Paul MacCready

(Photos are of Blaine Rawdon working on MacCready projects)

I read today that Paul MacCready Jr., known as the "father of human-powered flight," for designing the first aircraft to make a sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human, has died. He was 81. I had the opportunity to hear Paul at the San Mateo Unitarian Church several years ago, and after the service he demonstrated several very small airplanes, one of which was literally made of matchsticks and cellophane. It was powered by a rubber band and fluttered like a bat around the church auditorium. Everyone wondered why this marvelous machine wasn't available at the local hobby shop, but Paul said it was too delicate for production. As I recall his comments were inspirational from the standpoint of celebrating the power of human innovation, but paradoxically quite pessimistic about the outlook for mankind and our world. When I was looking for photos of the Gossamer Condor and the Gossamer Albatross, I came across these photos of Blaine Rawdon working on the Gossamer Penguin and the Solar Challenger, two of MacCready's projects. Both photos are from 1980. While in St. Louis this summer I heard from Dad that Blaine had undergone very painful surgery for cancer of the jaw. I hope he is doing well. More wonderful pictures of MacCready projects are Here. More on Blaine's Gossamer work Here

Back to School

Sarah and Mac contemplate the arrival of the first day of school. This year will be different. We will be organized and stress free!

Sarah's schedule includes;

AP English III, AP Art/Drawing, Chemistry, French II, World History, Algebra II and the tennis team is starting its season. (Tennis schedule Here . See HMB High Here)

Fun!

The Cougars are on the Prowl..

Abalone Rockefellar?

Click to enlarge this photo

Bounty of the sea! Sarah and I had the great good fortune to camp with friends at the mouth of the Albion river near Mendicino this past weekend. Much paddling, diving, fishing and eating.Here fresh caught abalone and sea urchin are viewed with interest & some skepticism as to edibility. All doubts were put to rest later that night at a great sea food feast.

View trip album HERE

Participants included:

Tony, Kay, Paul, Rob, Ralph, Debbie, Daphne, Rorke, Erin, Magnus, Piper, Kit, Marty, Cindy, Sarah P. Sarah K, Mike, Bob, Holly, Heather, Patrick, Adam and many others. What a crew!

Catch It if You Can

The study of high energy physics is a never

ending endeavour at our house.
Pictured here: a recent test of the falling-china-

gravitational-acceleration
one-handed-catch theory.

Blow Up Blow out

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Is this an example

of spooky pre-halloween

synchronistic connections?

Or just random coincidence

You decide.

In June I took photos of an open water swim session for people new to the experience. Some were anxious, needing encouragment by the coaches to enter the water. It was not until several days later that I examined the photos closely and noticed that one swimmer had been encouraged rather strongly by the application of a surf board to her bottom. Accident? I don't think so, but we will never know for sure. My discovery of the crime 'hidden' in the unmagnified photo made me think of the film 'Blow Up.' In it a photographer sees evidence of a murder in enlargements of photos he has taken. As in my photo only the crime is clearly seen, not the criminal's identity. ( Who was wielding the surfboard?) I saw the film at the Shady Oak Theatre, I think in 1966 or 67.. Black and white and strange! Not your average fare. It made an impression. A few days before the open water swim episode I had also seen "Blow Out' on cable- a take off on the 'Blow Up idea.' In it John Travolta's character discovers evidence of a murder in a sound recording he has made. The surf board crime caught on film set me to thinking of these earlier movies.

Now here is the spooky part. Ready?... OK. The very next day after noticing the photos and thinking back on the movies, who dies but Michaelangelo Antonioni director of 'Blow Up'. What do you think? Time to found a religion?

Afghan Fund Raiser

Another picture from the front from our boy Badass in Afghanistan

As we know, war funding is under more and more pressure in congress.

Twelve billion/month isn't quite cutting it. So our troops have been reduced to fundraising on their own. Ad revenue is certainly one option, and Bob's unit believes in advertising only products that they can personally endorse. Note the viking helmet and authentic Ibex horns. Goes well with the Gatling gun don't you think? What Exactly does PJCA on a Spade stand for? Devils Canyon is a Belmont CA based Brew created by local talent with Kings Mountain connections. Support Our Troops- drink one today! Check it out HERE

Word has it that shortly after this picture was taken, Badass led his unit on a secret training exercise designed to practice nighttime Humvee diesel repair while stuck in a riverbed. How did that go, Bob? Military secrecy prohibits me from further disclosing expedition details except to say that a few Devils Canyon brews would have been a big help had they been available (Which I'm sure they were not.)

What makes glow plugs glow?

See you soon, Bob.

Addendum: Thanks to GoBevGo for pointing out the crewman repairing the rear rotor on the helicopter in the the background. Click pic to enlarge and see.)

Locals Only!

A Classic Pose: Sarah and Mac with the Haumersen Surf Team. Long Beach Island, New Jersey at the foot of 34th St.
Check out the photo album HERE

Paddling out to the Line Up

SURF NEW JERSEY!!

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


CLICK TO ENLARGE PICS

Half Moon Bay CA: Coastal Investment Opportunity!

CLICK TO ENLARGE

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

CLICK & ENLARGE
















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

CLICK TO ENLARGE

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.