--Pete

According to this article: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/search/RobinNotes3.html ...robins migrate at an average of 38 miles per day. According to google maps the road distance from Guru4Tru to myself in Ypsilanti, Michigan is 1288 miles -- call it 1200 as the crow (or robin) flies. At 38 mpd this requires about 31 and 1/2 days. Making it about the 29th or 30th of March when they should get here. I'll be looking for them. (You can count on me for abstruse calculations.)

You need to put your flying lines THROUGH the loops at either side of the sail, and then larks-head them to the spar OUTSIDE the spacers. This lets the flying lines keep the sail stretched out and the joints in the spar pushed together. There is a very short video somewhere that suggests putting the lines through the loops, larks-heading them to the spar outside the spacers (as above), and THEN using each side of the loop in the end of your flying line to put a half-hitch over the end of the spar outside the larks-head. This keeps pressure on the spar joints even when the flying lines go slack, as when you do a roll with the sail. The person who posted it had been having trouble with the joints pulling partially out when the lines were slack. Then when the wind came back there was a risk of damaging the joints that were partially disengaged. I never had this problem since I only flew when the kite was pulling like a bandit!

I have to confess, I WAS wondering about pulling something towards where you were sitting. The description seemed to indicate more of a downward pull than straight at you, so I didn't say anything. Glad that it caused no more damage than it did. There are two schools of thought: One says, "It will heal." The other says, "It can be fixed." Frankly, I'm not sure which I belong to. I once twisted in mid-air to catch a 200# fully machined flywheel casting on my chest (to protect it from damage) as I was falling. Maybe that put me in the "It will heal" camp. I survived with no serious injury, but it caused a momentary panic in the shop where I was working. I was a teen-ager then. I think I may have moved more to the "It can be fixed" camp at age 67. I now visualize throwing delicate valuables, like glassware, away from me when descending stairs. (I have somewhat "trick" knees and ankles these days.) At any rate, your point of view on the subject will determine how you approach experiments involving high-tension cords - like kite-lines. You DID say you wanted to watch, so I hope you enjoyed the mayhem. Did you say there were pictures being taken? I hope you will share some more with us. Object lessons are always good.

Overboard? I don't think so. I used 316 SS and 316L for a lot of things when building my house, as well as lots of silicon bronze. Worth every penny. When you want to make it right, the lesser alloys just won't do. Torque-flex? Won't you still have to provide shock mounts? Might as well keep using coil-over shocks in that case.

One thing for sure, the pause...it did make me realize how much I love Kitelife!! Where would I be without it!! heehee! Keep It Up! Duane Amen! I got this horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when the link didn't work. I know what a 403 error means: Access Forbidden!

Was the forum (not the main site) down for a bit yesterday (Tues)? I kept getting a "403.shtml" (which was a blank page) when I tried http://kitelife.com/forum/index (which is my usual entry point for the Forums. I got the same result when trying to enter via the Forum link on the main page nav bar. Both work fine today.

As I said, a Sheet Bend is the best knot for connecting a thin line to a thick or irregular line. http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS357&q=sheet+bend&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq= and http://bit.ly/hxTqJm ...for pages explaining the Sheet Bend and the Slipped Sheet Bend.

It does look as though there is a better chance of "dropping" the stakes than most methods of anchoring (with the exception of a loose loop around a single large stake). ================ @Guru4Tru: I expect a Sheet Bend would work well. It usually is about the most secure for bending one line to another of a larger size or irregular shape. It would require passing the reel through the loop in the strap and using a Slipped Sheet Bend. To avoid having to pass the reel through the loop, it might be possible to tie the Sheet Bend entirely "slipped" (tie the whole knot with a bight of the smaller flying line), but I have never seen any info on the security of such a method.

In case I need to check the forum oftener than 8-10 times a day?

This reminds me of the "Blind guy walks into a bar..." joke.

Sheer proof that Quad_Heads is needed and Dual_Heads is not. (Ducking and Covering) I think I deserve the crown for line-tangle-paranoia. Check this out: http://kitelife.com/...e-reel-machine/

In my famous Queen Victoria voice: "We are NOT amused." (I'm back from dinner, btw. Well wined and well dined.)

