We just received 3 copies of the Korean translation of Builders of the Pacific Coast by Dosol Publishing company, who did a Korean translation of Home Work: Handbuilt Shelter a few years ago.
With both books, they didn’t just substitute Korean for English, they completely re-designed each book, and it’s great to see their interpretation. These people on the other side of the world appreciating the carpenters of British Columbia…Small world indeed.
(Our book Stretching is in 23 languages.)
Trying to figure out how to mount my super little HD helmet hero on my Skateboard helmet this morning, ran across this amazing footage of bike riders doing the loop-de-loop mambo:
These summer noon-time concerts at the Oakland City Center are great. I love Oakland, it’s like the younger, not-as-beautiful sister of hottie San Francisco. They have to try harder. The concerts are free, the area is surrounded by food and drink shops. Good vibes.
I’ve been following Tom Rigney for years. He plays a blazing electric violin. His website says: “Flambeau specializes in blazing Cajun and zydeco two-steps, low-down blues, funky New Orleans grooves, Boogie Woogie piano, and heartbreakingly beautiful ballads and waltzes. Most of the repertoire is composed by Rigney, but they also mix in a few classics from the Cajun/zydeco/New Orleans songbook.…” Caroline Dahl, the boogie-woogie keyboardist, rocks.
Above, Tom with a group of music students after the concert
I play the violin a bit, and when I get the urge, I play along with some of the slow tracks on his CDs. I do this in secret (with nobody listening) and pretend I’m playing with the band. Shhh!
Wednesday I took my friend Sherman Welpton to a noon-time concert of the Tom Rigney Band at the Oakland city Center. Sherman is in a wheelchair with a spinal disconnect and Parkinson’s; these days he’s pretty much totally incapacitated. Physically, that is.
Mentally, inside the physical shell that’s not working, he’s the same funny, perceptive, and playful guy that he always was. Several years ago, I wrote something about him for our fraternity brothers (Stanford, class of ’56). To see it, click here.
Over the years Sherm and I have gone to a bunch of musical events. He’s the one who turned me onto Fats Domino (Yes it’s me and I’m in love again) when we were teenagers, and thereby changed my life. We’ve gone to Ashkenaz, the Berkeley world-music club that has good wheelchair access, a bunch of times.
Even though he can’t talk, or even move these days, there’s something about him, some kind of aura that people often pick up on. Once we went to a biker bar in Hayward to see a blues band. When the bikers saw us, they cleared their Harleys away so I could park the van, and helped me get Sherm in. One night we went to see Merle Haggard at the Warfield in Oakland; at the intermission I wandered around taking pictures and when I came back, Sherm was holding hands with a girl in the next row. Dude!
Sherm is always game. These days one of his caregivers always goes with us. There are four women who care for him at his home in Oakland. They all love him to pieces. The other day I said to him. Sherm, you fucker, you’ve got four women looking after you, plus your wife Ruthie. His eyes twinkled.
Mike Litchfield, one of the founding editors of Fine Homebuilding magazine recently published the book In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats: Your Guide to Turning One House into Two Homes. It’s a useful, informative and clear depiction of well-designed small homes. Watch for a review of it here. In the interim, here’s a posting I just noticed on Mike’s Fine Homebuilding blog, on a builder in the San Francisco area offering turn-key tiny homes:
“Kevin Casey’s New Avenue Homes offers homeowners a turn-key ADU package that includes private financing, design, permit approval and construction. What’s more, he seems to be making a go of it, with a first backyard cottage garnering a lot of praise, and six more units in the pipeline. Now he’s looking for builders in other regions to partner with.…”
Lew found these beauties a few days ago under a Bishop pine. Lucky for us, he doesn’t eat wild mushrooms. Also called The Prince, they have a nutty, almond-like flavor.
The 4th annual Shore-to-Shore paddle race, sponsored by Live Water Surf Shop of Stinson Beach, was here Saturday. Two courses: 2.8 miles, and 7-1/2 miles. There’s a bigger turnout every year. Paddling is catching on in Northern California. It’s huge in Southern California and more recently, Santa Cruz. New technology (as in skateboarding) has revolutionized the sport in the last ten or so years. I’ve always loved paddling, and a few years ago, I got a 12′ Joe Bark Surftech racing paddleboard. It weighs 32 lbs and skims across the water like a water skeeter. If I paddle in the lagoon going with an incoming tide, I’m flying, with a v-shaped wake off the bow. Fun!
