display this award on your website, on software boxes or inside your product.

More information about your product’s certification and the award is available on this page: http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/Cape-Wind-Clean-69826.html

Your product review page is located at: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/Widget-Miscellaneous/Cape-Wind.shtml

please feel free to link to us using the URL above. If you choose to link to the award page for your product, you may use the award graphic or a text link such as: “100% FREE award granted by Softpedia”

Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

Sincerely,
The Softpedia Team

This was Ryan’s response:

Dear Softpedia Editorial Team.

Your claim, that my product “Cape Wind 2.1″ is completely clean of adware/spyware components, is, frankly, untrue. It is riddled with spyware. You see, Cape Wind version 2.1 periodically sends me the sail and board size of every Cape Wind user’s quiver. The readings displayed by Cape Wind are “doctored” to display conditions that are just barely too light to prevent the user’s largest sail and board setup from planing. That way, I can be guaranteed an uncrowded sailing beach.

Versions 2.2 and above, still in development, will not only send me the *size* of their sails, it will literally send me their equipment!! Now that I have a user base approaching 4,000 users (who the hell knew there were that many windsurfers on Cape Cod??), Cape Wind will soon enable me to assemble the most extensive gear collection the world has ever seen.

Sincerely,
-Ryan Schenk

Softpedia has not yet responded to his e-mail.

looks good to me.

Check it out.

(via schenk)

During class on Saturday I took my lunch break outside and used my stunt kite in the parking lot.

Perfect!

Oh yes. The 6 hours of travel was quite worth it. Yesterday, the cape winds were mighty.

Upon arriving in Falmouth, I helped Ryan pack up the car with our gear. Ruth looked on, prepared for windy beach adventures.

There are two kites in the picture to the right, the one on the right is my 15meter, and the one on the left is Ryan’s 9meter. We figured between the two we’d be prepared for most wind scenarios.

I got in a few great runs, and started getting the hang of leaning back and powering the kite properly. I would say my longest run lasted for about 15-25 seconds and felt great.

The wind continued to strengthen as the afternoon progressed, so we switched to Ryan’s 9meter kite. His kite has significantly longer lines and a different aspect ratio (width vs. length). As a result, you can get killer speed with his kite, and killer ‘torque’ with my kite.

The killer speed was indeed killer. During one particular launch, I maneuvered the kite unexpectedly and was whipped forward. The kiteboard which had been calmly sitting in the water, waiting for my eager feet, smashed into my shins. The resulting pain was sharp and lenthy. A few minutes passed before I could comfortably stand.

Ryan pulled off a successful backflip. Check it out on YouTube here.
I like how the kite sweeps into view at the end of the clip.

While the kiteboarding was good, the post-kiteboarding action was not. As we drove home Ryan’s Subaru died. When put in drive, the transmission sounded like someone was throwing rocks down a gutter. So we waited patiently for a friend to come pick us up and as we locked up the car to leave it there for later towing, Ryan mistakenly locked the keys in the car… while it was running.

We went back to the house, and as Ryan zipped off on his scooter with the spare key to turn off the broken subaru, Ruth made some speghetti and I headed home. I got back to CT around 11:30, and I’m feeling it this morning. It was worth it though, I am one weekend closer to complete Kiteboard domination.

Was your weekend Righteous?