Open Water Swim Practice

Listen Up!

















.

Wet suit stretch tableau

View ALBUM

Listing is 'Live'

See Detail More Pictures

etc HERE

Log Rolling, California Style

Heroic, but one guy can't move a killer log all by himself.







This thing must weigh 1000 pounds!

Saving lives at Africa Beach (formerly Munyon's) by removing a dangerous waterlogged piling from the surf. This log rolling beach cleanup SWAT team includes the usual suspects plus imported muscle, log removal specialists Magnus and Piper to handle this extra tough job.
On three... PUSH!
Other pics from the same afternoon ALBUM


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Half Moon Bay CA: Coastal Investment Opportunity!

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Steps to the beach, trails and shopping, a once in a life time opportunity!

Act Now!!

The Listing Frenzy is upon us: The opening gun for showing is Tuesday.

View ALBUM of clean house snaps from yesterday.

The Half Moon Bay small business full employment act has been put into force on Garcia St.! Photography Guy, Floor Repair Guy, Carpet Shampoo Guy, Window Washing Guy, Painting Guy, Hauling Guy, Property Inspector Guy, Termite Inspector Guy, Staging Gal, Cleaning Guy and lots of other guys & gals are swarming. The kitty cats were not pleased.

Huge credit for unending staging aid and moral support from Linda E. -staging artist Kings Mtn. denizen and positive thinker par excellence, fitting her work here in between feeding the mutitudes of musician and technicians at Neil Young's ranch and supporting Pegi Young's first CD launch tour.

Shown above, photography guy Mike. We will all be able to view his handiwork on the Web MLS listings shortly. While working, he recognized the framed original of Sarah's pen and ink that went into the high school calender last year. He had the same art teacher and learned the pen and ink trechnique from her and now owns the print shop in El Granada that produces the calendars. The joys of a small towns!

Party Day

PARTY ALBUM
Follow the link to view some of Sarah's Photos of Party day for Dad in St. Louis

Badass & Grumpy

The Tip of the Spear
(Mr. July
'Soldier of Fortune' Magazine)


What We're Fighting For
(Mr.July
Ms.Magazine)




CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE
They each have a mission: 'Badass' Bob here pictured in Afghanistan patrolling oil pipelines, and 'Grumpy' Jordan caught in an unguarded moment at an undisclosed location patrolling ..well...Pipeline!

They're both Kings Mtn. boys, as American as apple pie, bald, bearded, bad, comfortable with sand and exuding an aura of menace. They have the tools & the 'tude' to get the job done. (Grumpy's 'gun' is purple, but hey -why not?)
You don't want to mess with them.
Stand clear and let these guys do their work.

Birthday Party at the Rand's !!

June 24 at the Rand's, Dad presiding over his initial birthday blast - just a warm up. The biggie party is coming up.
Click HERE for a picture album of the gathering.

The highlight was 'Uncle' Bill D's birthday poem. Wow!!

Summer Solstice

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The end of the day June 21.
Top L. E. at the Garcia Street house, planting flowers
in the backyard to prepare to sell the house. She is an artist!
Then a sunset walk on the beach with Bryan.
No green flash, and no shells for L.E. but magical beauty
nonetheless. Still plenty of light at 9:00pm.

Bob, Bobby & Bronco

CLICK TO ENLARGE PIC
Mr. Badass Bob and Bobby taking a break in the Bronco on a jeep trail in the Sierras this past weekend.
Mr. Wizard did it again, rescuing a stranded 4 wheeler in the middle of the night on a remote trail with his McGyver know-how. Bubble gum and bailing wire. Is there anything these guys can't fix? I hear Bob invented a new technique for putting a running jeep in gear by lying under it, manually shoving the linkage into place and then rolling clear ( cat-like) before his legs were crushed. Did I mention the jeep had no breaks? Good thing the garage wall was there to stop the vehicle - no telling where it might have ended up. Needed new siding on the garage anyway. Bob was off this morning for his last military tour - this time in Afghanistan. See you in September Bob!

Read about Bob's outfit - The 129th Rescue Wing of the California Air National Guard HERE
(Note: you may get a security warning message from your browser - but don't worry, the National Guard site won't hurt you.)

Birthday Gift for Dad?

Must have Aquada!

Sarah Cleared for Action!

This is what the knee in

question looked like 6 months ago.

Yikes!

(See a ACL

Reconstruction

Video by Sarah's

Doctor HERE )

This is what it looks like today.

