Good morning and greetings, December fans. As you may have known, last week I celebrated my 62nd birthday in the usual fashion, with cake, ice cream, animal balloons and pony rides. It was a fine day, starting out with a stroll along the ocean as the big waves battered the coastline.

At the end of my walk, I passed by a gentlemen wearing a “Life is Good” sweatshirt. I smiled, and knew I had a theme for the day.

So it was off to a tremendous start, as I was then greeted at home with several very clever top ten list birthday cards, which evoked laughter, a key to birthday celebrations. Then it was on to the phones, as I connected with many friends and family throughout this great land of ours. The festivities also included a fabulous Italian lunch and a dinner fit for a king.

All in all, it was day for the ages and I was left with a really warm feeling, like a piece of cinnnamon French toast.

And that was good, because at this point in my life, I like to keep my birthday celebrations low key, as my focus is on having a career by 70. Because you know you’re getting old when the only thing you want for your birthday is not to be reminded of it.

And that’s the downside. Much like Rodney Dangerfield, ” I know I’m getting old. Last week I walked by a cemetery and two guys came running after me with shovels,” I’m not crazy about this aging process. Yeah, I know 62 isn’t 92, but it sure ain’t 32. So it doesn’t thrill me when I hear an opponent on the basketball court say to his teammates while matching up squads, “I got the old guy.”

At that moment, I don’t have to look around and wonder who he’s talking about. But I guess that’s what happens when you’re playing with guys 40 iPads younger. I’m playing with all young bucks, and when I mention I went to Woodstock, they think I’m talking about pizza.

The aging process is catching up with me. I’ve got one toe, two fingers and a computer with arthritis. I’m beginning to like accordion music. Garden care has become a big thing in my life. Now fortunately, I haven’t gotten to the age of comedian George Burns, when he uttered, “When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.”

Now I have heard unconfirmed reports from a few years back that there are at least 28 deceased classmates from my high school graduating class of 1970. Now despite turning 62, which makes me eligible for lots of insecurity and Social Security, God willing, it looks like the odds of my being around on the planet for a while are pretty good, being that my father is 97 and my mother 88. Unless, of course, they never told me about the adoption.

Now I’m no math major, but what this means is come next February and April, they will be 98 and 89. Holy smokes. When I was living in an outdoor health club called Hermosa Beach in the 90’s, I used to come up to Santa Cruz for the Thanksgiving holiday and when I left to go back to the southland, I would always think, “Will this be the last time I see my father?”

Well, two score and fifty drumsticks later, he is still ticking, although, unfortunately, is a shell of his former self. His dementia has robbed him of most of his short term memory, as his life is lived in a very small circle. But yet he lives on, with the heart of a grazing bison.

So to avoid early dementia, I try to keep my mind sharp as a tack, by doing things like writing this blog, reading non-fiction true crime, ordering egg rolls with every Chinese meal and immersing myself in the world of television. That’s what we call in social media business being well-read and well-viewed.

So I walk three miles each weekday to make sure my heart keeps pumping. This harkens me back to the Ellen DeGeneres line,”You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 today and we don’t know where the hell she is.”

So I don’t know exactly where my life is leading me, as I’ve lived in Santa Cruz for 29 years and could be ready for a change. But as long as my parents are hanging around their ponderosa a mile down the road, the central coast is where I will be. It’s pretty much I don’t know where I’m going, but I know where I’ve been. So stay tuned.

But I do know that wherever I’m at, I’ll be shooting photos, and this week’s selection are quite colorful. The year was 2010, and the place was Natural Bridges State Beach. As you can tell from the first shot, with the way the clouds were situated in this December sky, there was vast potential for some very deep visual activity.

Well, we got that and more, as there was fire in the sky, as the sand and water turned from tangerine to radical orange to ruby red. Just a spectacular night to be on the coast, as the sky was blazing and the sand was a disco inferno.

On to some late night humor. “New research has found that 84 percent of vegetarians and vegans ultimately return to eating meat. It turns out the way animals are treated is nothing compared to how people treat vegetarians. Last week my wife and I welcomed our second child, Frances Cole Fallon. Now I live with three females. Or as Obama put it, “Who’s laughing now, funny man?” – Jimmy Fallon

“Scientists say they’re getting closer to developing a pill to replace exercising. Americans heard this and said that it better come in cool ranch flavor. This week Apple stores are holding free computer programming classes for children. Or as that’s called in China, a job fair. A woman on a Southwest Airlines flight gave birth to a baby. As soon as he was born, the baby said, “I had more leg room in the womb.” – Conan O’Brien

“After the game in a gesture of friendship, LeBron James put his arm around Princess Kate. You’re not supposed to do that. You can’t touch royalty, as I continually remind my staff. A company has developed a grease burn protection so you can fry a skillet full of bacon naked. I did that once. I’m so embarrassed. I thought it would be fun to cook bacon naked. And then Denny’s fired me right on the spot.” – David Letterman.

