John Barresi

Duane is referring to this gallery... http://kitelife.com/forum/gallery/album/282-manufacturing-house/ Answer is no, they're not Revolutions. He has the gallery titled "manufacturing house", I'm assuming (hoping) they're homemades (also called DIY - Do It Yourself).

A definite FEEL GOOD video, thanks for posting it Rob. Even more so, for FLYING it. Pretty little spot you have there, would love to fly there someday!

LOL on the image. Following this, very nice - all of you who are thinking of SV. 12 hours to go, give or take. <grin>

Don't forget to include the link to KiteMap. http://www.kitemap.org/site-details?id=77&sname=Jockey%27s+Ridge+State+Park

Indeed... I have the original site on one of my hard drives, but online, it's incomplete. Hrm, uhhhh, yeah, no... I'll leave the AKA to more... Administrative types. While I appreciate it's necessity on the whole, I don't have much patience for committee process... I'd rather be able to take chances on demand.

Duane, have you ever read this? http://www.kitelife....l32/content.php Ray Bethell, one of the most famous kitefliers in the world, is also deaf. Also, this fantastic video... Look for the "CC" (closed captioning") button if you'd like text... It's not perfect subtitling, but it's enough.

Also found my (nearly) complete competition history, up until 2006. http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20061101110318/http://www.johnbarresi.com/history.htm I competed in 2007 and 2008 as well, but not since.

I'd just started playing around with making my own community website in 2003, dedicated to gathering sport kite competitor biographies from around the world... http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20031124234258/http://satori-kites.com/ An old friend of mine and the original owner of Kitelife (Mike Gillard, R.I.P.) got wind of it, and since he'd just taken over editorship of AKA's Kiting magazine at the time, he asked me to take the reins... And, here we are. My first Kitelife issue was #28... http://www.kitelife.com/magazine/issue28/content.php Just got nostalgic after poking around on the Wayback Machine, thought I'd share my warm fuzzies.

I think it's really great, simple, effective, and very YOU.

Sorry, not familiar with the area myself... If you find anything good though, share it on KiteMap for others? http://www.kitemap.org

Awesome, really awesome. I think the bit about deafness is endearing really, makes it VERY personal, and gives a little heart tug to the reader - which is never a bad thing.

I'm with Eli. Just tick, tick, tick, 6 more days.

Paintball guns at dawn, that way we can all laugh about it after the stinging stops.

Aye, and even before the discussion that Pete is referring to, we've always used a random number generator of some kind... Except for the first few months we did subscriptions (2003-ish), at which point it was easy to put 20-30 names into a jar and pull one out. If all goes well, I hope to increase the average frequency of the drawings by week or so over the coming year, I want to see more full kite bags all around. <grin> Well, is there really such a thing? FULL kite bags? "How many kites does a kiteflier need? Just one more."

Well, it's nice of you to say so Duane... No hard feelings anyway, I know who I am. Here's my email reply to Duane on the subject, for posterity: Please take some of that with a grain of salt, understanding the context. All things being equal, I think I'll leave this topic up for a week or so to address the subject properly and allow folks to respond, then I'll likely render it invisible so as not to "mire down" the interest others may have in participating in the subscription or their confidence in the integrity of the drawing process. Really, the only reason I've posted this at all is to maintain my "open palms" approach and principles, no shadows.

Glad to share the idea, and happy to take a look at whatever you come up with - I'll happily offer any suggestions I might have. Congrats on your experience at Kitty Hawk... It's a great feeling to give so many people such a good buzz, it opens their minds and hearts, makes them look up, if only for a moment.

I just received an email from a forum member who will go unnamed, letting me know that there's been some discussion about how "random" the RNG really is. To trim a quote from that email, punctuation and placement edited to maintain anonymity... == With this in mind, I want to jump in and address it right now - first by showing our track record. Winners from the past 13 months: Dominic Juliano 4/5/11 #122 Rocky Freed 3/1/11 #639 Bill Hayes 2/10/11 #272 Komuro-san 1/25/11 #448 Joanna Chen 12/27/10 #790 James Rodriguez 11/25/10 #638 Brad Bixby 10/15/10 #574 Terry Ashenfelter 9/10/10 #631 Steve Tisch 8/5/10 #593 Dale Ray 6/30/10 #643 Stuart Forsythe 6/25/10 #584 Wayne Fu 6/20/10 #98 Steve Thorsen 6/15/10 #619 Bob Matteo 5/1/10 #94 Walt Ellis 3/18/10 #478 Not ONE do I have any personal ties with, no repeats, no weighting towards those who donate separately or how long they've been a subscriber.. Additionally, nearly half the list I've never met, or only met once or twice. Said with all love and respect, there are a lot of "unknowns" there - as I understand the reference I quoted above. == We use this RNG (random number generator) - http://www.random.org/sequences/ == We leave the starting number at 1 and enter the highest (most recent) subscriber number for the largest value: == Then we hit "Get Sequence" and get a list that looks like this... == In the shown examples, the list has 847 numbers (all the subscriber #'s we've ever issued), from 1 to 847, in random order. We start with the top number and look it up in our database, if it's an active number, we award the prize to that person. If that first number is expired, i.e. no longer a subscriber (over 400 numbers are currently dead), we move down to the next number on the list, and so on. Because so many numbers are no longer active, we sometimes we have to go through a dozen number or more to reach one that is currently active. == We don't have any preference as to who wins, none at all... After the fact, our only "bonus" is if it's someone who really needed that kite to fill a gap in their bag, or if they're overjoyed enough to post on the forum about it. Those in the know understand who I am, the essentials of why I do what I do, and the ethic with which I conduct my business. To the rest of you... Come fly with me anytime, let's talk, I'll answer anything you want to know, anytime. Regards! Feel free to add further inquires and challenges here.

Have you considered making up a small card which explains your deafness, love for kiting, and guides them to great kiting resources? Or any variation of the above, add info about dual vs quad vs single line, etc, etc. Might be a great way to bridge the gap.

Yes indeed, the new issue is now online. http://www.kitelife.com/magazine/issue77/ Amongst the content, one of my favorite interviews to date... http://www.kitelife.com/magazine/issue77/daniel-prentice-profile-77/content.php We hope you enjoy it!

Damn, wish I'd been there... Looks beautiful.

Hrm, this doesn't seem to have gone through Chris... Care to try again? I don't think it works either, but it's worth a try.

I'm liking your double focus there buddy!

Dominic and Pat, thanks for your kind words... You know we do what we do for love, all too happy to share that with good folks like yourselves. If you're of mind to do so, be sure to post a picture of you with your new kite here on the forum, I know folks would like to see it!

Looks like good clean fun.

We've got a winner... Subscriber #122, Dominic Juliano! Congratulations Dom, and thanks for your ongoing support. == It's not over yet either, we're giving away our next prize on 4/15, stay tuned. == Ha, and you guys thought I'd be sleeping in.