I was in WSP on barry's point rd and was asking about kiteboarding quartly and the guy told me Shaan Miller used to run it and the old nz windsurf mag... is that the same guy who runs this?

YES

What happened to those mags?

dude! where's my mags?

Dude
Where's my F%$KING subscription?

Actually I subscribed to both magazines and both times only ever received one mag

Shouldn't I get my money bacK?

that's very bad luck indeed considering i published nine windsurf mags and four kiting mags and produced one feature length video.

from my analysis of your communications so far, you probably deserve as much bad luck as you get.

looking on the bright side, your one issue of new zealand windsurfer and / or kitesurf quarterly will contain more information than every issue of wind & kite combined.

to directly answer your question: subscribers are unsecured creditors, therefore if the publisher stops publishing for whatever reason, they have no obligation to return subscriber's monies.

you possibly should get it back - but in this case you won't. if i choose to crank out some more kiting mags at any time in the future, you will of course recieve any due copies (if you actually are a subscriber - i certainly don't remember banking any cheques from southboy).

Bollocks!!!
I subscribed to windsurf nz mag and got no mags and no money back when it stopped
how can I be an unsecured creditor if you then bring out the kiteboard mag - you were not bankrupt - you were still trading

you took a whole of peoples money for a magazine you never delievered and then did the same thing to kiteboard mag

and now you all smart arse about it

your a digrace mate - no one is going to take you to court for 30.00 but they might give you a smack in the mouth!

now tell us it is wind and kite fault!!!

except for the 'bollocks' bit - i am unsure about what you are saying in your first paragraph. can you clarify?

i certainly delivered a lot of magazines, but never took a lot of people's money. some people gave me money because they believed in what i was doing at the time and wanted what i was selling. unfortunately, due to events outside of my control (including, bizarrely enough the famous events of september 11) i decided for the time being to stop publishing magazines. in many ways this was a regrettable decision - i assure you i have never been smart ass about it.

nothing is wind and kite's fault (except the things that are clearly their fault). who can blame a self-styled action sport publisher like steve dickinson (also responsible for scrapping a magazine - ocean action - in the past) from trying to cash in on a couple of sports - one of them without a mag at the time?

you are apparently a windsurfer - you should blame the 'windsurf industry' for not supporting new zealand windsurfer magazine at a crucial time in the sport's history - apparently because i as publisher / editor was a little ahead of my time, had taken up kiting and proceeded to publish a kiting mag to compliment my existing business. sadly for me, kiting did get the better of me and after a couple of weeks of boosting on flat water, i thought "who needs those whining, in-fighting dinosaurs anyway?" ironically, virtually all of those guys have finally dragged themselves into our sport's 'industry' now anyway.

one day i will spill the beans on the whole exciting saga, could lay blame at a few doors and i can assure you - it will be worth 30 bucks!

Bollocks again -
thats right shaan go blah blah blah and hope it goes away. you took my 30 odd buck for a subscription to two magazines and a bunch of other peoples money - then yelled oppps not doing that any more and kept thier money ---right!!
for whatever reason unless you closed your company - then the subscribers are not unsecured creditors - they are just the guys you owe money too. the people who supported you and the mags and you have just ripped them off

You are a self righteouse smart arse you deserve whats coming to you

I'll see you at orewa next time there some wind and no I am no longer a windsurfer...

I don't know who you are Vic but your right - if you pay for something you should get it - we advertised in Kiteboard Quartly and was told there were a couple of hundered subscribers - thats at least $6000 that shaan has walked off with and said thank for that!!! there must have been double that in windsurf ...

like i said a while back: i didn't take anyone's money - they gave it to me. i certainly don't owe any subscribers any money. what i owe them is a couple of magazines, which i could easily provide at any time.

interesting maths from southboy. a common misconception about magazine subscriptions (which are all a gamble) is that the publisher amasses all the loot and stashes it in a swiss account for a rainy day. in reality all incoming funds are quickly absorbed in a small business, especially one dealing with a few advertisers who are at best extremely slow payers.

as i've explained before, my trip has always been about providing a service to the riders in these sports, and no-one is more gutted than i, when they miss out on mags that i had every intention of producing and then, to add insult to injury are left with the current situation.

however i don't have much sympathy for anonymous weenies who blather on the internet about $30 they spent five years ago, threatening violence and court action etc.

as a few intelligent individuals have found, if aggrieved subscribers write to me directly and provide evidence of their subscription etc, i am more than happy to deal with them case by case in a rational, reasonable manner and make sure they are compensated for any loss.

