I get some really great comments on this blog from time to time. Last week, on the post about the old German diesel housetruck, came thus comment from acep hale:
“Just fell totally and completely in love. Did you ever see One Thursday in November – The Life of a Busker? I know google video has it up. Completely inspires me, I watch it about once a month and pass it along to as many friends as possible.
Found it:
https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2511637531026573957#
This sat in my in-box for a few days. and on this early sunny morning, I clicked on the link. It’s a wonderful 30-minute film about a remarkable guy. Make it full screen by clicking the little box to the right of the Google logo. (OK, OK, so I’ve been a little late in figuring this out…)
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I’m no real fan of blue skies days. I mean, I don’t think every blue-sky warm day is “beautiful,” as I so often hear. Give me some clouds, a little fog, wisps of mist. Variety.
Well, after lots of weeks of rain and dark skies, it was sunny today, and it was “beautiful.”Such a change.
I’ve started paddling again (inspired by a young neighbor/waterman who paddles at night), and went paddling in the channel around noon today, crossed to the other side and spent an un-planned hour or more beachcombing, running, wading along the sandy beach. You brothers and sisters of the beach tribe will understand when I say it was an exquisite beach day (you can never tell until you get there, right?).
Very few people on beach, bit of breeze so air was fresh, clear green water flowing in the shallows, lotsof new shells. The light, shadows, the warm sun, foam from small waves breaking on sand…all working together. I was so excited!
After reading Keith Richard’s autobiography, I realized I didn’t have “Exile on Main Street,” bought it, and was playing it a few minutes ago. I walked into the office where Mary and Lesley were sitting and said, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…” and Mary said: “You could have fooled me.”
“The truck was manufactured in 1952 in Germany (frame, engine, drivetrain, etc.) and the Netherlands (body) for the Dutch government for the purpose of fire fighting in narrow inner-city streets. A total of 244 were built and they were in service until the mid 1970s when they were sold off to the general public. Many were converted to campers and some are still on the road as such in the Netherlands. I purchased this one in 2002 and had it shipped to Maryland. The original engine was a 75HP four cylinder air cooled (!) diesel with a manual, non-synchronized gearbox. My wife could not get the clutch to the floor and on the up-hill the truck was so slow that I replaced engine and gearbox with a Cummins diesel and automatic gearbox a couple of years later. 165HP works a lot better!…The interior was getting somewhat old and I started a make-over project with solid oak.…”
Starting bid $5000 (no bids as of 9:10 AM Pacific Coast Time 3/30/11.)
https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Magirus-Camper-converted-Fire-Truck-1952-Antique-/130500203822?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item1e626b152e#v4-42
Thanx and a tip of the Hatlo hat to Phil Miano for this.
From Bill Castle of Pollywog Holler: “Barb proved that the “Big Moon” Sat night was not really big but it did get close enough to the Earth, for her to grab it…”
(Check out Bill’s unique hand-carved tables: https://is.gd/billstables.)
Our book Getting Back in Shape, by Bob Anderson (author of Stretching), and Bill Pearl (author of Getting Stronger), has just been translated into Lithuanian. Stretching has been translated into 23 languages, the latest a pocketbook edition by Random House in Germany.
You can see the listing of the 60+ foreign editions of our books at: https://is.gd/shfor, including Shelter and HomeWork in Japanese. Both these books, plus Builders of the Pacific Coast, are in Korean. HomeWork is also in French.
I will be going to the Frankfurt Book Fair this October, especially to sell rights to our book on tiny houses, which it appears, will be of interest all over the world.
It’s a great thing to connect with people in other countries. “California to Universe, do you read me?” (This morning we got an order from Austria to ship all 8 of our building books to an address in Brazil!)
I’ve been many years developing the essentials and how to carry them . I may or may not have my L. L. Bean super capacious backpack with me, but I almost always have the fanny pack. This is what I have when out roaming NYC at night.
-Top: PacSafe StashSafe Series 100 hip pack. It has a bunch of anti-theft features. Mainly, it’s the right size, got lots of interior pockets.
-Bottom: $9 Casio F-91W watch
-2nd row up: pen / 3-1/2″ x 5″ Moleskine notebook (v. slim) / Swiss Army knife / reading glasses that fold up. Louie gave them to me, no idea where to get them, but they are great / slim magnifying glass / tiny LED light / wallet
-Other stuff: Canon Powershot S-90 (have shot almost 3000 shots on this great little camera) / Sony Cybershot DSC TX7 for shooting seamless panoramas / iPhone and stylus (way easier to keyboard with this.
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Just to think, those ocean pulses travelled almost 6000 miles to get here. What’s typical is that a boar’s bow line comes loose and all that’s left is the tether at the stern. The water just climbs over the square back part of the boat.
We were lucky to get along with so little damage here. Pic taken down at the dock last week.
My brother Bob, just forwarded me this:
From: “Russell Schweickart”
Date: March 28, 2011 2:47:37 AM PDT
This is the most complete… and amazing view of the tsunami I’ve seen. And right at the very end is the first, and only shot I’ve seen of the water receding. I think the reason that we haven’t seen the normal tsunami sequence.. ebb, flood, ebb, flood, etc. is that the seawall along the Japanese coast… something like 3-5 meters high… eliminated it. I.e., once the water got over the seawall (since it was 7-10 meters high), it stayed there… the seawall blocking it from receding back out to sea. What an irony!
Aerial video of the wave that hit Japan.
https://freevideocoding.com/flvplayer.swf?file=https://flash.vx.roo.com/streamingVX/63056/1458/20110311_japan_wave_successions_sky_1000k.mp4&autostart=true
Master natural materials builder SunRay Kelley and his partner Bonnie have just returned from a 6000 mile trip to Mexico in their in-process solar powered biodiesel Toyota camper (see https://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=10883512 for stuff on my blog about SunRay).
SunRay’s looking for a project. The last one he did was a beautiful little sculptural timber-cob studio in Northern California, which I photographed for a feature in our forthcoming tiny houses book. He brought all the wall and roof sheathing with him, cut and milled on his Washington property, then got posts and beams in the local woods. He told me a few days ago that things were slow in Washington and he was looking for a project. He’s done projects as far away from home as New York state and Mexico.
I couldn’t recommend anyone more highly. His structures utilize almost all natural materials in ingenious ways, are beautiful, and finely crafted. Call 360-333-0364 or email Bonnie at sunray@sunraykelley.com.
