For months I’ve been wistfully looking at the downhills, especially the newly-paved. Just couldn’t risk a fall with shoulder not healed up. But things feel together enough for me to venture back on the pavement. So much fun!

   Since I’ve never learned to slide (whereby you can control yr. speed), I need to get off the board before getting to the speed where I can’t get off and remain vertical.

   For now I’m just skating gentle slopes and carving. No (well not much) bombing.
I wear Loaded gloves with hockey pucks velcroed to the palms. Cliff Coleman, downhill speed legend, told me that when you fall, remember 4 words: Get On Your Hands. Meaning get those hockey pucks sliding on the pavement so you’re not sanding off skin.

   The other part of the equation is to also slide on your knees, i.e knee pads with hard surfaces, so you’re on all fours, sliding on knee pads and hockey pucks.

   The one time I had the presence of mind to do this was in San Francisco late at night when my board hit an unsurmountable crack in the pavement, and I skidded along on 4 noncorporeal surfaces.

   Boards shown from my, ahem, sponsors: at right my smooth turning, stylish carving bamboo Bhangra from Loaded Boards; at left my carvy cruzer with drop-down deck from Santa Cruz Skateboards—-for bombing and sharper turns,

   On the road again…

Posted from 30,000 feet, pretty good United Airlines wi-fi hookup, 1/3 of the way to JFK. Stylin’ it in business class, free ticket from frequent flyer program.

And am I excited! Born and raised in San Francisco, the most beautiful city in the US, but, but…it never fails when the cab crosses the river and we enter Manhattan, my pulse kicks up a few notches. I like to take the red eye, can never can sleep on an airplane anyway, get in to the hotel around 8AM. Half the time a room will be available, but if not, I check my backpack suitcase (Rick Steve’s model that fits easily in overhead bin — I’m never checking baggage on a flight again — got my gear stripped down) and hit the streets. Years ago I discovered that if I go for a run in the park, after about 45 minutes and sweating, the jet lag is side-stepped. I stay up until that night — no naps –and voila, I’m on NYC time.

   I’ve probably been to NYC 50 times, used to go at least twice a year when Random House was our distributor. Hotels of note over the years: Gramercy Park Hotel in the ’70s; then for some years, the Pickwick Arms, in east ’60s, around the corner from Random with very small cheap (like $60) rooms. It’s been redone as the iPod or something. Then the Mayflower at the southwest corner of the park (my fave part of park), wonderful hotel, big rooms, European feel, good restaurant.

   I hit the streets with zest. All the years of running training have given me manuevearble street skills. Watch the traffic, not the lights, I tell my kids. In my fanny pack, a camera, notebook, pen, phone, glasses, magnifying glass, etc. Last week I was walking around in the Valencia district in SF with friends, a great part of the city nowadays, but it seemed bleak in comparison with, say, the Village, with its trees and density of people and shops and restaurants.

   Now as Hank Williams is singing Hey Good Lookin and it’s a windy clear day, I’m getting ready to go.

  Watch for dispatches from NYC next week.

Hey, Good Lookin' by Hank Williams on Grooveshark

Today, from our brothers in France, Yogan and Menthé, prolific carpenters, whose work appears in Tiny Homes, and will be in Tiny Homes on the Move:

“hi lloyd, with Menthé we construct a new cabin, “the boat of tree,” we finish it in two weeks, i send you the first photo…”

Yogan’s website here.

Yogan’s blog here.

Menthés blog here.

“Hello Lloyd,

Thought might enjoy this Bob Dylan´s Subterranean Homesick Blues video found here.

Joe”

Nate T’s comment on the post (below) about my new camera: “…taken my first day playing with the RX100 video capture mode.

Primitive Pond Ice Curling from this winter in Groton, Mass.

…Be sure to switch viewing to HD and marvel at the pan/focus/tracking capabilities of objects in motion. I was pleasantly surprised.”