“A flight headed from San Francisco to Phoenix had to make an emergency landing in L.A. today after a passenger gave birth midflight. The parents called the birth a miracle while the airline called it a second carry-on. The woman gave birth in the middle of a flight. I’m happy to report that the mother and child are doing fine, while the guy who was sitting next to her is not.” – Seth Meyers

“Today Prince William went to Washington, D.C., and he met with President Obama. He said, “It feels weird being in the White House because I’m not an American.” And then Prince William said, “Yeah, me too.” The meeting with Prince William took place at the White House because Prince William wanted to see where the president spent his days, but the golf course was covered in snow.” – Craig Ferguson

So birthday wishes go out today to my old basketball buddy, Jim Berry, who’s relocated from south county to Colorado, but not for those preventive glaucoma reasons you might think. If you catch my drift.

So I hope you’re enjoying the Golden State Warriors’ 16 game winning streak. We’ll catch you coming back from a hand injury and picking up right where you left off, as the most explosive guard in the NBA. Aloha, mahalo and later, Russell Westbrook fans.

Good morning and greetings, Warrior fans. Well, Golden State followers must feel like they have died and gone to basketball heaven, because this team is on a roll. As of this writing, they’re cruising along on a 12 game winning streak, as their record stands at an amazing 17-2 mark. They have been getting out early and blowing their opponents off the floor, and have the look of a championship contender.

I know it’s early and NBA titles aren’t won in December, but this stretch of basketball they have put together has been more than impressive. The great Dr. Martin Luther King, who was known to hit the open three, once said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

So it has been a dream season so far, as despite some injuries the team has jelled like a cranberry sauce relish. But head coach Steve Kerr is well aware that challenges lie ahead. “We haven’t faced some major adversity that’s inevitably coming. We’re off to a great start. We’re having fun. We’ve got great guys. But it’s going to get a lot harder. I know that.”

So if you want, there’s lots of room to climb on to the Golden State bandwagon. Everyone loves a winner, and with point guard Steph Curry being the most exciting performer in the league and playing like an MVP candidate, Warrior fans are pinching themselves over the team’s success. In the NBA, it’s all about winning the championship, as the ring’s the thing.

Now speaking of rings, when trying to determine the age of a tree, you look inside the core for the annual circles. One ring represents one year of life. Well, you can add another ring to my core, because coming up on Friday, I turn the big 62. I would prefer that number to be my height, but God made me an undersized, defensive-minded point guard.

At this stage, 62 is somewhat mind-blowing. But I do like the even numbers. But let’s fact it, in dog years, I’m dead.

But life has given me a lot, as I have a few things to be thankful for when my birthday comes around.

Let’s start with the family. As my brother Brad said to me in a private moment over Thanksgiving, my wife Allison appears to be very happy these days. She has been cancer free for more than five years, and that is more than a blessing. I attribute her happiness to the fact that we have a Genie from DIRECTV, the most advanced home HD DVR that can record five shows at once and store up to 200 hours of HD entertainment, which we go through every weekend.

As our rabbi says, with your Genie, your every TV wish is granted.

My son Jason is now a junior and on the premed track at UC Santa Barbara. When he’s not playing intramural basketball or baking chicken parmesan, he finds time to volunteer for Hospice Care, being a campus tour guide, working in a research lab and doing an internship at a local hospital. But what he says makes him happiest these days is taking a break from studying and watching his Golden State Warriors in action.

My daughter Aimee is now a senior at Santa Cruz High, and looking forward to leaving that experience behind her. She works at a restaurant and is a valuable employee at the westside New Leaf Market, which supplies her with endless greens for her rabbits. She also attends cosmetology school three days a week. I’m not quite ready to let her cut my hair, but promised her she could do my makeup in the upcoming year.

My brother Paul and his family are doing quite well, and my brother Brad, who back in March tumbled 1,000 feet down a glacier in Alaska and blew out his knee, but lived to talk about it, is taking the season off from snowboarding. This inactivity is driving him crazy but he has vowed to return to his snowboarding days next year.

