Hi, my name is P-Air and I’m a kitesurfaholic…

Today was a good reminder of how deep the addiction goes. Started receiving my buddies’ e-mails predicting the upcoming perfect wind conditions at 8:15 this (3/28) morning. The first e-mail came titled, “Another nuking day in the Bay”, with the body of the message saying simply, “plan accordingly”…I knew I was in trouble. Not heeding such confident words is done at one’s risk to missing out on an epic day.

Well sure enough it’s now 4:15pm and I haven’t a shot in hell to get out of the office to go experience these awesome conditions. The wind chart that I’ve included with this post tells the story with the westerly winds showing a tight range of 24 to 29 mph. This is ideal conditions at Crissy Field. Sure, it may be a bit cold out there, but not cold enough to stop the diehards.

At around 1:00pm I got a call from a good friend’s wife who was walking her kids through Crissy Field and called to ask if I was out there…”that’s it rub it in” I thought. Apparently, 10 kitesurfers were racing each other to get pumped up and out in the Bay. Her son, little Westley dared ask “uncle P-Air, are you going out to ride w/them today?”. The immediate thought was “how could I disappoint the little tyke, he’s only 4 years old?”, but alas I had to come to terms with my reality…”no Westley, uncle P-Air is a poor sap that has to work for a living”.

It’s days like this one that really inspire me to make Tribe a great place for more and more people so that passing up on days like this one will not have happened in vain.

Today’s (3/18/05) SF Gate/San Francisco Chronicle Article on Kitesurfing…

…has quotes from a number of fellow addicts and me. The article is titled "Up, up and a wave Kitesurfers ride high on exhilaration, growing popularity of their hybrid sport" which you can see at: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

Lots of sweet pics of one our local kitesurfing heroes, Jeff Kafka, like this one…

People Matter…

…and it's truer now than it ever was.

The social networks and the blogosphere have been the latest reminders of that. Both are beginning to have an impact on how we get our news and on news providers themselves, on political issues and candidates, on how people are interacting for love, jobs, classified listings, and various types of products. Through these services people are having a tremendous impact on customer service, on new product ideas, and on product quality.

It's a whole new people revolution, where tools are empowering the ability for people to communicate more frequently and with greater ease. It's enabling people to take more control over their lives as well as have a greater impact on the environment around them. We saw this with political campaigns on both sides of the aisle, and we continue to see this with how people use these tools to congregate online and off.

Half of the concept of "people matter" is analogous to "subject matter" when it comes to their contributions to companies' knowledge bases as well as the commons knowledge base (wikis, blogs, etc.), through the questions that are asked and the responses that are provided in online discussion forums. Here, people are beginning to provide the Open Source software equivalent to content for companies' customer support, and more generally for the edification of others.

However, the more important side of the "people matter" double entendre, is that people are the most valuable asset for doing anything. From providing their thoughts and ideas to problem solving, to addressing issues of nominal and significant importance, to recommending products and services to their friends and families.

Basically We The People are the most important component in the engine of the modern economy, and we should never loose sight of that or let any one tell us otherwise.

As the next phase of the technology revolution comes about, we will see its greatest impact on how people find each other for economic, social, and political value and gain. That's where we will see the greatest leaps in truly providing "power to the People". This shouldn't be misunderstood as a revolution that will unseat the power of corporations since these are run and operated by people too. But perhaps better said is that we will begin to see how individual people will be able to assert their rights and ability for economic independence at levels more equal to those of corporations.

Well, kitesurfing season is off and running…

This morning I was sent the first of what will be many pics of buddies doing amazing tricks with their kites. The picture you see here is what’s called a kite loop, where the kite actually does a full loop while the kiter is likely doing a “backside 360″, in other words spinning around in the opposite direction of the kite. It’s a pretty amazing trick to see in action and Anthony is a pleasure to watch pulling this off. He’s very smooth.

One of our fellow kiters, Byro, caught this set of shots which he then laid out in a collage so you can kind of get the idea. Anthony is probably about 15 to 20 feet up in the air as he’s executing this trick, but I guarantee that the rush he’s getting puts him more like 50 feet up in his own mind.

While looking at the above image and remembering the invicibility we all feel doing this sport, a couple of lines from a Fat Boy Slim mix came into my head:

“…you got a lot of talent but you fail to see,
you’re paying for yours but I got mine for free,
play in the rain and don’t get wet,
walk through the desert and don’t even sweat,
play in the snow and don’t get cold,
I’m just a cool young brother who looks kinda old…”

Rococo Risque – Liberties Taken

Saw a great show this past Saturday night that unfortunately was on its last night of a 3 week run. These actors had total stage presence and the show was enjoyable, thought provoking, and showed wonderful wit in its political commentary. Wish I could be recommending it to the rest of you, but if you ever get a chance to see this troop in action again, do it! Below is a lil' blurb from their Web site at www.rococorisque.com/home.htm

Cristo’s Gates in Central Park can be eerie with the snow…

A good buddy of mine who’s a professional photographer went to town taking pics of the Cristo’s Gates in Central Park (NYC) in the snow. They have that eerie Stephen King novel look about them, but are totally worth checking out. Here is a sample, you can see the rest on his site at yocum.net/plan9/cpg/index.htm#9:

His name is Sam Yocum and recently moved to NYC after living out here in the Bay area for many years. While he’s the outdoorsy type who loves it out here, for his work NY has just been tremendously more receptive and an all around better place for his high end photography work. I miss him a lot, and continue to marvel at the quality of what he puts out.

G.E. Smith, David Lindley and Hot Tuna…what else is there to say?

Last night at the Great American Music Hall here in San Francisco, four great American musicians sat down and made for an unforgetable night of acoustical sounds of music. The evening started with G.E. Smith, (for those of you not familiar with him, he was mostly seen as the musical conductor for the “Saturday Night Live” orchestra where he wailed the blues on his electric guitar in and out of commercials), and David Lindley, (who is an amazing musician on his own right and has played with many famous musicians), sitting down together to blow us away with their sounds.

G.E. then brought out his wife, Terry Barton, who leveled the night a bit with two songs. While her voice was nice, it just wasn’t of the calibre of the what preceeded and proceeded her. G.E. and his band backed her up and then took over for a number of highly fused electrical guitar jams that included local musical celebrity Pete Seers on the keyboards (and later on the accordion as well). After a brief pause, Yorma and Jack came out to show us that Hot Tuna has the word “hot” in their name for a reason. This took me back to the Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead days with loving acoustical melodies and a richness in sound that is nearly unimaginable from the instruments they were playing. Just blew me away.

As their set was coming to an end, G.E., David Lindley and Pete Seers came out to join them for an all out acoutics blues jam. Yorma had never met or played with David Lindley but you could quickly see how easily this group of professionals came into perfect harmony. Boy, would these guys make an amazing band if they ever decided to play together all the time. After their parting song, they were brought back for a terrific encore which brought the evening to a close at midnight…on a Monday night!!! Amazing! If any of these guys come to your neck of the woods, go see them.