Added Fred's Mug Shot

Added my mug shot to my Google blog. Visited my Mother today. She will be 97 in June. My sister Carol was there at the time. Showed them pictures of the Family Farm in Western Kansas on Google Earth, Street View on my laptop using my cell phone as a fairly high speed modem. Took videos of them with the Flip Camera and plan to upload to Youtube so rest of family can see the Easter flowers Carol made. Tomorrow would have been the folk's 75th wedding anniversary. They always said "We got married on April Fool's Day and have been fools every since."

Hot Air Balloon Wind Spinner

That worked so good video taping our "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere" wind spinner, I decided to shoot and load to Youtube a video of a Hot Air Balloon Wind Spinner blowing in the wind. That link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2d9PxNIOgs

or from our Web site at http://www.kansaswinds.com/Balloons.html



Thanks to Collette Marshall at cmarshall@WorldWideBrands.com for the information at the ASD/AMD trade show in Las Vegas on the Flip Mino, how to use it to load videos to Youtube, to blog and to twitter. I also used her advice to redesign and simplify our Website

New stuff

Great day! Mall store is open after blizzard. Used new Flip Mino to record It's 5 O'clock Somewhere Garden Spinner, loaded it on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmfAvmICbx8 then linked it to my Web site http://www.kansaswinds.com/GardenSpinners.html
Now customers can see how the critter moves in the wind.

Whirligigs in custom colors

Friends of ours, Robert and Phyllis Ward had just attended an NFL game that featured our favorite team. I was showing them our "critters" that blow in the wind, when Bob said, "If these were in our teams colors, I would buy one of everything." So why not, I thought. We contacted Tony Loera, President of G & A Flying Colors, Inc., and presented this concept to him. He was as excited about the plan as we were. Where a guy wouldn't buy a whirligig on the last day of his life, make it his team colors and he has to have one. This concept has really been a success. It was some four years before other companies started making team colors and I still don't know of any other company that make whirligigs in custom colors.

9/11 was not a good time to start a business

We found our wind socks and got into the Kansas State Fair. The Fair ran from September 7th through the 16th, 2001. Whirligigs were a hot item then as there were not many available. We purchase a good supply for the Fair and were ready to make a quick killing. Business the first weekend were pretty good and we were thinking this will be a great Fair. Then came 9/11 on Tuesday. I was at home getting ready to go to the Fair when the second tower was hit. I went on to work but might as well of stayed home. The Fair was dead for the year. Everyone was watching the news. Much more important things going on now than starting a business.

How Kansas Winds got started

My wife (Trini) and I are campers. We and all our camping friends love wind socks and try to out do each other with new design and ideas. While vacationing near South Fork Colorado, my wife says "Look, there's our wind socks. Pull in here. Pull in here." To make a long story short, a hundred and thirty two dollars later we have one of everything and a month later we are in business at the Kansas State Fair.