To read about his continuing rehab, check out his latest blog at http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/2014/11/its-getting-better-all-the-time/

Now my parents are a whole other story. My father is 97 years old, and has been suffering from dementia for close to a decade. It is difficult to deal with, but my mother, who is no spring chicken at age 88, is always able to have a smile on her face, even in the worst of times, which puts her in the category of sainthood. Well, it’s either that or the Celexa.

And our golden retriever, Summer, who is 9 and half years young, still brings so much joy to my life. Writer Agnes Sligh Turnball hit the nail on the head when she said, “Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really.” Summer also loves the Genie and spends most of her day watching and recording shows from the Animal Planet.

And I will not celebrate this day alone, as my longtime friend, compadre, radio partner and former Mr. Universe, Jerry Hoffman, also shares this date with me. Jerry was recently hit with a sudden illness that knocked him off his feet for a couple of weeks, but he is going through treatment and is doing quite well. He’ll be hitting the slopes in Lake Tahoe this weekend, so happy birthday, my friend, and wishing you many, many more. Just stay away from those trees.

Now since this is the birthday post, I wanted to feature something spectacular for the occasion. So here’s the action from the morning of October 30. I was down at Lighthouse Point and reflection from the clouds on the sand at Its Beach was splashed with amazing color.

Then the sun rose over Steamer Lane, and I captured a couple of shots of the rays shooting through the beacon of the lighthouse. Mornings like this are a gift, and this is why I’m a sunrise photographer. But I’m still hoping for a pony.

On to some late night humor. “This is official today. China has surpassed the U.S. and now has the No. 1 economy in the world. After hearing this, China’s children asked, “So now can we take a lunch break?” For the first time, a major league baseball umpire has announced he’s gay. The umpire did this by pointing at himself and yelling, “OUT!” Over the weekend a couple got married on the New York City subway — on the subway! The couple asked that instead of gifts you send Purell hand sanitizer.” – Conan O’Brien

“It is still raining in Los Angeles. The rain is giving much needed relief to California’s crops. By that I mean “marijuana.” – Craig Ferguson “The trailer for the new “Terminator” movie came out today. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as you may know, is back. Said he’d be back, and he is. A man of his word. In this one he goes back in time to stop Phil Collins from launching a solo career.” – Jimmy Kimmel

So I know that many of you were still recovering from the holiday and may have missed last week’s post, “The Good, The Bad and the Stuffing. I bring it up because the photos are from sunrise from Thanksgiving morning that my brother Paul described as “epic.” So you might want to scroll down and take a look.

So we’ll catch you being the big man coming off the bench and putting up big numbers with the Warriors’ second unit. Aloha, mahalo and later, Maurice Speights fans.

Good morning and greetings, celebration fans. Well, it’s December and according to my Kim Kardashian desktop calendar, another birthday has come and gone. Scientific studies have proven that people who have more birthdays tend to live longer. To quote actor Bill Murray, ” So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.”

I believe it was either Alex Trabek or Abraham Lincoln who said, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” After another year of blowing out candles, I am well aware that as senior citizen, I am not getting younger. The painter Pablo Picasso once remarked ” It takes a long time to grow young.” The way I see it, I’m not quite over the hill but I’ve got a great view.

I know the number 61 one is just a number, but I prefer to associate it with Roger Maris’ home run record, not the age on my driver’s license. Lucille Ball had the right idea when she said “The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly and lie about your age.” I don’t want to say I’m getting old but the other day I went to an antique auction and three people bid on me.

So on 12/12/12 of last year, I celebrated my 60th birthday. There was a lot of pressure on me to do it up right, so I rounded up the old gang and we watched the Golden State Warriors defeat the Miami Heat on a last second shot by Draymond Green. It was very similar to my bar mitzvah party, as there were no girls, plenty of appetizers and a 10 pm curfew.

So this year the pressure was off, as I could just sit back and enjoy hearing from old friends and cell mates. I savored the day for what is was, or as George Harrison once tweeted, “All the world is a birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.” And have all the ice cream you want. Socialite Paris Hilton once remarked, “The way I see it, you should live everyday like it’s your birthday.” And as the internet has revealed, she looks very good in her birthday suit.

