Thanks John, I'm happy to be here! It looks like I'm one of the few Arizonans.
As a kid, I enjoyed the cheap kites our parents got us now and then but wouldn't say I flew a lot. When I was a teenager, I bought a nylon Premier Kite-in-a-Bag parafoil at the local mall basically on a whim and really enjoyed flying it. That thing went on many camping trips with me and I may or may not have used it to drop things into the neighbor's pool. I knew about sports kites but was probably intimidated by the prices. College, marriage, career and kids came along and my kite and kiting mostly sat on the shelf.
Fast forward about 30 years to this May. On a trip to Seattle, my wife was hit with some concerning pains and spent a little time in the hospital (she's fine now). We tweaked our plans and I needed to find some things for my daughters and I to do. I scrolled Google Maps north from city center and it showed me a single pin in the middle of a lot of gray - "Prism Kites (Temporarily Closed)" Oh cool, I thought, a kite store. So I hunted down their site and liked their designs. Father's Day was around the corner so I was going to ask my wife for a Zenith (their best-selling single line kite), but thought it might be fun to dip my toes into the waters of sports kites. The Jazz 2.0 (their started two-liner) wasn't that much more, so that's what I got.
My first time flying was kind of a mess. The wind usually isn't great around here. It gusts, changes directions and dies. I spent far more time on the ground (and walking back in forth), but I did get maybe a total of 90 seconds in the air. That little taste of steering grabbed me, though. That was pretty cool. The next day, the winds were strong and I got some decent flight time. I wanted to get a picture of the kite flying but the Jazz is so fast and needs so much attention that it wasn't possible. It was a lot of fun, though.
So I've been flying the Jazz maybe a month, whenever I'm free on a good wind day. I bought an anemometer, put together an embarrassing old man in straw hat outfit for flying, and found an awesome new park to fly in that's 15 minutes away. I have a Tantrum 2.2 coming Tuesday so I can hand the bar to a family member or onlooker who wants to try it (who's big enough not to be carried away - I might also get a Synapse). I already know I'm going to want an ultralight kite so I can fly on more days. I scraped the ground hard this week and splintered a lower spreader (while getting applause from an onlooker for recovering) so I know I'm not quite ready for a more delicate kite yet. There's also a true stunt kite in my future, and possibly a quad down the road.
I'll hit the wall of what swooshing around I can do pretty soon here on the Jazz, but I think there's a lot I can work on with general technique and reading the air by feel. I have to confess I must be more attention-starved than I knew, too, because I really enjoy interacting with onlookers. I've gone flying when it was 110 degrees (F) and virtually nobody was around, but yesterday it was 85 and there were tons of people at the park. I could hear the conversations around me about the kite and was approached by a few families with questions - putting one Dad who was really interested on the path of buying one for himself. It was tons of fun.
Well, that became a novella but I plan to settle in and be around for a while. I appreciate all the friendly sharing of information on this and other forums. I love watching peoples' videos and would love to get out to an event sometime. Thanks for putting this community together!