'Scuse me. Gotta go get cleaned up to go dining (and wining) with my Sweetie.

Who, me? If I couldn't drink'n'post, I'd never get to post at all!

No, no, no; I'm back (hic). The problem is that I keep my kites in a little room hidden behind the wine cellar. Every time I go to visit my kites, I get distracted... (Note to self: gotta find a better place to keep the kites.)

Pinning keeps a topic near the top of the section it is in. Member_Map is now pinned to the top of the list of topics in the News_From_The_Webmaster section. If you go straight to the View_New_Content page, it will only be there when someone posts in the topic. To get a "flash" every time someone adds a location to the Member Map, something would have to be written that added that to suitable pages (possibly any page that shows the Nav Bar). This is probably not trivial.

Oh Noble WebMeister, Is this a topic you would like to pin?

(Only five years late for this Poll. Another Topic dredged up from the murky past by the Newbie. Check the dates on the other posts in this topic before you decide you need to respond.) I use Safari because (as someone else noted) it came installed on my Mac. I chose "easier to use" as being easier than deciding on which browser I LIKED best and switching to it. One note: I ran across one web site where the owner had a real HATE for Safari. As some of you may know, you can design a website so that it shows things differently depending on which browser you are using. This guy had set his website up so that if you tried to access it with Safari, all it would show for each page was the text: "GET A REAL BROWSER. I REFUSE TO WRITE MY WEBSITE SO IT WILL WORK WITH SAFARI." I actually have three other browsers installed on my Mac: Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. I also have those three installed on my Win 7 computer in addition to MS-IE 8. I expect to add newer versions of IE one of these days.

Good job! Thanks for these.

Naw. Nobody cares enough about what I post to ban me. I guess I don't qualify, so the dues are moot.

You don't have to know what they mean; you can tell they were intended to be generic insults. If someone tries to insult you and you know they are full of BS, do you get angry or are you amused? That's how to tell if you are a Nominalist or a Realist. (Or at least how Alexei Panshin suggests that you check.) (And the thread got here because someone asked what someone else named their kites. But I have to admit that the topic has drifted somewhat.) (And have fun water-flying.)

Some people are Realists, and some are Nominalists. I have to say that I am in Reef Runner's camp on this one. I don't tend to name things, with the exception of computers, which NEED names to distinguish them on a network. It's a small world. I went looking for my favorite quotation on the subject of Nominalists and Realists and found it alone on a page. The page belongs to a man who was my daughter's Linguistics professor and Advisor at U of Mich, John Lawler, a famous man in his own right. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/nominalists.html It's very funny, and possibly true. It's a short snippet from one of my favorite books: Masque World by Alexei Panshin.

Did we lose somebody? I thought there were 28 yesterday, and now 26. (Or maybe I just misremember.) If I had to guess it might be one in the Portland area and one in the London area.

I think it resizes to show all desired markers. If you click on "Show Friends" it resizes/zooms to just big enough to cover where your Friends (and you) are located. If you then click "Show All" it zooms out to show the whole map or maybe just all the markers. (?) When there were just one or two (on a different Google Map with overlay) it really jumped around as you switched. Once there were markers in more places it "calmed" down. This ability to focus on Friends may require some adjustment of our Friends lists. If you want it to be useful, and show people you actually fly with or meet up with, we may find ourselves adjusting our Friends lists. Frankly, I would be happy to be friends with everyone on the site, but then there would be no point in marking Friends differently on the map. It might also be useful if we relocate our markers when we travel (depends on how easy that is to do). Maybe each member could have a Home marker and a Current Location marker. We could then adjust our Current Location marker when we travel (at least if we expect to have some flying/visiting time) and leave our Home marker at home. Maybe the Current Location marker could blink or be a different color when we travel. LOL - then we would need an iPhone/smartphone app to track us around and update the Current Location marker. If the motion sensor detected motions typical of kite-flying it could change the color of the marker. A website administrator's job is never done. Introduce some neat new feature and immediately people want it amplified.

Without testing, I would guess that the house is your marker (home); 'F" are markers for people who are tagged as your friends (here on kitelife); and the dots are everyone else. Yep, I just friended a couple of folks and watched their markers change to "F"s.