Go Sarah go!

CLICK PICTURE TO ENLARGE

According to the knee doctor Sarah's ACL graft has healed perfectly. Yay!

Lake Berryessa Torture Session

Left B.T. Loving it.

Below Getting Ready

The South Bay Iron Team: What a day, first a 2 mi open water swim in the lake, then a grueling 100 mi bike ride with a total elevation gain of 10,000'. No shade, no mercy! Man was I glad to be a volunteer not a member of the team. They followed up the next morning with w 15 mi run. Target: an August Iron Man in Cananda. They will be ready!

Plum Crazy Board

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Purple means royalty: it is only right that the King of the Coast

has hand-crafted his own plum purple long board. What a beauty!

The picture shows Headlocks checking the albedo of his creation in

a secret Upper-Woodside workshop.

Shell Beach Kayak- Dive

The Trruck!

THE 'AL GORE'

After a few years of letting the abalone alone, the intrepid deep sea hunters searched their garages for abalone irons, depth gauges, lost wet suit gloves and net bags. The sacred kayak anchor was unearthed in the garden (sans sacred anchor rope). Goggles with rotted silicone and moldy weight belts were found exactly where they were left after the last trip.

We set out Saturday morning early, in M's humongous new F-350 heading north of Bodega Bay, exact put-in destination uncertain. We'd know it when
we saw it. Some say free diving the north coast is dangerous. Actually, driving a loaded new Ford diesel is the extreme sport --for adrenaline junkies only.
Try to watch & listen to the GPS nav screen, cruise all 186,000 Sirius radio channels, compute miles to refueling, adjust climate control and media choices for each of the four bucket seats all while hurtling up Highway 1 at 80 mph and checking out ocean conditions. And of course there are sudden swerving detours to test the nav system's reaction to deviations from route instructions. Will the calming female computer voice turn vicious? Will the engine shut down as alarms blare? Disappointingly, no. Turns out the computer merely recalculates the route from your new location. And at 8,500 lbs empty, nothing is getting into your way whatever route you choose.
Parking is a breeze too - once you find a three-car space to back into. There is no need to look behind or in the mirrors. Just line it up, shift into reverse, watch the GPS, and listen until the back up collision warning system goes from beeps to rapid beeps to hysterical beeps that merge into the same unbroken tone emitted in 'Fail Safe' on the hot line as the phone in Moscow is vaporized in a atomic fireball. ( You may stop truck now.)
In case you are wondering, this baby is an eco warrior, factory set to take bio-diesel and covered by an IRS tax credit for small business owners buying SUVs or trucks. Those darn Republicans really did do some good after all, using tax dollars to make these trucks affordable! But being a good Dem, M is christening it "The Al Gore" to remind us all of our reponsibility to think globally and has the family saving left over Italian salad dressing to lessen oil dependence on terrorist states.

Somehow we made it to Bodega bay alive, minus my ipod nano. I'll leave it to others to narrate the drama of that particular accomplishment, I'll only say that the truck did not need to stop in order to git 'er done.

THE ROUTE

So what about the diving? Experimental put in at Shell Beach,just north of Bodega Bay and about 2 mi south of Goat's Rock Beach. Experimental because it wasn't known ab. habitat. (Still isn't) The coast there is populated by gnarly sea stacks -some are huge cubic blocks of greywacke, like Goat Rock and Arched Rock, others ahaped like giant s drooping soft ice cream cones or jagged dragons teeth. They give the waters of the area a lonely magical feel. If the diving didn't work out, at least we would have a cool place to paddle. And that is what happened. Although the sea was relatively calm, visibility was nil. We dove around a number of the rocks, following the the underwater cliff down deep, but everywhere we tried, it was way too surgey and or impossible to see. What we did see were a few anemones, lots and lots of starfish,but zero abs. So we paddled and explored a tried to re learn how to get into a cold-water free dive mind set. After awhile breath-hold-zen-mind began to kick in and down time improved with each dive.

ARCHED ROCK

This picture of Arched Rock -in the approximate middle of the Kayak-Dive route depicted above is an impressive feature. Here M. paddled against breaking swell through the arch while S. threaded the rock garden on the left to meet on the other side. Fun stuff. All these Sea Stacks were whitewashed by the birds and encrusted around the tide line with arrays of starfish, barnacles, and all varieties of mollusk colonies; complex worlds submerged and revealed with each swell.