Well said Shaan. If these characters have a legitimate beef with you, then pursuing it thru a chat site isn't the way to go about getting back any monies owed. Guys / gals, write him personally with proof of your subscription and ask for your money back. If no go, then go the company that owes you the money thru the small claims system. It'll probably be worth just paying you the $30 less the cost of any issues actually sent out rather than getting dragged thru the entire small claims process for such a paltry sum.

As a leading representative of the sport, who has published criticisms of others, we would all expect Shaan, or any company he may have run, to honour any financial commitments he or it may still have, just as he would expect those who contract his services to honour theirs.

Personally, I'd let him keep the loot - so he can buy some new seats for his wagon.

Tangled you are a peace maker
And you are right the small claims court would be the way to go
But no one is going to that for 30.00 and Shaan knows that he found that out when he stopped windsurf mag. but it is the principal of the thing
kiters- who have next to nothing gave him money - he didn't give what he said he was going to give a few magazines - for whatever reason - and now he's laughing about it and walks off with their collective cash and that pisses me off he should pay each and everyone back, not wait for them to write him a letter and beg as for Shaan being a senior representative of the sport - you have got to be joking I dont know anyone who is more disliked in Auckland. He is a laughing stock and a try hard, people actively burst out laughing when he drives in the car park you right he should buy some seats but not with my money!

This is without doubt the most pathetic thread I have read on this forum. Who wants to read this sh!te? Not me anyway.

Despite your supposed beef with Shaan... have you guys actually tried to read the available local mag?..... Shaan at least provided a top quality product worth reading!
If he hadn't been shafted he would probably still be producing the only high quality windsurf and kite mag in NZ.....so he has my vote for his efforts in promoting both windsurfing and kitesurfing....
mate get over your $30! and if you are hearing laughter at the beach... just consider it may be behind your back!

tis not roy tis I Osama the unbanned

why was shaan shafted - did he like it?

even our brother Shaan (2nd best kiter in all the world north of the Bombays) makes reference to events that are dark and secret and now talks of being shafted

tell all brother
we want to know
who did this shafting

i intend to tell all and am currently working on the strange and dark tale - an allegory of our time - amongst a myriad of other more profitable projects.

the tale will be delivered in a series of episodes as it is long in the telling and will take considerable time to read, plus inevitable dealings with the mandatory inputs from the great unwashed masses that gather on the plains etc.

episode one will be known as: IN THE BEGINNING - HOW AN INNOCENT CLIMBER / SKI BUM GOT ENTANGLED IN THE WORLDWIDE WEB OF WINDSURFING WHICH ULTIMATELY LED TO OTHER DANGEROUS VICES INCLUDING PUBLISHING AND KITEBOARDING.

tis I Osama the unbanable

My brother
Long have I waited to hear the epic saga that you have so often alluded too now brother Shaan throw back the veil and reveal all that that has made you 2nd best kiteboarder in all the universe north of the Bombays on the 1934 -only six people turned up - competition ranking
Tell us how you were shafted divulge to us it will be cathartic experience

Brother, the camels and I sit hear in the soft light of the fire big Bobby fluttering his eyelashes as you know only he can and should you not begin this epic saga this tale of woe, this chronicle of drama and intrigue, then I am fearful he will get bored and have his way with me and then both you and I will have been shafted
So come brother you are amongst friends (there is only me and the camels here) tell all how you went from the high roller to low rider.

Who is responsible for this demise?

thanks osama the unbearable. as you well know, the seppos blame you for flying those planes clean into their big ole world trade centre, plus their military headquarters and a perfectly good field.

you will find that your actions have had a profound effect on my story, and some of the responsibility must surely find it 's way to your cave.

hell, everyone else blames 9/11 and most of them didn't even get trapped on maui for 10 days by the F.A.A.

but i am getting way ahead of myself. if bunkers and caves are to be demolished, they must be targeted in some kind of order.