They say that age is just a number. Baseball star Satchel Page once asked “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? Well, I wouldn’t be thinking 61. I wouldn’t mind switching those numbers around to the sweet 16. I believe it was Chinese scholar Yung No More who said age doesn’t matter, unless you’re a piece of muenster cheese. Although it seems the older I get, the fewer things seem waiting in line for.

Still, it’s a vicious cycle, or as astronaut John Glenn observed, “There is no cure for the common birthday.” Some feel that celebrating your birthday is like being happy that you are closer to your grave. Or as comedian Jerry Seinfeld once commented, “Birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we’ve grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it’s not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably, happy birthday? No such thing.”

But let’s end this subject on a happier note. Here are three jokes for your amusement.

A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom and gloom pessimist.

Just to see what would happen, on the twins’ birthday their father loaded the pessimist’s room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist’s room he loaded with horse manure. That night the father passed by the pessimist’s room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly. ‘Why are you crying?’ the father asked. ‘Because my friends will be jealous, I’ll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I’ll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken.’ Passing the optimist twin’s room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. ‘What are you so happy about?’ he asked. To which his optimist twin replied, ‘There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!’

A traveling salesman was passing through a small town in Texas when he sees a little old man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of a house. So he stops and says to him, “You look as if you don’t have a care in the world! What’s your formula for a long and happy life?”

And the little old man says, “Well, I smoke six packs of cigarettes a day, I drink a quart of bourbon every four hours and six cases of beer a week. I never wash and I go out every night; I don’t get to bed until four in the morning.” And the guy says, “Wow, that’s just great. How old are you?”
And the little man says, “Twenty-two.”

And here’s the third. You may have heard this before but it always brings a smile to my face.

Every morning a man passes a house in his street and every morning he sees a woman in her front garden beating her husband over the head with a French loaf. This goes on for months until one morning he passes the house and sees the woman is beating her husband with a chocolate éclair. Later that day he meets the woman in the street. ‘Aren’t you the woman who beats her husband with a French loaf?’ asks the man. ‘Only, today, I could have sworn you were hitting him with a big cake.’ ‘Oh, I was,’ replies the woman. ‘Today is his birthday.’

Today’s photo journey takes us back to the very chilly morning of December 6. I was sitting in my car along West Cliff waiting for some color to emerge in the clouds, but nothing happened until just before the sun made an appearance on the horizon. The action was occurring in a small area of the sky so I took out my zoom lens and captured red ribbons of cloud color. When the sun made its full appearance the moment was glorious, despite the fact that I had no feeling in my fingers.

Some things in life are worth a little frostbite for. This was one of them.

That’s the post birthday report. We’ll catch you showing NBA fans why you’re the best power forward in the game so far this season. Aloha, mahalo and later, LaMarcus Aldridge fans.

Good morning and greetings, severe weather fans. As many of you and my hairdresser know, I’m fascinated by the diversity of weather throughout the United States. Last Wednesday was a perfect example of the weather map going wild and crazy, as the nation experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, which put me under a lot of barometric pressure. Or in the words of Clint Eastwood, “I tried being reasonable, but I didn’t like it.”

Now Clint Eastwood is a true American classic. And never more so as Inspector Harry Callahan in the movie “Dirty Harry.” As he said to a serial killer, in one of the classic movie lines of all time, “I know what you’re thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?”

Now there’s a man who had little regard for rules but always got results, which is not what we’re getting in the battle for gun control. The former mayor of Carmel also had a few words to say on this highly controversial issue. “I have a strict gun control policy. If there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.”

Getting back to the good, bad and not very pretty from last week’s meteorological front, Wednesday was a doozy. In Santa Cruz, the day was as lovely as California Attorney General Kamala Harris, with warm breezes softly kissing my cheeks as the thermometer reaching 83 degrees. However, in the midwest, it was a different story, as blinding snow and driving winds left thousands without power. The governor of Missouri declared a state of emergency, even though the Cardinals shut out the Reds Wednesday night. As author Margaret Atwood once said, “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Or at the very least, not have to deal with a powerful spring storm spiraling in your back yard.

For those of you planning a trip to the midwest, let me give you a little Ohio Valley perspective. Here they were, ten weeks away from the summer solstice, in the middle of what is referred to as “Black Swan” extreme weather conditions, which is not to be confused with an Amanda Knox extradition. We’re talking ice, sleet, plagues, flooding, locusts, hail and heavy snow, creating treacherous driving conditions. They only time I want to notified about a severe ice warning is when it’s in my drink. Throw in a few killer tornadoes into the picture and they’re at a spring breaking point.