There were a few other offerings to the sea gods besides my nano, including the sacred anchor and my abalone iron which once dropped were impossible to locate and recover in the murk. They will rest forever in the deep, sacrifices offered freely, against rewards to be reaped another day . So we were skunked. M bought whole crabs off of the back of the boat at a Bodega Bay fishmarket to make up for the lack of abalone. Who needs abalone? All in all what a great day!

Make it so, number one.

An actual e-mail recieved from "friend"

with my workout protocol for today.

Thanks.

________________________
Steve,

10 x 10 FLAT BENCH
10 X 10 SQUATS
10 X 10 CURLS
300 CRUNCH’S

All above sets to be performed at the proper weight allowing the strict full range of motion complete reps.

Best of luck,
Marty

Perfect Pergola Dreams Come True

Click &Enlarge


He is 'Headlocks' Jordan; one of the coast's premier watermen, known for teaching punk agro wannabees basic surf etiquette, charging big waves and of course, for fine old world craftsmanship. 'Headlocks', the Master Carpenter and CEO of Jordan Construction is shown here bringing another Pergola dream into reality -this unique example is on the Phelps Estate in Upper Woodside, CA.

On seeing the new structure, the elated home owner exclaimed:

"It draws you right outside!! Why did we wait 18 years?"

and

"That elm tree has got to go - and I mean right now! It obstructs our view of the Pergola."

and

"A chamfer is a 45 dgree cut, right? Right??"

______________________________

cham·fer (chmfr)
transitive verb: cham·fered, cham·fer·ing, cham·fers
1. To cut off the edge or corner of; bevel.
2. To cut a groove in; flute.
noun:
1. A flat surface made by cutting off the edge or corner of a block of wood or other material.
2. A furrow or groove, as in a column.

________________________________

Your input needed: to paint or not to paint??

Each One Reach One. Juvenile Detention Drama Program

Miguel Gonzalez and his mentor Susan Alvaro.

EORO Executive Director Robin Sohnen (left),

Miguel (center) and his mentor Susan Alvaro(right)

at his GED ceremony! !

A few weekends ago B & I attended an amazing actually juvenile detention performance of one act plays, written by kids and performed as dramatic readings by professional actors. The performances are the culmination of an intensive writing workshop orchestrated by the group that sponsors the GED tutoring I've been doing. Here is a Video link of a dramatic reading from a performance at Juvenile Hall last year ( Requires Quicktime)

B., who went with me, did a very nice write up of the experience on her blog. Here is an exerpt:

"The weekend before last I attended Each One Reach One's performance of one act plays in San Francisco's Juvenile Detention Center. It was amazing. I was impressed by the young men, their writing and the wonderful performances the professional actors gave in reading them. The plays are written in metaphor and each one had honest, creative writing straight from the heart. It was particularly moving to watch the parents that were able to attend embrace their child afterwards. No matter how tough or mature each one looks it was a vivid reminder that they are all still very young. Much younger than my own son. "

Read the rest of B's description Here.

See Dad introducing panel on Plant Research at the Danforth Plant Science Center

(Photo links to video)

This picture is of the Danforth Plant Science Center
in St. Louis. As you probably know Papa Jim has committed
a lot of time and energy to this great humanitarian enterprise.
The video shows him making the introduction to an
expert reseacher panel discussion on medicinal plants
and human health - starting with green tea.
Check it out and see our man Dad at work by clicking
the link to the video.

Support the Danforth Center with a donation.

Infrasound and Avian Navigation

Jon's paper on infrasound as a major factor
in bird navigation is finally out!
Way to go Jon! Check out the abstract below.
Click for the complete paper। PDF download
With charts and graphs!

"The Case for Infrasound as the Long -Range

Map Cue in Avian Navigation"