Tis I - Osama ben Kiting the returned

Wasnt me I have told Bush but he does not believe me either - do not blame me for the demise of your publishing career.. 10 days on Maui is a feeble excuse.. blame me not for the poultry like nature of ya skinny white drum sticks -

But come brother wax eloquent on the profanities that have befallen you and have dragged you from the highest to you know your car with no seats..
With baited breath I, bobby the camel and a host of others hang on every word. We are waiting for the beans to be spilled, the can of worms to be kicked over and the shaftees to be shafted.
Tell all brother ......tell all..

WARNING: PERSONAL OPINIONS ARE CONTAINED IN THE FOLLOWING SAGA. IF YOU'RE INTO KITING FOR THE SIMPLE BUZZ OF RIPPING AROUND AND BOOSTING IN THE SUNSHINE, WITHOUT A THOUGHT FOR SOME OF THE CHAOS BEHIND THE SCENES, THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! (with apologies to offspring) WELCOME TO THE DISCLAIMER...that's right this New Zealand apple pie institution known as parental guidance will cleanse any sense of innuendo or sarcasm from the words that will actually make you think and will also insult your intelligence at the same time - so protect your family! This story contains explicit depictions of things which are real. These real things are commonly known as life. So, if it sounds sarcastic, don't take it seriously - if it sounds dangerous, do not try this at home - or at all, and if it offends you JUST DON'T READ IT!

My tale begins in Queenstown, the adventure sports capital of the universe, where as a young journalist, photographer, tv cameraman, heliski / heliboard guide, climber, river guide, roofer and occasional dishwasher I discovered windsurfing at the ripe old age of 23. What a helluva blast it was chasing my brother and a bunch of other yobbos around on Lake Wakatipu, hooking into the free propulsion of the grunty, local winds and generally living the life of riley. Yabbadabbadoo!

Occasionally I came across the journal of the time, New Zealand Windsurfer, and was stunned to find it sucked harder and more comprehensively than Monica Lewinsky (one of the gals of the time). After a long and colourful history, with some periods of greatness, the mag was in bad shape, at that time owned by a geek named Sam Parker of Adrenalin Publishing, who ran it with all the flair of a tax accountant, and who's ideas of stimulating his adrenal glands appeared to be wearing wooly socks under roman sandals when not getting his rocks off as a recreational longboard trogger. But i digress. (More later about how i finally injected some real adrenalin into his life by parking my long-wheel-base series-3 land rover at the top of his steep north shore drive while we had our first and only business meeting inside).

Common complaints about his mag then were: lame, soul-less regurgitated press releases, zero represention of the local action, not enough bitch'n local photos plus hideous design - all in all, a generally puke-making package. Many suggested that by going down to the neighbourhood kindergarten and asking the kiddies what they knew about Barbara Kendall, they would get more penetrating and literate analysis than from a page of the specialist magazine that allegedly served them. The main gripes, of those I drank hard liquor with anyway, seemed to stem from the fact that the guy in charge was in no way connected to what was going on in the lives of those who were actually living the sport - deja vu anyone? - partly because he was busily trying to make real coin publishing other titles, but mostly because he was a talent-free spinner. As a result, Sam was desperately trying to flog off his windsurf mag for astronomical, but steadily declining asking prices.

Meanwhile I was spending every spare minute and many dollars I hadn't even earned yet on windsurfing here, there and everywhere.

One day while out on the briny, I got 'thrown around the front' and bashed my noggin on the front of my 'no-nose board'. For those who missed out on slalom racing on windsurfers, getting biffed was the occasional result of going far too hard - kind of like boosting 40 feet today and landing on the beach, with a similar sickening, review of your life in slow mo, but usually with more destruction of kit. Anyway, I don't know whether it was the drugs I hadn't been doing but I had an epiphany experience when i came to - a real 'moment'.

