I just spent a week in Baja Califonia Sur — San José del Cabo, La Paz, and the east cape, mostly with my friend Chilon and his family. Was refreshing not being in touch with any Americans for a week.

Chílon is a chilango, a native of Mexico City. He’s been in Los Cabos now for 35 years. Back in the ’90s, he had a children’s radio show on Sundays that was wildly popular, especially with kids on the ranchos. He called himself “Paraquin” (pair-ah-keen), a parrot, and he would trill his voice. He’d say, “OK, Maria and José, you mind your parents and study hard in school and now — here’s “Start Me Up”  by the Rolling Stones…

Everywhere we went in those days, kids stopped him on the street. People would trill at him across the street.

It’s been incredible hanging out with this guy. I’ve known him for 31 years now. We’ve gone fossil hunting, cave art exploring, camping in lush canyons, visiting old missions out in the desert, to remote ranchos, to small town fiestas. We’ve eaten (and cooked) together a hundred times. I’ve watched his boys, César and Daniel grow from little kids to grown men (lawyer and artist, respectively.) Everywhere he goes, he radiates good will. It’s like he moves along in a bubble of good cheer, and I’m tagging along for the ride.

On this trip, I watched him work his magic over and over — in almost every encounter. He’s got the gift of gab, and he jokes, smiles, laughs, says just the right thing. His words in Spanish have a rhythm, a singing quality.

We were in Cabo San Lucas, checking out the Disneyesque part of Los Cabos one night, and he asked if I was hungry, yes, so he turned down a street in the real part of town and we went into a dimly-lit taco stand. No one there. Waitress comes over and he’s got her laughing in 30 seconds. I end up getting small bowl of delicious bean soup and 2 of the best fish tacos I’ve ever had. Norteño music playing, Chílon starts singing along, with shouts of Órale, and pretty soon the women are singing along.

One of these years I’m going to do a book on my 12 years of off-and-on exploration of Baja Sur; working title: Deep in the Heart of Baja. Meanwhile, I’ll post photos from time to time. Here are some photos from last week:

Little outdoor restaurant in hills south of La Paz, owned by Daniel’s novia’s parents

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(Subtitle: 46 Years of Building & Gardening)

You know, it’s Thanksgiving morning, both boys are off for the holiday with spouses’ families, and Lesley and I are working on our separate crafts. What a difference with no phones, no email, no business necessities, no one else around. Witness the fact that I’ve hardly blogged at all lately. Gonna have to get one day a week here with no distractions. A right-brain day!

The unbound pages came in from the printers a few days ago. What a thrill! The book’s getting bound (in Hong Kong) this week, shipped and will be available in early March, 2020. When we get it together, we’re going to take pre-orders.

I’m still getting used to the book. After covering hundreds of builders over the years, this is the first on my own (and Lesley’s) work.

Stay tuned.

These photos shot with iPhone. We just got these early pages.

Music de éste día: The Gilded Palace of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers, 1969
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUeFJ7QIRbE

Here’s how I make books:

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Foster Huntington was arriving after dark Tuesday and I texted him, got a flashlight? He texted back … got something better than a flashlight.

When he got here we walked out into the dark. He said, “Close your eyes.”

Whereupon he fitted this helmet with night vision binocs on my head and said “Open your eyes.”

The dark night was alight! 10 times as many stars. I could see a galaxy. Trees, road, paths, animals all bathed in ghostly light.

It’s like a third world: formerly I had day and night. With these you have lighted-up night. Sure, you can see at night with a flashlight, but it doesn’t light things up 360°. Also, people and animals aren’t aware that you can see them. Foster says he’s been out at night with them, and he can walk right up to rabbits.

Surfing in primo spots at night (they are waterproof, but you sure wouldn’t want to lose them); hunting for mushrooms in secret spots; mountain biking at night without visible light — possibilities are endless.

The only problem is that apparently, the good ones are really expensive.

• From @lloyd.kahn’s Instagram

Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships — relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships. Dunbar explained it informally as ‘the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.’

Evan and I were just talking about the great podcasts of Chris Ryan, and he mentioned that Chris and Joe Rogan often refer to this number.

A lot of wonkiness on the subject (and a few fascinating factoids in “Popularisation”) in Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

We recently got a letter from architect James Horecka, parts of which are excerpted below:

I figured I’d recreate a geodesic pumpkin that I had carved-up back around 1990, shortly after I visited the Buckminster Fuller Institute (back when it was still in Los Angeles).

…on Monday morning, I came up with the idea of making a Geodesic Jack out of EMT, as I had some laying around. Over three evenings of a few hours each, I knocked it out.

The basics:

• 1v Icosahedron (obviously).
• Struts: 8″ long pieces of ½″ EMT. Two 10′ sticks yielded the 30 struts required.
• End tabs flattened in my 20-ton hydraulic press. They are long because I was originally going to just stack the joints, ‘Burner’ style.
• At the last minute, I decided to use hubs instead of stacking (cleaner look, less hassle). The steel discs are 2¾″ diameter cover plates for repairing holes where operating hardware has been removed.
• I drafted the Hub templates CADD; glued to the metal, center-punched, drilled, and deburred.
• Fasteners are ¼-20 × ½″ stove bolts & nuts.
• Two-tone paint: Honey inside (flesh), Amber outside (skin), plus Black.

Anyway: Creating this from scratch over just a few evenings was good fun.

I’ll probably go back and make another dozen hub plates, for the inside face of each node. With those and the bolts & nuts painted black, the assembly will look a little sharper still. Though now that Halloween is over, I’ve no idea what to do with this thing until next year! Cat House?

P.S.: I continue to enjoy reading your books. Cover-to-cover, one after another.

Sincerely,

James Horecka, AIA
Staff Architect, A&FE
Disneyland Resort, Anaheim