These days for millions of people the internet has become our town square, our quilting bee, and our local watering hole all at once. It’s no wonder that the most visited websites out there are MySpace and Facebook. The idea behind these sites of course, is to allow people to stay connected with their group of friends & family and of course social networking with new folks as well.

As it was with blogging some years back, forward thinking companies are taking steps into the networked world. Trak Kayaks has begun their “Friends of Trak” group on Facebook and already has a nice group of over 100 people. Members can chat about their boats, share pictures, get the latest information from Trak and of course network with other members along the way. Good idea for a company that wants to stay in touch with their customers. Yes, you do have to have a Facebook account to access their group. I have a Facebook profile just so i can check in on the Trak site.

So here is Nydia, one of my good friends. She is coming to Puerto Rico with me next week. In fact she’s going a day early just to be sure that we have someone to meet us when we get there. Something she planned to do almost from the day I told her I was doing the trip. You could’nt ask for a better friend. Nydia wanted to join us on the water as well but as I’m sure you know, it’s not easy or cheap to bring a kayak. Well we finally got our communication right and she is going to use my folding Trak Kayak as it can easily be taken on the airplane. The Trak kayak folds up and fits in a bag about the size of a golf bag with wheels so you can easily move it through the airport or wherever you want to go.

Today Nydia drove over from Milwaukee to my home in Baraboo to pick up the kayak and go for a paddle. So we spent the day frolicking around Mirror Lake near Wisconsin Dells. Funny when she was leaving and I went to say “see ya later” I realized the next time I see her will be next Monday in San Juan. Weird. . . .

So have you had a chance to see Freya Hoffmeister’s new Novorca paddle? Is this the coolest thing or what!?? Yeah, I know some people will see this as sacrilege. Yet following along with yesterday’s post the big changes coming in the way of gear right now seems to be self-expression. And some paddlers want to be a little unique. Of course as I’ve mentioned before Novorca paddles are more than just self-expression. They are just damn good carbon fibre paddles. The only ones out there that are customized to your exact specifications. (and of course crazy color preference). I have to say, even working with Ron at Novorca I was still taken aback with this paddle. It’s shall we say, “loud”. LOL!

Well, I hope we all have a good weekend. I hope to get out on Lake Michigan tomorrow with Silbs & Jb. Wish I had my Alaw, but soon enough. Mike tells me it will be near the end of June. So, I think I may take the trusty little Trak. By the way, here’s my little Ninja boat hanging out at Heathrow. You’ll notice I came up with a pretty good way to carry the duffle as well, just strap it to the boat.

Happy Monday! Well, of course you’re going to get another day of me playing with my new kayak!! Nothing better than new toys right? If you’d like to see my "Trak" photo set just go to Here. I’ll post pictures of the new baby in that gallery as time goes on.

So many of you know I keep two blogs. One here and one at Yahoo360.com. I’ve been noticing an interesting difference in the two communities. Here on blogger we have a more "serious" paradigm. Certainly we’re not "Journalists" but blogger lends itself to that sort of presentation. Which is great. Someone commented recently that they check the blog here each day to see what’s up in the Kayak world. I really think that’s wonderful. Of course it’s because so many great paddlers share their news with me. Without their kindness and taking the time to email me all about what’s up, we’d never have this nice opportunity to keep up with everyone. So you can bet as I run around to symposiums this year I’ll be thanking a lot of people for sharing their kayaking lives with us.