But the early days of last week were some kind of wonderful here on the central coast, as the birds were singing, the butterflies were floating and the bees were humming. And that leads us into today’s topic du jour.

According to wiki.answers.com, where I usually shop for pants, there are about one million species of insects in the world, half of which have somehow taken up residence in my house. Scientists and census takers estimate that there are 200 million insects for every human in the world, while less than one hundred supermodels have graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated bathing suit issue. So it stands to reason if we’re talking insects, we’re talking billions and billions and billions and billions. And billions.

Well, if you like to hear insects screaming, and you know I do, the place to be in the next few weeks is the east coast. In a story written by Daniel Stone for National Geographic News, cicadas, the cousins of katydids, katydidn’ts and crickets, are preparing to overrun the landscape from North Carolina to Connecticut after living underground like Weathermen fugitives for the last 17 years.

Much like the female black widow spider, who sometimes washes down the male with a glass of milk after mating, the are some quirks that go along with cicadas and breeding. They spend their lives, like a Chilean miner, in complete darkness underground, sucking the fluid out of the roots of trees, shrubs and unmanned jacuzzis. They don’t bite or sting, and help the earth by moving around nutrients, recycling, planting trees and buying local. The periodic cicadas will not come popping out of their burrows until the ground is 64 degrees or the NBA playoffs begin.

At the end of their lives, they emerge to shed their exoskeletons, mate, watch a little TV and die almost instantly. This completes a lifecycle that humans and the Neilson family have studied for centuries. We’re talking about a four to six week period, or the time it takes for a Haagen-Daz bar to leave my bloodstream. That is, if they can avoid predators like birds, raccoons, foxes, skunks and reality show producers. The next generation will emerge in 2030 to repeat the cycle, probably around the same time “Mad Men” returns for its seventh season.

Now we’re talking several million cicadas per acre, which will bring the noise level up to slightly above a Dixie Chicks concert. The noise is the mating call of the male, which is similar in tone to the begging sound of the American male. To make themselves look appealing to the females, male cicadas resort to popping a set of muscles on their abdomen in and out, which can also be seen poolside at spring break locations around the country. But here’s the kicker. These 17 year cicadas are affected by the massosporan fungus, an infection that is the equivalent of Cicada STD. It is spread through mating and causes the abdomen of adult cicadas to fall off! And you thought herpes was annoying.

I was back there when they emerged one spring in the Garden State of New Jersey. The year was 1962, and I was nine years old and studying for my driver’s license. All of a sudden, they were everywhere, like tourists from New York trying to find their way to Palisades Amusement Park. I remember my friends and I collecting them in paper grocery bags. I will not say what we did with them, because the statue of limitations concerning the laws of insect genocide may still be in effect.

For today’s photo engagement, we are heading back to wacky weather Wednesday. This was to be the first April sunset I had photographed in years. After checking out the dinner time sky, the clouds and my basal body temperature, I grabbed my Serena Williams windbreaker and quickly headed up the north coast to Davenport.

When I arrived at my usual spot on the cliffs, I noticed new signs had been posted on the Monterey Cypress trees, stating that trespassers would either be prosecuted or persecuted. Well, God knows my people have been persecuted enough, so I took at quick shot of the cliffs and then bolted out of their faster than Carlos Quentin leaving Dodger Stadium Thursday night.

The wind was blowing harder than my son’s Abnormal Psychology final at UC Santa Barbara as I approached the bluff overlooking the Pacific. Then the sun, clouds and light proceeded to do their thing, creating beauty and awe on a night when little was expected. I believe it was Oprah’s pilates coach who once said, “Surprises are beautiful because they come without waiting.” And as they say in the restaurant business, good things come to those who are waiters.”