Bugger me if I hadn't been wasting my life freeballing around the world climbing mountains in Europe and Nepal, skiing the front face of the Remarkables in Queenstown, helicoptering into the virgin slopes of the Harris Mountains and guiding fluoro-clad slopers down them on snowboards on a daily basis, riversurfing in the summers, partying every night and making good coin as a print and TV journo when I was sober.

Rubbing my swede, I noticed I had a new sense of long range vision. As I paddled my shattered board home, I began to formulate a new plan for my life. In a nut - I would work my way into a position of unprecedented influence in the NZ windsurf scene. This would take time, commitment and passion. I'd start by siezing control of New Zealand Windsurfer magazine and like an Al Qaeda sleeper suddenly awaking, I'd cunningly use my position as a springboard for getting in on the ground floor of kiteboarding which I could plainly see must emerge in the late 90's, together with email spam and Paris Hilton. Then, in a sudden maneouvre, I would outsmart the hands that had fed my extravagant lifestyle and put all my energies into a new, superior sport. All this would take a decade, cost me three or four hundred grand and risk everything but the potential pay-offs were huge! The crux of the plan was fiendishly simple: right when I was in the ultimate position, with a kiting mag growing at 25% every month and the future sewn up, I would pull the pin on the whole thing and fleece a couple of schmos like 'southboy' and 'vic' out of their thirty buck subscriptions!

It was a clearly a brilliant plan and I dedicated myself to it, forswearing the distractions of profitable career paths, drugs, alcohol, tropical hideaways and the pleasures of the fairer sex at least until I got back to the beach anyway.

NEXT WEEK: HOW A SMOOTH TALKER WITH A SIMILAR NAME AND A BIG NOSE LURED ME FROM MY JOB AS TV WRITER / DIRECTOR TO SET UP A PIRATICAL CORPORATION AND RESCUE WINDSURFING FROM MEDIOCRITY, AND HOW MY PILOT-LESS LAND ROVER WROTE OFF SAM'S SECRETARIES CAR WITHOUT SUSTAINING A SCRATCH ON IT'S ALLOY HULL AND NEARLY SCUTTLED THE WHOLE DEAL.

Tis I Osama the unblamable, unbanned

My brother like the winds in the warm desert your words flow, warm yet gritty - this is some merry tale - my finger has got tired from the reading -I look forward with baited mullet breath for the stunning next instalment

Hey Osama
You must have some nasty connections - can't ya send someone round to pic up the purloined Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Q subs money -

Shaans got time to write a novel you'd think he'd have time to sort out his debts -

I'll be interested to know who shafted Shaan - I'll be sending him a few beers

typically unintelligent logic from vic, willing to send beers to the 'shafter/s'. as any simpleton can see, if the shafters hadn't done their shafting, vic would still be getting his mags. to send them beers now would make vic a triple loser, but each to their own...

last time you wrote about the mags coming to an end you said it was a business decision - now you've been 'shafted' into it -

so you get shafted and then you shaft your subscribers - of both KBQ and windsurfing -

and you think thats OK???

i realise you're not the sharpest correspondent we've ever had, but you will find the only time i have mentioned shafting is in response to your posts which frequently use the term.

whether i was 'shafted' or not is immaterial. if you are genuinely aggrieved about missing out on some issues of any of my mags, several options have been explained to you, in hopefully simple enough terms for you to understand.

i note, that you have taken up neither of these options.

i have certainly not set out to 'shaft' any of my subscribers and no, i don't think it's okay when people do shaft them.

i also have serious questions about your motives in continuing your bleating on this issue. we have not heard from you before, and you have had absolutely nothing constructive to say about kiting in the short time we have humored your one-trick pony routine. could you be from the dark side? i note that steve dickinson also incorrectly labels KiteSurf Quarterly as 'KBQ' in his similarly moronic private emails on this fascinating subject.

