Walter the beachcomber

Is my neighbor Walter a beachcomber or what?

3D Murals Painted on Sides of Buildings

"These scenes of wrecked buildings and unique structures are actually huge three dimensional works of art done on the side of buildings. Since he first started back in 2002, John Pugh has been fooling many for years with his 3D murals."
http://is.gd/c8RPy

Stones: Get a girl with far away eyes

This is so good! Come on Charlie, loosen up!

91-year old ragtime piano player accompanied by me and my brother

I was at my Mom's rest home a few weeks ago and walked in on a little lady sitting at the piano playing for the old folks. (This is in the wing for elderly and challenged residents.) It was ragtime music and great. I learned who she was and called her up. Did she want me with my bass and my brother with his banjo to sit in with her? "Oh, yes, that would be great!"

This is the 2nd time we've played together. Lew taped this last Tuesday, and the joint was rockin'. (We haven't even practiced together yet.) These are songs that I used to play with my quartet in high school, a lot of them from the '20s, so I was right at home.

I'm working at my bass playing and Bob is pretty good on the banjo. Phoebe is actually thrilled. I told her we're just enhancing her. I'm calling us the Phoebe Babo trio. She says when she was a girl, she played the drums. She started on the piano later on in life, and she's just got it. She is a grand lady. The 80-90-year-olds love us. On Tuesday, as soon as we started playing, people came in from all over. The caregiver women were dancing, my mom's caregiver Clara was shakin' it. A lady named Jane knows the words to every song. Peggy was 88 that day and celebrating with wolf whistles at the end of each song.

Incredibleness of the iPad

Today I've loaded about 90 photos from our forthcoming book on tiny houses on to the iPad. Do they look good! I'll be showing these to people at the BEA (Book Expo America) convention next week in NYC.
You have to handle an iPad to realize its intuitive ease of use and elegance.

This is a quick shot of the iPad taken with my pocket camera just now. Depicted is a sauna in British Columbia,Canada.

Moscow Subway

Compare to NYC!
http://is.gd/c8RzH

I'm giving talk at Maker Faire this weekend: The 21st century 1/4-acre homestead

I'm doing a talk at the Maker Faire, put on by O'Reilly's Make Magazine, next weekend in San Mateo, Calif, Saturday afternoon, May 22. 1:30 PM at the San Mateo County Event Center (the old Bay Meadows racetrack.) Most of the stuff in Make is pretty nerdy: circuit boards, robots, remote control, hi-tech noodling…but at this year's Maker Faire, there's the "Homegrown Village," sponsored by Farm Aid. I'll be talking about a mini-homestead. Building a home, growing food, backyard chickens on a small piece of land -- country or city. Tiny houses, houses on wheels, houseboats. Scaling back. Just how much of your food and shelter can you produce in the 21st century? I'm looking forward to it, it's always sounded like a great event.
http://is.gd/cgoVn

House at beach in San Francisco

Looking through the fence at a house out near Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It was set back from the street so it had this sunny front yard. Like a bit of the country in the city.

Decked-out Harley

Anne and Chris Elkington on their Harley in Mill Valley, Calif. last weekend

Go-Pro action HD video camera

Ran across John Roberts in Mill Valley yesterday. He and his buddy had sturdy mountain bikes with big springs for downhill bombing, and John had this GoPro HD Helmet HERO camera attached to his helmet. See my writeup of it here. John said he was making films to post on Youtube.