Of course this is NOT what happened at all, and i guess the main reason i don't like these jokes, is once again, kites are not taken seriously. At all. They are a joke, and that's the end of that.
Here's a great short speech why we should take them more seriously here.
I love that Saul has taken this challenge and who is better qualified to take this seriously than the founder of Squid Labs, Make Magazine, Makani Power, and a MacArthur Foundation winner as well as an avid kite flyer.
Of course we have Peter Lynn, but Peter is and has been so far off on the edge, that even though many of us know he is a serious scientist and engineer, it's hard to take him seriously when he's circling a table or washing his socks in your sink.
It's just sad that in the U.S. anyway, the most anyone seems to come up with, unless you are at Burning Man, is some lame ass kite joke, which, there are three. We've heard them. All of them. Gads i wish someone would tell me a new one, but they won't because in the scheme of things kites are not that funny to kite flyers! If you doubt that we think they are funny, watch this and see if this is not some serious shit!
If you watched that, did you see the part where the 200lb man was flung through the air like a toy!?! Or where the speed was over 70mph!
I rest my case!
Rant hat off.
Most of that resonates with me, despite the fact that I deal in the opposite end of the power spectrum - predominantly light-wind kites and the gentle pleasures there-of. Thermalling, high flying etc. While I toil away on my fledgling kite business (without actually selling any of the kites I make!), I recognize somewhere in the back of my mind that 99.99% of the world out there doesn't take kiting as seriously as I do, and isn't capable of deriving as much pleasure from something that could be considered a 'low-brow' activity. But heck, the number and variety of people involved with kites is huge. When you work a niche on the Internet, there are still enough people who like kites enough to make such a site pay in the long run :-) (hopefully with minimal reliance on Ad-cents ;-) Don't we all want to get paid for doing what we love?
ReplyDeleteJust a ramble off the top of my head, not trying to make any point here.