I'm not Steve Dickenson or blownaway or anyone else
my name is Vic Preston I have been in japan for the last three years with the army, I have been back in NZ 4 months. and have been kiting for about four years
I don't give a rats arse about the 30 bucks - you just bleat on about how you have done so much for kiting, - but I am pissed that you and others like you start a business - get money out of people out then go 'oopps' and walk off into the sunset

so if making you accountable puts me on the dark side -well I can live with that.

hi vic preston, thanks for identifying yourself. i made some enquiries on your behalf and found that your name does not appear on any nz windsurfer subscriber list before 1997 (you may have been a subscriber before my involvement) and you certainly never subscribed to KiteSurf Quarterly.

a few posts back you were claiming to have been ripped off by both mags?

if you say you've been kiting for about four years, i believe you (until proven otherwise) and you have my respect for being a kiter (even if you have nothing positive to say).

nevertheless, i am pissed that you and others like you get involved in arguments that are none of your business - kind of like going down the street and grabbing a dog by it's ears.

hopefully this thrilling subject has now run it's course. as i've written earlier, genuine subscribers can by all means contact me directly if they are genuinely concerned about any mags due.

Shaan you is continue to dig your own hole

I never said the subscription were for me both were for my brother in law
But seeing you still obviously have a comprehensive list of all subscribers

GIVE THEM THEIR MONEY BACK!!!!!!! it is not yours

This is so boring!

Vic, it's gone get over it.

Shaan, why encourage it. We should be dicussing kitesurfing not history. Send Vic your phone number and sort it out off line. Your right though, Vic sounds very much like someone else with a kitesurf mag.

Its hard to believe 90% of the threads on here are arguments and fights.
Any foreigner visiting this site would think NZ kite surfing is in serious need of shakeup. Not only is it boring but its also embarrassing.

Settle problems like this over the phone or email and lets get back to what we all passionate about !! and that kite surfing.

I have just noticed the leaves start moving.
Now there is a little sign of hope.

Tis I Osama
Dearest madness - how close you are to my own heart
Gone seems the love of wind and waves - and we seem bogged down in this never ending deluge of infighting and crap

But a tree that bears evil fruit has its roots in a big pile of shit.

You will note that many if not most of these arguments, fights and back stabbing are all at the instigation of he who has control - our brother Shaan Miller. whether it be the defence of non payment of owed subscriptions or the maligning of retailers and wholesalers, whether it be the destruction and banning of some poor soul called blownaway or bad mouthing wind n' kite - one can only conclude that the removal of brother Shaan might make all things a little more peaceful - maybe we should BAN him!

But then we would not get to hear the rest of his shafting epic - which I for one cannot wait to hear..

Come brother shaan make up for you none payment of subs to your friends and family and tells us all of the shafting!!!

Tis Mothers day come snuggle to my ample bosom and tell Aunty Osama all, how one of such high and mighty prowess fell so far to the lower rider status.

madness: we all agree with you - arguing on the net is fairly pointless, particularly with anonymous geeks, and even more particularly about subjects which can actually be solved in other ways. you are someone who has used this forum responsibly and has contributed almost 100% positivity - the exact inverse of vic, roy, southboy and a few other malcontents. keep it up and drown out the wierdos!

we would all much rather hear good things about kiting al the time, but the cost of freedom is reading the inane chatter of morons, which the world is literally full of, not just in our kiting community. why else do we have traffic lights and no smoking signs at gas stations?

roy: i personally live my life as peacefully as possible and do not seek conflict with anyone. when conflict arises however, i choose to stand on my own two feet and face aggressors head on, and i am often well equipped to do so. when people start threads about me personally, on my own site, i can't very well ignore them (i'm damned if i do and damned if i don't) and will often engage - hopefully with positive outcomes. like anyone who 'does' anything - i accept that some of my words and actions will be controversial. when i look back on a year of discussion, i remember a lot of humor, some intelligent banter, lots of new information sharing and less than half a dozen topics that have inflamed passion across the board. even in the midst of the craziest of these, i have been well aware this is just the internet and not the end of the world. we still get to go kiting!

everyone else: have any of our 200+ users heard of vic preston? does he exist? it's a name i've never heard until now and i know a large percentage of nz's kiters by name (expecially those who've been at it for four years). how about our readers in the armed forces? vic preston anyone? all units calling vic preston? would anyone who can verify the existence of vic preston or his brother in law please stand up!

still no usable weekend wind! F&@##$%*!

brother Shaan
don't get so fretful
you can't know all kiters
I know you but you do not know me
or so it would seem

yet deep down i know you know who I am you just like to play mystery man with me

as for vic - I do know him not well is one of earls boys built like a brick shit house... and i am a moron who threatens violence and will soon be banned once again.

