After all these years of not only running, swimming, paddling, etc., and editing a string of fitness books, I still get immersed in work and tend to put off getting out in the physical world. But (often) a small voice says, Get out there, you know you’ll feel better, and sure enough. I always come back exhilarated. Monday I forced myself to grab my paddleboard, went down, and with a high tide, paddled into the channels of the lagoon. Boy, this felt good. I beached the board on a bank, and swam. Came back to the town dock, talked to the fishermen, got home reenergized. Last night I ran with Tomás along the coast to Pirate’s Cove and we jumped into the ocean. Had a pint of local pale ale at the pub with the boys, then drove home along the coast as the light of the day faded.
Our book Galloway’s Book on Running will soon be in its ninth printing.
Our Septic System Owner’s Manual will soon be in its eighth printing.
California’s state bird. The males (with topknots) are almost always the sentries. This guy was sitting on a beanpole in the garden yesterday, watching over a brood of chicks scratching around on the ground. Quail colonies have been steadily increasing here over the years. They are all over the place now. They’re members of the pheasant family (Phasianidae), as are chickens.
We got a Sodastream Home Soda Maker a few months ago and it works beautifully. Brad Zebal, who reviewed it for CoolTools, wrote: “Aside from reducing our plastic/aluminum waste, we don’t have to lug heavy bottles back from the store. I also like to think about all the energy we will save annually by not buying water that’s been shipped from one part of the country to another.”
This a glass with a small amount of pomegranate juice added.
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Article in June 29 New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert on scientist James Hansen’s conclusion that the threat of global warming is far greater than expected. Quotes from the New Yorker abstract:
• What is now happening, Hansen said, is carbon dioxide is being pumped into the air some ten thousand times faster than natural weathering processes can remove it.
• Hansen argues that the only way we can constrain the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to drastically decrease the use of coal.
• In order to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, annual emissions around the globe would have to be cut by something on the order of three-quarters. So far, there’s no evidence that anyone is willing to take the necessary steps.
Parts of this book are very good, like below.
“In this age we are surrounded by stimuli, messages in our environment clamoring for a little piece of our awareness. Advertisements are designed and sold with the simple premise of stealing one small mote of your attention. Your technological devices, designed to assist you in your life and work, beep incessantly with updates, alerts, and alarms. Cars become more and more like the cockpits of fighter planes with their heads-up displays and data readouts. Even our relationships take more maintenance; lovers separated by such a small obstacle as a day at the office stay in constant contact through email, instant messaging, and social networks. In our new digital world we’ve finally started to run out of one of our most precious resources: Our own attention In the distant past, educated people worked for decades to train their brains to retain information. Greek bards had to be able to recall the story and rhythm of, if not the exact words of, either of Homer’s epics at the drop of an Athenian dime. Monastery-confined monks would construct vast “memory palaces” in their minds to store and recall data in photographic detail. Starting with paper and pen, technological advances began to make that sort of rigorous mental dexterity obsolete. But in our rush to modernity, have we gone too far? Have we given over too much of our brain power to the devices built to boost our productivity? Are our brains now just tasty mush for our zombie progeny??”
Free download from: https://www.snarkmarket.com/nla/
See Kevin Kelly’s take on this: https://kk.org/ct2/2009/07/innovative-publishing-model.php
We just got an online order for Shelter, HomeWork, and Builders of the Pacific Coast* from Tattooer Matt (aka brassknucklebreakdancer) in Oregon, who wrote:
“Shelter from the 70s was a gift this past winter and after reading it, i have since moved my 2 kids out to a yurt i built on 20 acres 40 minutes outside of portland, maine…..its the best book i have ever read.”
Boy, does it make me feel good to hear that the builders in our books motivate people.
*Shameless Commerce Dept. You can get 40% off if you get all 3 books together: :
“Think of it as a giant Erector Set. Grid Beam is a great way to make working prototypes of furniture, experimental vehicles and even small buildings. If your idea doesn’t work, you can change it until it does. If you don’t need it anymore, Grid Beams are easily demountable and ready to use for the next project. I find the ability to try ideas quickly in analog form to be a huge advantage. With nothing simulated, you know for sure it works, not merely that it should work. A drawing can lie to your client or worse, to you. Grid Beams never lie. The book illustrates a remarkable array of projects, all real, and many actually at work. Inspiring!”
— J. Baldwin
From CoolTools:
Feedback from David Naas in Santa Cruz :
(Line from movie The Mosquito Coast:)
“Kid’s out in the woods and hollers I found a pile of wood… Harrison (Ford) hollers back is it wood or is it lumber?” Point being that in Builders of the Pacific Coast that line begins to blur… I wonder if guys like Sunray Kelley even notice the difference sometimes….”
Yoga studio by SunRay Kelley