On to the late night. “After withdrawing from public life Anthony Weiner is ready to stick it back in. Folks, that takes balls. Sadly, we know he has them. Weiner’s brother pointed out, ‘No one has been harder on him than he has been on him than he has been on himself.’ And we all know how hard he can be on himself.” –Stephen Colbert “Former Congressman Anthony Weiner said that he’s considering running for mayor of New York City. If nothing else I’m sure that he’ll provide some stiff competition. Come on, he’s the total package. I don’t want to be too hard on him. I don’t have a bone to pick with that guy.” –Jimmy Fallon

“Little is known about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un other than the fact that he is ruthless, he supports torture, and he is a huge basketball fan. I’m sorry, that’s not Kim Jong Un. That’s Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice. I had them confused.” –Jay Leno “In high school Kim Jong Un starred in a production of the musical ‘Grease.’ That’s also where Kim met his first wife, Olivia Newton Jong.” –Conan O’Brien “Dealing with the North Koreans is very difficult. They have a history of making irrational decisions to divert the world’s attention from the fact their system has totally collapsed. No wait, sorry. I was thinking of NBC.” –Craig Ferguson

“This week on the ‘Today’ show, Chelsea Clinton said she’s open to running for political office one day. When she heard that, Sasha Obama was like, ‘Cool. How does secretary of state sound?'” –Jimmy Fallon “It was this day in 1967 that Russia sold Alaska to the United States for 2 cents an acre. You know why they sold us so cheaply? Just to get rid of the Palins.” –Jay Leno

“President Obama is in trouble for saying that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is good looking. When asked for comment, Bill Clinton said, ‘That guy is out of control.'” –Conan O’Brien “Because Obama said California Attorney General Kamala Harris was attractive, people are calling his remark sexist. Now the President is overcompensating and trying to balance it out. Today he said Attorney General Eric Holder has a great ass.” –Jay Leno “During a fundraiser, President Obama raised some eyebrows when he called California’s Kamala Harris, quote, ‘the best-looking attorney general in the country.’ Of course he said it was just a joke. Then Michelle was like, ‘Well, here’s another one: What’s black and white and sleeps on the couch?'” –Jimmy Fallon

So enjoy the last few days of the NBA regular season and nows it’s on to the playoffs. And here’s a shout out to my father, Daniel Gilbert, who celebrated his 96th birthday last Friday with a haircut, a Chinese feast and disbelief. As we chanted at dinner, ‘Four more years, four more years.”

We’ll catch you trying to will your team into the playoffs before suffering a devastating injury that left Laker and all NBA fans reeling. Aloha, mahalo and later, Kobe Bryant fans

Good morning and greetings, potato latke fans. Well, coming up this week, I’m hitting another milestone along the long and winding road of my life. No, it’s not the 500th sunrise or the 1,000th sunset I’ve shot or my viewing of the season finale of the family friendly “Sons of Anarchy.” No, it’s something even scarier than the every day activities of a Northern California outlaw motorcycle gang involved with the IRA, CIA and Mexican drug cartels. So I’m just going to lay it out there. I’m turning 60.

There, I said it. Six tee. The big six oh. I’ve been trying to avoid this day for a decade, ever since I turned the big five oh. But like turning into your parents, there’s no avoiding it. Even though the number 60 flows out of my mouth as smoothly as cashew butter on a fresh croissant, it’s a painful realization that I’m not getting any younger. Let’s face it, in dog years, I’m dead.

There was little joy in telling people over this past year that I was 59, because that was way too close to the six decades mark. I remember the words of author Hervey Allen, who once said, “The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams, the old servants of regret.” Ironically, Hervey died while taking a shower at age 60. And that is why from now on I’m only going to take bubble baths.

Years ago, Anglo-Irish priest Jonathan Swift lamented, “No wise man ever wished to be younger.” I’m not sure what that says about me, as I wouldn’t mind knocking thirty years off my life resume. And it was either Daniel Day Lewis or Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed, “In the end, it’s not the years that count. It’s the life in your years.” I’m all for living life to the fullest, and that’s why my new HD DVR recorder is able now able to store over two hundred thousand hours of programming. As they say, “Don’t just watch TV, Direct TV.”

The actor George Clooney, who I can’t count the number of times I’ve been mistaken for, once remarked “I’m kind of comfortable with getting older because it’s better than the other option, which is being dead.” On this point I’m in full agreement. They say age is just a number. If I had a choice, I would keep mine unlisted.

Pablo Picasso once tweeted to his friends that “One starts to get young at the age of sixty and then it is too late.” Hopefully, with my boyish good looks and silver locks, I’ve bucked that trend. He also once said “I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.” Yes, happiness is all about the simple pleasures. If so, I’d like to live as a Hawaiian man with lots of warm breezes.

Mark Twain wrote that “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.” What an interesting thought. Sounds like a TV series on FX. I know that I’m getting older, as I’m no longer the chiseled Adonis I was back in grammar school. I believe it was my rabbi’s wife who said, “You’re aren’t really turning 60. Just 21 with 39 years experience.” That sounds great. If only I didn’t groan like Don Rickles every time I bend down to pick something up. Or in the words of the great Yankee centerfielder Mickey Mantle, “If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.”