Brother shaan - do not be adding bits on to me message - I have not threatened violence - think you have mixed up with another infidel..
I look forward to your apology
all I said was to cuddle to my bosom and carry on with your epic???

harsh words I am deeply hurt - you are sowed of bad seeds

threatening, encouraging or implying violence is unacceptable.

cut the crap and get on with the tale brother shaan - it's been a whole week at least and we have yet to find out what happened to Sam Parkers' secretary's wheels...

i'm on strike and not writing another word until i get a fully powered kite session under my belt.

yawn.... :roll:

Shaan, get ya hand off it!

Osama the unbannable is back

Kite Police - back off our beloved Shaan . .. You know he is the 2nd best kiteboarding in all of the lands north of the Bombays - and he has achieved this illustrious goal with just the one hand.
Shaan do not tolerate this verbal violence ban somebody but not me this time

Well I hope the last few days have seen all the cobwebs blown out of your numerous orifices and that you might have calmed down enough to tell the rest of your tall tale

Brother the wind has blown, and I am sure your tackle is well clean.
Take your one hand and now write on about all that has befallen you - the ups and down, the evil ones you tripped you along the way.
Come brother dig deep and air your epic saga.

Our Brother Shaan is a party animal
we have found where he gets his dance moves...
check it out

www.zefrank.com/invite/swfs/index.html

it is really him it even looks like him!

Holy smokin' cow I'm impressed brother Shaan, where o where did you learn to skank like that? No - don't tell me, it just comes natural like. No wonder you is 2nd best in all the land north of the Bombay hills dangling on the end of a string. What hope is there for skinny wihte boys like me with no rythm?

I must say fello one handed 2nd best kite boarder north of the Bombay Hills, thats some serious giggling my friend you da man!

and so say all of us - respect!

Alas, like an old shagging story, it is time again for the fearful, terrible and strange telling of my twisted yarn - the mere anticipation of which sends shivers of terror up the spines of the guilty, the wretched and the doomed, as well as piquing the interest of some low-level tea-boys at the IRD.

Having lately returned from my recent abduction (three days of 35+knotters at Raglan / Aotea harbour) I can no longer claim I haven't had enough kiting to warrant storytelling etc. One of my Queen's Birthday weekend abductors - a rogue with an outlandishly large nose - is actually a key player in this part of my awful tale and travelling up mudslide and down dune in his wagola in between short bursts of cold, pain, sobriety and adrenalin gave me occasion to recollect on the effect his planet had on mine, when our paths crossed while passionately poleboarding at the greatest 'pooey' of them all: Point Chevalier - the gateway to Auckland's wild west.

Shane Murrell has always been a westy at heart, even more so than I who was technically born there. In typical westy fashion we sculled one too many Leon Rouges one fateful autumn eveing and swore by hook or by crook to take over the pallid, tired and frankly nauseating New Zealand Windsurfer mag and turn it into something fabulous, or at the very least, a brilliant tax write-off (even though I was hardly earning enough at the time to pay attention, let alone the Queen's tax).

Anyway, we thrashed out a couple of ideas, financial calculations, editorial policies and what-not. The gist was I was to be the brains, heart, legs, arms, eyes, ears and balls (in case of trouble) of the operation, and would handle all the details like legal and financial fine print, property management, selling advertising, making ads, writing stories, designing, editing, taking photos, layout and production, pre-press, print broking, packaging, couriering, book-keeping, invoicing, databasing, debt collecting, all while living the lifestyle of a vagrant windsurf bum, wired on which ever way the wind happened to be blowing - and occasionally - more freaky sensations.

Shane Murrell was to be the Publisher, a grand title which apparently meant he would collect the profits, take care of paying the rent and where possible, my modest but vitally important wage, as well as holding down a real job across town (a future victim of the killer kiting bug that swept the west years before the painted apple moth had made it to Piha).

