What a R.U.G.D. is
What is RUGD anyways?
It is becoming the experimentation workshop for Rebel Kayaks. The acronym, playfully and unsanctioned, stands for Rebel Underground Gear Development, a mouthful I know, so R.U.G.D. it is. Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag now and it is no longer a secret underground megalomaniac Bond-style underground facility with it's own surf waves generator, underground go-go dancers and robot polar bears we all dream of, underground. Yet. But it may be one day! Underground?
Names and NAMES
Ok. The name RUGD was originally decided when the domain rugd.com was being free to register. It was supposed to represent the word "rugged" in a fun way, which is what we represent anyway.
Due to what I suspect to be corruption within the world's biggest domain registrars, I could not register rugd.com due to "Server not accessible". Very convenient. This was even though the "grace period" for registering was over, by 3 months (legit) and 48h (not legit).
Last time I checked, GoD**dy wanted $13K for the domain rugd.com, because it's a 4-letter domain and they are attractive. So am I, but I still don't earn money off of it. Yet :) But I am not bitter and will start posting selfies for my popularity campaign across the internetz soon...
To show my un-bitterness I have ported Qajaqhunter, a game I created last year to this site's more modern codebase, with the help of AI. Enjoy.
Where I come from
My (grand)father was a tailor, he sewed my new blue jeans...rhymes with New Orleans...like the song goes, but no he didn't. However, I was always impressed with how my Macedonian Grandpa Trajko could just make a bespoke suit for anyone. A suit! With lining and fine fabric. How does one even start?
Anyways, when I was a teenager I hijacked my sister's Husqvarna sewing machine and started making clothes I couldn't find in the shops. Skateboarding every day and playing in several rock bands at a time does that to your head, I guess.
The Present
So, trying to practice English on the blog site rugd.se is fun and severely opinionated. I like that. You couldn't tell, right? However, my kayaking pal Stefan R. saw the potential in the jackets I had done and were harassing my daughter with. Persistent as he is, he convinced me to meet him at the top secret manufacturing facility in Poland where they are making high-end, bomb-proof gear for the Zombie Apocalypse. Kind of. At least they now make Arctic-secure tuiliks out of Neoprene. The rest is fu*ked up...I mean, the rest is history, that's what I mean!
Since Stefan had met the designer of Rebel Kayaks, Johan Wirsén and Uli Böttcher, the German rep. for Rebel and also an avid kayaker, we decided to make the tuiliks into Rebel Tuiliks. Later on we slowly started with what was Ulrich's original idea about a sister site where we could play around and swear a bit more than on a corporate one. Yes, you are reading this on that site. So, did we lose you already?
Let's just say this: a bunch of people with a passionate heart for kayaking met up and WYSIWYG. Now it's your turn. Goof around, share your findings, play with the Skiin kayak designer. See what's in it for you!