But it’s all good, because I have no choice in this aging matter. Or as journalist John P. Grier offered, “You are only young once, but you can be immature for a lifetime.” Or as baseball’s Chili Davis put it, “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.” Myself, I’m not really thinking 60, more like $59.95 plus tax.

The ageless baseball player Leroy “Satchel” Paige once quipped, “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” So I’m going to take his advice and look at this birthday event as another marker along the freeway of life. After all, sixty is just a number, which at this stage of my life, sounds a whole lot better than seventy, eighty or ninety. So to quote the great philosopher and socialite Paris Hilton, “The way I see it, you should live everyday like it’s your birthday.” That’s sound advice coming from a woman who said it while making a video in her birthday suit.

So here’s the bottom line. I’ll be sixty years old on Wednesday. I’m healthy. I can still hit the open three. Loving family and friends abound. I’ve got a a golden retriever who worships me. So life is good and I am more than blessed. And my accountant says I’ll be able to live off the karmic residuals from writing this blog for decades to come.

For today’s photo entertainment I’m going back to my blonde roots. The first two photos are my favorite sunrise moments taken at Lighthouse Point. Portraying the early morning beauty in the skies above Santa Cruz is one of the reasons I started this blog. The other is that I’m very lonely. Then to mark this milestone occasion we move on to a couple of photos of yours truly in the South Pacific and shrouded in color on the central coast. We then close out the birthday montage with two shots of me and my golden retriever Summer. She’d been hounding me for weeks to include her in this holiday package.

On to a little late night humor. “Today in Washington, President Obama met with leaders of the American Indian tribes and they honored the president by giving him his own Indian name: ‘Running Deficit.’ The CEO of The Cheesecake Factory is now warning that Obamacare will be very costly. Hey, The Cheesecake Factory is one of the reasons we need Obamacare in the first place. Mitt Romney is going back to work. Romney is joining the board of directors at Marriott hotels. See, who says President Obama can’t create jobs? There’s one right there. Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he’s taking steps to run for president in 2016. In fact, this week he’s meeting with donors. He better hope they’re brain donors.” –Jay Leno

“A new book coming out reveals that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was born a Catholic, became a Mormon, then returned to the Catholic church, then became a Baptist, then again returned to the Catholic church. And I think he’s at it again because he’s now asking people to call him Marco Rubinstein. The Obamas have decorated the White House with 54 Christmas trees. It’s all part of their ‘For the last time, we’re not Muslim’ campaign.” –Conan O’Brien

“A lot of dissension among conservatives. One of the leaders of the Tea Party has resigned after a major split in the movement. The Tea Party is now divided between angry whites and even angrier whites.” –Conan O’Brien “A new survey found that ‘Sophia’ and ‘Aiden’ were the most popular baby names this year. The least popular baby name was Kim Jong Sandusky. “McDonald’s just announced that it’s bringing back the McRib later this month. Or, as the Mayans put it, ‘Hey, we tried to warn you.'” –Jimmy Fallon

So that’s the birthday report. Birthday wishes also go out to my old radio partner turned boxing promoter Jerry Hoffman, who celebrates the trip down the birth canal on the same day, 12/12/12. I don’t want to say Jerry is excited about this date, but he has been planning a surprise party for me with cake, ice cream, pony rides and ring card girls ever since the first day we met.

So enjoy the festival of lights that is Hanukah and the parade of latkes, apple sauce and sour cream. We’ll catch you getting off to a great start and surprising everyone with your team’s early season success. Aloha, mahalo and later, New York Knick fans.

Good morning and greetings, opening day fans. April has always been a big month on my family’s birthday front, as both my son and youngest brother share the April 7 experience. And coming up this Thursday, my father, Daniel Gilbert, the partriarch of the tribe, celebrates his 95th birthday. Unbelievable, Batman.

95. That’s a remarkable number. We are talking about 1,140 months, 4,940 weeks, 34,675 days, 832,200 hours, 49,932,000 minutes or 3,995,920,000 seconds, or about the same amount of time it took for “Mad Men” to return to AMC for its fifth season.

My father was born in 1917, a year that falls somewhere between the invention of the telephone, automobile, vacuum cleaner and the neapolitan ice cream sandwich. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he lived through the Great Depression of 1929, the depression brought on when the Dodgers left town and the super depression of being a long-time New York Knick and Giant’s fan.