Ratcheting myself up to my eyeballs in debt, I drew down a loan and travelled to the North Shore to take advantage of Murrell's timely mafia negotiation skills with Sam the man. Shane's motive were unclear, as he had already shelled out for a fax machine and a post office box, but I was operating on the old maxim: never risk a cent of your own money in new business enterprises, and I had no qualms about handing over a large bank cheque for the new business, which consisted of a couple of crusty boxes of old slides of geezers sailing in the eighties, and the assurance from Sam that he would gracefully bow out of our sport for the time being, or at least until someone invented roman sandal booties.

Here's where there was the first hint of trouble. Despite my impressive frame being fit, tanned and mellowed out from a few months windsurfing in Maui, my vehicle was a little tired having suffered a virtually reversed fate - particularly the handbrake cable which had apparently stretched in my absence. This caused it to suddenly fail and my Landie to pop itself out of gear. Unfortunate as it was, this combination of events would not have been any great drama except for the fact the huge yellow tractor-like 4x4 was perched at the top of a ridiculously steep drive, while I was inside the house yapping about my journalistic credentials.

A pale secretary interrupted us to show us something outside. Sam looked nervous but I welcomed the diversion and wandered out to see nothing! Not even my truck! Methinks it developed some phenomenal impetus as it raced down the 100m 30 degree drive in reverse. Two thirds of the way down, its rear end had clipped the secretary's jalopy (completely destroyed by compaction) as well as pushing it, like a flattened can, over a metre high retaining wall.

This was actually a good thing. Not only did the secretary want to do an insurance scam on her shopping basket, but had it not been so comprehensively arrested, the path of my truck was going to rocket across the road, which formed a perfect natural kicker seemingly designed to fire its fearsome mass through the air and ultimately to drop it onto the tile roof of some luckless suburbanites dwelling in the gully beneath.

A thorough examination revealed no new scratches on my beast. As it fired into life, I breathed a sigh of relief that no immigrant families had needlessly lost their lives, and rejoiced that I was still a free man and like my gear-lugging landie, our cunning business adventure was still on the road. Straight ahead for untold riches! We'll be drinking champagne out of paper cups made out of magazine subscriptions, I sang all the way home, to the tune of "I think you are really fit, but my God don't you just know it?
Yessir, Pirate Publishing's first venture was a no-brainer. The future was very bright, and sunglass manufacturers would soon be throwing themselves at us for involvement in debauched promotional gigs. What could go wrong? If everything failed and things turned dark, we could always rent out the sides of Shane's nose for advertising space.

NEXT MONTH: HOW WE RAPED AND PILLAGED THE WINDSURF INDUSTRY FOR YEARS, RODE THE PIGLET'S BACK RODEO STYLE AND BECAME PROPHETS OF A NEW RELIGION, WHEREUPON WE RAPED AND PILLAGED THE WINDSURF INDUSTRY FOR YEARS, AND RODE THE PIGLET'S BACK RODEO STYLE!

It looks like the West coast was the place to be during Queen's birthday week end.

In Westport and Karamea, we met some of the biggest swell I'd ever seen. More foamy white water than on big onshore days at Muriwai, even more wicked weather with nice sunny times, naughty squalls, heavy rain with 35kts straight in your face, hail as well at times, high static electricity in the air so that I was throwing lightning bolts from my legs just before landing huge jumps. That was somehow scary, but definitely part of the extreme scenery.
As for the scenery effect, we had also some nice snow dumps on our drive through Lewis pass, so that we ended to swap our third day of SouthWesterlies for a sunny snowboard day at Mount Hutt.
Quite a nice 3days fix indeed.

apart from this, can't wait for the next part of the saga !

cheers

alex.

nice to hear about your lightning buzz. we should start a topic about this phenomena and write it down when it happens. i know a bunch of kiters have never experienced it and they think those of us who have are on drugs, but when you meet someone who has been lit up - there's no question about it. you have experienced one of the most secret and trippy bonuses of being a kiteboarder!