Good morning and greetings, post-holiday fans. As the captain of this photographic ship of fools, I continue to search for truth, justice and the American way along with magnificent color in the morning and evening sky. In a trend that continued throughout our eleventh month, the dawn experiences as of late have been weak, listless and dull, much like my performance on my high school math achievement test.

Each morning I awake with fresh and renewed hope that, along with getting dial tone, the day will bring the colors that my mind, body and digital soul so yearn for. Instead, it has been fog city with a marine layer sitting on the coast that prevents the red, orange and yellow light show extravaganza that the month of November has so often brought.

The one exception to this party cloudly, fog party was last Tuesday morning. Like a reptile smuggler going thru customs I hurried down to West Cliff and positioned myself like an Eagle Scout along Bird Rock. As you can see from the first three shots the sky put on a pretty good pre-sunrise performance as the Russian judge scored it as a 9.5. I would normally have driven over to Steamer Lane to shoot the clouds and the inspiring reflection over the wharf and Boardwalk but it was getting late and I heard my children’s french toast calling me.

The next three photos are from Monday night’s sunset on a day where we saw very little sun until it dropped thru the clouds in late afternoon. There has been some color in the evening sky but nothing to really text message the Weather Channel about. At this point in my first lifetime I am seeking only the spectacular, when the sky is just exploding with color and you just want to savor the moment and think, “Yeah, there is no other place I’d rather be.” Except Hawaii. This low tide sunset, much like a trip to the Hindquarter for the best burger in town, had it’s moments. Thus we are going with the sunrise, sunset, theme as tribute to “Fiddler on the Roof.” If only I were a rich man.

On to our comedy section of the show. Here’s the best thing I heard coming out of the late night monologues last week, courtesy of Jay Leno. “Looks like the government is going to bailout CitiGroup but they don’t want to bailout the auto companies. See, I don’t think this is fair for blue collar workers who make our cars, they don’t get the bailout but the white collar guys who work on Wall Street, they get the bailout. You know what I think they should do? I think they should work together. I think the guys in Detroit should keep making the cars and the guys on Wall Street should make the license plates.”

We continue with some bonus Thanksgivng humor. I used this joke last year but I thought it was amusing enough of bring back for a return engagement. A turkey farmer was always experimenting with breeding to perfect a better turkey. His family was fond of the leg portion for dinner and there were never enough legs for everyone. After many frustrating attempts, the farmer was relating the results of his efforts to his friends at the general store. “Well I finally did it! I bred a turkey that has 6 legs!” They all asked the farmer how it tasted. “I don’t know” said the farmer. “I never could catch the darn thing!”

That’s it for another week of what’s in the skies above Monterey Bay. I hope it was a pleasant Thanksgiving holiday for all of you out there in cyberspace or New Jersey. With the tragic news out of Mumbai it’s just another reason to be grateful for all we are blessed with. This includes the defending Super Bowl champion New York football Giants, who are now 11-1 on the season. Unbelievable. So as we bid farewell to November, let’s bring on December, which will hopefully be filled with peace and prosperity. We could use a good month to end this year. Aloha, mahalo and we’ll catch you on the end around. Later, LeBron James fans.