WHAT’S NEW AT KITESTOP.COM

Wow, where has the year gone? It’s already May. We are still cranking away here at Kite Stop, and I’m very optimistic for the coming summer. Have you gotten your kites yet?

In January, I attended the Kite Trade Association International Trade Show in Las Vegas, and was able to order a bunch of new kites. They have started rolling in, and will continue to come in throughout the summer. Please check back often to see what’s new!

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Thanks to Russ Mozier (and wife Pat) for organizing this great little event in East Orlando. We were asked to be a vendor at the event, and while we did well in terms of selling kites, it was MUCH more fun to watch the kids make and fly their kites. Even the parents got in on the action!

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Being on the Space Coast of Florida, I’d like everyone to take a moment out of their day to remember the people that lost their lives 25 years ago today when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff.

I remember being in Biology class at Astronaut High School my freshman year, when they announced the explosion. Previously we were always let out to watch the shuttle launches, but for some reason the launches had become so common place and without incident, that they were no longer “exciting” or worthy of our attention at school.

Where were you when the Challenger exploded?

Check out the commercial that our friend Dean Jordan and crew worked on… Enjoy!

Well, I finally was able to put together my first few kite instructional videos. It was nearly 97 degrees here in Sunny Florida when I shot these, so I hope you like them:

Check out some of the other videos that I produced that show you:

• How to assemble a stunt kite
• How to attach kiteline to a stunt kite using a Larkshead knot

In case you didn’t receive our newsletter last week, here is your chance to check it out.

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Ok, this is pretty cool:

Over the weekend, some of you may have noticed that KiteStop.com was down for some time. Well, this was due to some stupidity on my part, and ended up working out for the best.

As some of you know, I’m a web developer by trade. While kites are my passion, web development is what I have to do during the day to make a living.

Well, this weekend, I came home excited because I was going to be spending some time updating the e-commerce software that runs KiteStop.com. This upgrade promised to have some needed fixes and some really cool new features. (yeah, I’m a geek)..

So, when I got home from work on Friday, I started the upgrade process, which (as the software warns) begins with backing up the existing site. Well, being the arrogant, “I know what I’m doing” type… I skipped that portion.

About 97% of the way through the upgrade process, my server crashes, and the upgrade was corrupted.

Now, if I would have backed up my files, I would have been ok. But this time, arrogance jumped up and bit me. My files did not match up with my database, so the shop became completely unusable.

This has already gotten to be a long story, so I’ll just end with the fact that I spent the major part of the weekend, re-installing the software, uploading products and throwing on a fresh new design.

I hope you like it. If you see anything out of the ordinary while you are taking a look around, please let me know.

Enjoy.