Took off at 6AM Wednesday, dark, ultra foggy, it was like driving in a tunnel — until I got to Jenner and it cleared. I stopped and trespassed to skate at Sea Ranch; there never seems to be anyone in any of those houses, maybe 90% unoccupied, just me and the propane guy…met my friends, Louie,Titsch, and Pepe for breakfast at Trinks in Gualala, great food, great wi-fi…that afternoon, Louie, Titsch and I hiked a few miles up the river to an old homestead and had home-smoked salmon, salami, Irish cheddar cheese, sourdough baguette, bottle of Louie’s v. excellent 2009 Primitivo red…that night after drying out (had to wade thru river at various spots) and warming up, we barbecued a flank stake in Louie’s new open hearth fireplace in the shop, my olives, a salad …yesterday another great breakfast at Queenie’s (somewhere south of Medocino, prowled around Mendo town (awfully precious these days, then to Ft. Bragg, still a real town…on the way back we went to the very weird Garcia River Casino. just slot machines, no kraps or blackjack, a few morons sitting at machines, smoking, losing money, I just don’t get it. HOWEVER, Louie got $1 worth of nickels and won $45 in the nickel machine and we quit right there and went to the bar in Pt. Arena cove and had beer on tap (mine Black Butte Porter) and fried calimari…now Friday morning and I’m heading south…can’t post pix because I haven’t got my rebuilt Sony DSC RX100 camera coordinated with my MacAir…
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From Boing Boing: “I like to say it is self-published for all the right reasons — not because I could not find a real publisher to back it, but for three other important benefits. I’ll describe those below and I’ll also tell you how the economics of self-publishing work for this book. Finally, I’ll include a few of the cool tools used to create this huge book with only two of us on staff.
The first benefit of self-publishing was speed. I finished writing and assembling the book in September and by October I had the book listed on Pre-Order status on Amazon. It will be available to customers (in bookstores, too!) the first week of December. If this book was being published by a New York publisher I’d still be in negotiations to maybe have it available next summer.”
I ‘m tremendously excited by this forthcoming book (available December). I saw an early PDF and couldn’t stop turning pages. Read about how Kevin put it together here.
Article in New Yorker (here), 10/21/2013, about Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter:
“…He is a techno aesthete in the manner of Steve Jobs: Dorsey, too, is a college dropout, a taker of long walks, and a guy whose father liked to tinker. And, just as Jobs, with his Issey Miyake turtlenecks, tried to embody Apple’s sleek functionalism, Dorsey’s tastes are self-consciously in synch with the design of Twitter. “Constraint inspires creativity” is one of his credos.;”
The wind blew like mad last night, felt like gale force. Clouds moved in, we were hoping for rain, but by this morning, the front had skipped to the south. It’s really dry; the weatherman said the other night, driest January-October since 1865. On the other hand, SF Chronicle outdoors-writer Tom Stienstra said the bears have full coats now, sign of a robust winter. We can only hope. The first rain I’m gonna be out there with face uplifted, feeling the drops, smelling the moistened soil, bring it on!…Last week went up to my brother’s farm in Napa Valley and picked a bucket of olives, they’re now immersed in water with salt and vinegar. No lye. The olives from last year are still in brine, still very good. I like to have them with a glass of red wine before dinner…Got new skateboard, a Tesseract from Loaded Boards, it’s great. Goes maybe 10-15% faster than any other of my boards, and turns maybe 10-15% better, inspiring me to skate more; check it out here — look at the video — hi-speed downhill sliding, on long boards with soft wheels no less!
Photos shot in Napa Valley last week; beautiful old house, elegant, spare…but just a little bit too fixed up, too fussed-over, a trophy house. Some of the billionaires’ wineries on Highway 112 are embarrassing: money, yes; taste, no. Too many vineyards, monocropping requires chemicals.…
I’m trying to find the time to write something about the wrong-headedness of GMOs; Verlyn Klinkenborg has a wonderful writeup on GMOs in his excellent book, “More Scenes From A Rural Life.”
