Welcome Brettgrant99

[John Barresi]

Hello @Brettgrant99,

Welcome to KiteLife®!

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[Brettgrant99]

I've always been interested in kites.  The first kite that I remember was a Jolly Roger Diamond that my dad bought somewhere, that didn't really fly that well.  It didn't come with a tail, and my dad insisted it needed a tail to fly right.  I was probably 6 or 7 at the time.  As many things in youth, kite flying was kind of sporadic.  I can remember flying in the spring and tying new spools of strings to winders letting single strings fly high.  In reality, probably only a thousand feet of string total, but a very vivid memory and I remember doing it multiple times.  My biggest concern was missing the corner light post.

Late 80's while on a family vacation to Pismo Beach, California, my father bought a 3 stack of Trlby's.  That was a lot of fun, but as kids, I had 4 younger siblings, we somehow twisted the two lines in a massive ball of nastiness.  I think that we simply bought a new lineset.  In the mid 90's, I got married, and we bought a 4 stack of Trlby's, which I still have.  I acquired my first quad, a Rev Backtracker, because it was all I could afford.  And I bought it used.  By this time, I was in Seattle, and my 8 month pregnant wife would stand out at the end of the lines an throw it up, because I had no idea on how to launch it.  We eventually ended up in the Bay Area, and that is where the real kite flying began.

I hooked up with a bunch of the "Baylads" and ended up meeting a lot of the GWTW forum members.  I acquired a few kites.  I had a lot of fun.  The Bay Area is an expensive place to live, and I ended up in Tucson, AZ, where, in my humble opinion, it had to be the suckiest place to fly in the world.  It was like sucking on hairdryer, but with only 2-4 mph wind, and the ground so rough, it made a Bag of Glass seem like the smoothest sand.  Plus avoiding anything that would bite, sting, or infect your at the same time.  From a kite flying perspective, it was terrible.  I got rid of most of my collection, mostly because it saddened me to have all these lovely kites hidden in my closet.

Now I am back in Seattle.  I was in the Netherlands for a short two months, and my wife bought me an HQ Mojo quadline kite as a surprise while we were at the beach.  Not my first choice, but it reignited a spark to get back into it.  I am looking over my remaining kites and fixing them up.  A few I have manage to take flying.  The difficult time that I am having now is finding someplace to fly that is easy and close to home.  I didn't know how good I had it when I lived 2 miles from Baylands Park in Sunnyvale.

Any questions or comments are welcome.

Brett

A list of my current kites, all of which are old school: Tricktail Std, Vented, & UL.  FlyingWings Utopia, Winddance3, Prism Adrenaline, Trlbys, HQ Mojo, and the Rev Backtracker. 

[SHBKF]

Welcome to the forum.  Glad to hear you have rekindled your KiteLife.  I love hearing the stories of peoples connection with kites as they come & go in their lives.  It is great to hear you have supportive people in your family.  My wife gave me my first TRLBYs, my first Rev & other several other fine kites.  Look forward to hearing from you further.  SHBKF

Her Christmas gift to me four years ago

Her birthday gift to me the same year.

What a Lady!

[Exult]

Hello and welcome!

17 hours ago, Brettgrant99 said:

A list of my current kites, all of which are old school: Tricktail Std, Vented, & UL.  FlyingWings Utopia, Winddance3, Prism Adrenaline, Trlbys, HQ Mojo, and the Rev Backtracker.

Old kites can be both interesting and fun. I like variation that allows you to "discover" a trick on one kite and transfer it to the next. When looking for info about the Utopia and Tricktail they sounded interesting.

    Utopia:
    http://www.kitepower.com/reviews/utopiareview.html
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxNHQZQ9-qM

    Tricktail:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoz63dEwd1E 

What kind of kites are you most likely to grab when going kiting?    

 

17 hours ago, Brettgrant99 said:

Plus avoiding anything that would bite, sting, or infect your at the same time.  From a kite flying perspective, it was terrible.  I got rid of most of my collection, mostly because it saddened me to have all these lovely kites hidden in my closet.

I guess this must have felt like a final decision at the time. I've never been able to do this (with the exception of a bulky failed homebrew garbage bags and bamboo sticks dual line). But on the other hand I had just a few kites from the early years to store during my long intermission (getting a family/children.).

And finally, your wife seems quite supportive of your kiting.

[makatakam]

Hi, Brett, and welcome to the forum. I hope to fly with someday.

[Materdaddy]

Welcome to KiteLife!  Sounds like you have a lot of experience in kiting already.  I'm still a newb, but I have a thing for TRLBY kites because of nostalgia.

Based on where you've traveled/lived, are you in the tech industry?

[Brettgrant99]

16 hours ago, Materdaddy said:

Welcome to KiteLife!  Sounds like you have a lot of experience in kiting already.  I'm still a newb, but I have a thing for TRLBY kites because of nostalgia.

Based on where you've traveled/lived, are you in the tech industry?

I don't consider myself in the tech industry, but I have worked at software development in the past.  Mostly on dangerous flying objects, but now I work on trucks.