What I love about these events (there’s a very large kayak/outrigger race in Sausalito in October) is seeing not just the various types of paddleboards, but the kayaks and especially the outrigger canoes. I have to admit to lusting after one of these outriggers since my friend Tom Mebi, who lives on a beach in Hawaii, told me about his outrigger. 20′ long, weighing 23 lbs. Man!
These ones yesterday were real beauties. Featherlight (and expensive — $3-5000). I’m trying to find one I can try out in these waters, and if it performs well in the ocean, I’ll look out for a used one.
I did the short course. Ocean was choppy, weather foggy, but I love being in the water (prone paddleboard). I was tired, but not wiped out. A good vibes event, great lunch in the park afterwords. Great to see my old beachbum/lifeguard friends. We all love the ocean.
Outrigger canoes: https://occonnection.ipower.com/ , https://www.huki.com/
In the ’70s, Lesley and I went to England, where she was born. I had friends, 3 brothers from Southern California, who had rented an old brick house in Mapledurham, a small village along the Thames, near Redding. One night my friend Michael took us over to a visit a small family in a nearby house. It was a cold night.
It turned out to be a thatched cottage, not your picture-perfect variety (like this one here), but still something authentic. The doorway was low — a 6-footer would have to duck to get in. Inside, there was a fire burning in the fireplace, which was just part of the floor, casting orange shadows on the walls. The ceiling was really low, with whitewashed horizontal beams holding up the loft above.
I felt a hit, as if I’d stepped back into a past life. The warmth, the coziness, the feeling of protection — the same qualities that I believe our ancestors created and treasured — it felt familiar. (My mom’s family is from Wales.)
I’ll have feelings once in a while in different homes.when everything feels right, everything is working in unison: what you see, what you smell, what you touch, what you feel…
And if you’ll pardon the whoo-whoo factor here, I think that we have memories in our genes, and that once in a while — via meditation, or enhanced consciousness, or just the right mood — we tap into these cellular memories. We get a feeling that doesn’t come from conscious memories. Hey, I’ve been here before…
I have a couple of these straps hanging in the office, and also in the living room. Eyebolt hook as shown.
I don’t use them as often as I should, but still, they are great for not only strengthening exercises, but also for stretching. I simulate paddling movements: handles in hands, raise arms over head, pull down past hips, and reach out and return to starting position — like a butterfly stroke. You can do all kinds of things with these straps. You can also take them when you travel, they have a connector that allows you to anchor them in a door jamb of any room.
It’s a pretty cheap home gym. The cheapest, however, is Bruno Atkey’s rope-with-handle that you attach to a rafter. Totally brilliant. You can do all kinds of stretches. Fast forward to ___ on this CBS video.
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Last year I saw an article on clamming in our local West Marin Citizen. It showed a guy named Eloy Garcia and his clam gun, an ingenious device for getting horseneck clams. I’ve been digging clams off and on since the early ’60s. (Back in “the day,” we used to get Pismo clams by dragging garden forks in the sand at Rio del Mar, south of Santa Cruz.)
In this (sic) neck of the woods, there are horsenecks. There’s no shortage of them because they’re tough to get: you’ve got to shovel a lot of poundage of mud to get deep enough to where these critters hang out. The clam gun, however was like a surgical tool, pumping down through a 4″ hole to get the clams.
I tracked Eloy down (the stars were surely lined up because “Eloy” is “Lloyd” in Spanish), and called him up. He was really friendly and ended up sending me a spare clam gun in exchange for some of our building books. I talked to him several times about technique, but just couldn’t get it working right. Why don’t you meet us up at Lawson’s Landing, he said. They’d be clamming all this week.
I went up there Wednesday night and met Eloy, his wife Nancy, and two other couples and some grandkids, all camping out. You know how you meet someone, and you’re just on the same page? Well Eloy radiates good will. He laughs a lot. We all sat around his homemade (out of a 50-gallon drum) fireplace, drinking beer as the full moon came up in the east.
I slept in the back of my truck and yesterday we went out clamming early in the morning. I was pretty slow in picking up the technique, which involves crawling around in 3″ deep water, locating the clam holes under the waving eel grass, then pumping out the mud to get down to the clams. then reaching down with your hand (up to armpit) to get the clams. Eloy and his buddy Ron each had their limits of 10 clams, and I had one. They started helping me and I think I’ve got the hang of it. More or less.
Note: I’m going to publish photos of this wonderful little seaside community of funky trailers and campgrounds that is currently under fire by a group of environmental zealots. See: https://www.savelawsonslanding.com/