by Jonathan T. Hagstrum, U.S. Geological Survey

ABSTRACT;
Of the various ‘map’ and ‘compass’
components of Kramer’s avian
navigational model, the long-range map
component is the least well understood.
In this paper atmospheric infrasounds are
proposed as the elusive long-range cues
constituting the avian navigational map.
Although infrasounds were considered a
viable candidate for the avian map in the 1970s, and pigeons in
the laboratory were found to detect sounds at surprisingly low
frequencies (0.05 Hz), other tests appeared to support
either of the currently favored olfactory or magnetic
maps. Neither of these hypotheses, however, is able to
explain the full set of observations, and the field has been
at an impasse for several decades. To begin, brief descriptions
of infrasonic waves and their passage through the atmosphere
are given, followed by accounts of previously unexplained
release results. These exam-ples include ‘release-site biases’
which are deviations of departing pigeons from the homeward
bearing, an annual variation in homing performance observed
only inEurope, difficulties orienting over lakes and above tem-
perature inversions, and the mysterious disruption of sev-
eral pigeon races. All of these irregularities can be con-
sistently explained by the deflection or masking of infra-
sonic cues by atmospheric conditions or by other infra-
sonic sources (microbaroms, sonic booms), respectively.
A source of continuous geographic infrasound generated
by atmosphere-coupled microseisms is also proposed. In
conclusion, several suggestions are made toward resolv-
ing some of the conflicting experimental data with the
pigeons’ possible use of infrasonic cues."

COMPLETE PAPER in PDF Download.

Marty & Cindy stay warm; Tim holds onto his hat and points out fireworks nuances. Kaboom on the Bay 2007

CLICK PICS ENLARGE THEM

MORE PICTURES:

ALBUM Impressionistic fireworks photos from the rocking boat
ALBUMBeautiful Boat People

Kaboom 2007.

Rocky invited the K Mtn crew

(Jerry, Patty, Marty, Cindy, Katy, Tim and Bryan )

to experience the fireworks from the O'Connell/Rockmore race boat.

Four huge fireworks barges were pushed into

place as we and many other craft, large and small,

set anchors in the Bay near Pac Bell Park

and broke out the hors d'Oeuvres & wine to

watch the sun set over the city, listening to the bands

echo over the water from Pier 32. Rocky commanded

with authority, collisions were mostly avoided and

grog rations were liberal. Chris Norling, Larry & Patt Mann

and friends motored in a small craft from South City to share

the evening lashed along side. And we thought we were chilly!

The fireworks display was heart stopping.

On the health front:

Tim's insides may have been partially liquefied from the hypersonic

concussive blast over-pressures taken in the chest as he

leaned over the bow to get as close as possible to the explosions.

Could be infrasound damage. Are you OK ,Tim?

Thanks for a great evening, Rocky.

Doug's Dry Well

Dry Well #2

Dry Well #1

Drywell; also dry·well (drī'wĕl') n.

A subterranean chamber near a building,

having stones or gravel inside and used

to collect rainwater runoff from the

roof of the building as a means of avoiding
soil erosion.

Nicholas ascends from the pit and

Doug and Nicholas proudly pose in front of Dry Well #1,
preparing to remove shoring. This is part of a home
improvement contruction project that has clearly
gotten out of hand, but it doesn't matter because
everyone is happy. Doug has lots of new tools and
new purpose in life, Nicholas has steady work
and the whole Mohr clan will one day - a day very soon-
have a vastly improved home. Never heard of a dry well?
Me either, but they exist on the web and in Doug and Beth's
back yard from which all water accumulation problems are
now banished. And as we all know,

(and is now proven by research), digging in dirt

makes you very happy.

____________________
View the Doug's Dry Well ALBUM
____________________________-

Trees,Water,Land,Light

Henry Domke Art

"Black Willows"

See

www.henrydomke.com

HD Bio

Big Surf Day. Photo Pillar Point

After many weeks of no water fun, Tim Munyon, Marty and I paddled out to pillar point, just like the good old days.
There was a south wind roughing up the waves,as a storm was blowing in, just starting to spit. The swell was NNW about 6'on 13 secs giving 7'-10' wave faces. Tim distinguished himself as a first time kayak surfer catching some good waves, Marty reacquainted himself with his Infinity Surf Ski and I had great time only getting thrashed a couple of times. A group of sea lions was out also, breaking the surface in arcs like dolphins and occasionally surfing down a wave. Fun stuff.

Gary and Scott

We had visiting dignitaries on the coast today.
Gary F. is a friend we have known since early days in Northern California, but since his move to Phoenix we've been pretty much out of touch.
Scott has changed a bit from the little kid who chased the chickens and cats around the place at Kings Mtn! He is one year younger than Sarah.

Gary and Scott are using spring break to do a 'retrospective tour', introducing Scott to the places and friends from Gary's life in Northern CA including showing Scott where he was born and lived as small boy. Great idea for a trip!

Thanks for stopping in HMB guys, hope the rest of your trip is a blast!