Good morning and greetings, New Year’s fans. Well, twelve months have past since the big ball dropped in Times Square, and as I wander through this lifetime, I still have so many answered questions, like why are we here, why do bad things happen to good people, and why am I paying Direct TV hundreds of dollars per month and I still can’t get Showtime?

Since last New Year’s Eve, when I had a few too many wine coolers and tried to take my pants off over my head, I’ve pumped out 51 postings of my wit and wisdom here at Sunrise Santa Cruz. According to the fact checkers at MIT, that would equate to approximately 76,500 words, three hundred commas and one semi-colonoscopy. And with a nod to the folks at Canon, who at one point considered sponsoring this site, these pages also included over 300 images of semi-spectacular beauty from the central coast, South Pacific and my modeling days. I believe it was my high school driver’s ed teacher who once said, “Everyone has a photographic memory, but not everyone has film.” And that, my Kodak moment friends, is the reason I went digital.

So as Smithsonian Magazine once pointed out, these weekly ramblings of mine are all about the humor. Whether it be a quip from Woody Allen,”Life is full of misery and suffering and it’s all over too soon,” or these gems from Rodney Dangerfield, “I met the Surgeon General. He offered me a cigarette,” or “If it weren’t for pickpockets, I wouldn’t have any sex life at all,” I only borrow from the best. You can throw in anything from Mel Brooks, the Three Stooges, Honeymooners or the Zucker Brothers. The list of comedy greatness, like the amount of recording hours on my new DVR, is endless. There are so many classic lines circling through my mind that I need to air out on a daily, weekly and bi-monthly basis, because that’s the way I roll. In the words of Jane Fonda, “We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconcious, and we are then master of the situation.” God, I loved her in “Barbarella.”

I find myself inserting simple everyday comedy into my daily life, as when I’m at Safeway, and the checker asks me if I need any help out, I always answer, “No, just emotional.” Gets ’em every time. And that’s a tough audience. Or when the bank teller asks how would like my money, I usually reply, “Regular size bills.” Or just the simple act of walking up to someone and tapping them on the opposite shoulder. That never ceases to amuse me. Yes, I’m what you might call a late bloomer.

As my former editor, pilates instructor and Nashville-loving friend Nancy Mager has often reminded me, everything is in a lyric. You’ve got the old standbys like “Does anybody really know what time it is?,” or “Does anyone remember laughter?,” and my mother’s favorite, from ACDC, ‘I’m on the highway to hell.” That song is so soothing. I always like to toss musical lyrics into these posts, because everything has been said in a song and it’s a clever way to paint a picture. And as Rod Stewart says, “Every picture tells a story.” At least that’s what he told his eight children with five different women.

So moving along, on Christmas night, the Gilbert entourage went out to eat at a local westside restaurant that will remain unnamed (Thai Orchid.) While I was happily downing my gai yang and pad see ew with enough sweet and sour sauce to fill the Red Sea, a couple sat down at the table next to us. We engaged in polite conversation and I then went back to filling my arteries with pad thai.

At some point, I believe while I was prospecting for the chicken in the kang ka ree, the gentlemen asked if I was a photographer. I replied, “why yes, I’m Ansel Adams Jr.” He said he had come to my house/gallery/fortified compound a few years ago for Open Studios and remembered me from all the 8×10 glossy headshots of myself that were hung on the walls.

But things revvved up a notch when his wife chimed in that she gets my blog every week. Wow, what a nice gift from Santa that left me with a sense of renewed vitality along with a twist of thai iced tea. I was so taken by the moment and appreciative of their kind words that I decided not to tell the restaurant manager they were planning on stealing the silverware from the table.

So on that note, I want to thank the millions, er thousands, er hundreds, er all my faithful cyber followers who have supported my non-profitable, subscription free site over the past year. I appreciate you coming back each week and going down the path of lies, exaggerations and half-truths that make this site what it is. I promise to always have a place for you to journey to each week to enjoy a little comic relief and take in some of nature’s beauty. They say they best things in life are free. Here’s hoping this is one of them.

For today’s photo outburst, we are heading back to the day Santa rested, December 26. It was a classic day along the coast, as the clouds played hide and go seek, with periods of rain and sun creating prime rainbow conditions.

These multi-colored arches were out in force a good part of the day, and I shot sections of the first in the early morning from the parking lot at Natural Bridges. I then caught another one looming over the upper westside that was a full arc wonder. We close the year with a couple of afternoon shots of the clouds above Steamers Lane and Its Beach. All in all, it was wet and wild, just a classic day with rainbows stepping up and making spectacular appearances up and down the coast. In the words of author Rachel Houston, “When you reduce life to black and white, you never see rainbows.” And that’s why, sports fans, I’m all about the color.

So that’s it for 2012. We’ll catch you shooting hitting the soft jumpers, driving to the hoop and knocking off Bin Laden. Aloha, mahalo and later, President Obama fans.