Forget Dick Cheney’s little waterboarding fetish. You don’t know real suffering unless you watched the Giants dominate the statistics yet find themselves vulnerable to coming up losers on the last possession of the game. Yes, I do realize the Giants were Super Bowl champions this year, but it’s too easy to look back upon the positive as the negative is so much darker and exciting.

My father graduated from Columbia University and Brooklyn Law School. He went into the army and was part of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was a wartime intelligence agency that was a predecessor of the CIA. It was formed to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines, and his unit’s assignment was to crack German intelligence codes and to figure out why BMW’s were called the ultimate driving machine. He was part of the allied liberation of Paris, when the Americans came in and banned Paris Hilton from releasing any more sex tapes.

The formulation of me began in 1950, when my parents met and after three dates were engaged, and three months later were married. I’ve had stomach aches that lasted longer than their courtship which might explain why I rushed into marriage after nine years of dating.

In 1958, they started Hooks Lane Nursery School, which grew into 100 happy children a day romping around the grounds of our home in Fort Lee, New Jersey. This gig had my father ferrying the children to frolic and play at places like the Bronx Zoo, Staten Island Ferry and various parks around the Garden State. The best part was, besides the nurturing of the children, was that the day ended at 3:30 during the school year and 1 pm in the summer. Now that’s what I call a full day of work.

My father played baseball at Columbia and was a four wall handball champion. He passed the sports gene down to all three sons, as the DNA was particularly strong in the hoops department, as we grew up with chromosomes packed with the basketball jones and seven layer chocolate cake.

I remember the first time my father took me to a game at Yankee Stadium (my brother Paul spent the afternoon collecting peanut shells) and my first basketball game at Madison Square Garden. He took me out for a chocolate milk shake after I pitched my first little league win and was always there for my high school basketball games. Unfortunately, he did not attend the National Honor Society Awards ceremony as I wasn’t selected for any honors.

I remember in the early years watching classic sitcoms with my father like “The Honeymooners” and “Sargeant Bilko,” so I guess I know where my sense of humor originated from. I’m not sure if he encouraged our devotion to “The Three Stooges,” but he still has a pretty good sense of humor, particularly if there are any younger women in the vicinity. And at 95, pretty much everyone is younger. In the words of Shemp Howard after hearing a beautiful blonde utter, “I’m his niece,” replied Shemp, “Ooo, the niece is nice,”

By the way, the new “The Three Stooges” movie opens up this Friday. If you like slapstick violence, this is a film not to be missed. Or as former first lady Nancy Reagan would say, “Just say Moe.”

My father once uttered the classic statement, “If cream cheese were declared illegal, I would stop eating it tomorrow.” He was on the cutting edge of technology, as when he came out with the line, “Why do we need color televison, black and white is fine.” I guess that’s why I don’t use a cell phone but wear my garage door opener on my belt loop.

So my Dad’s going to be 95, and I wanted to give him a shout out before he hits the century mark. He still loves telling my mother how gorgeous she is despite not “having gotten a kiss all day.” For decades of making pancakes for breakfast and continued acts of bravery in marriage, Congress will be rewarding my mother the Silver Star, the Bronze Medal and the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

In his later years before dementia took some of him away, my father would always tell me how proud he was of me. Even though I wasn’t setting the world on fire at the time, I took his words to heart, and they still resonate in my head today. I see a lot of myself in him. Thanks, Dad, and I hope I’ve repayed you by being the man and the father you would have wanted me to be.

For today’s photo fun we are heading down to Lighthouse Point and Its Beach to take in a beautiful late January sunrise. As I’ve mentioned before a few million times, moments like this really do it for me as a landscape photographer. Well, that and the thought of NBA playoff tripleheaders that are on the way.

On to some late night. “A recent survey showed that Rick Santorum is the favorite GOP candidate among Republican women. When he heard that, Santorum was like, ‘Wait — women have the right to vote?’” –Jimmy Fallon “Yesterday Joe Biden thanked Dr. Pepper instead of a woman named Dr. Paper. Biden apologized and said he meant no disre-sprite.” –Conan O’Brien”This was the week the Supreme Court heard all the arguments about health care. The mood in Washington very tense. Angry, incoherent Tea Party protesters were everywhere, including the five on the Supreme Court.” –Bill Maher

“Welcome, lotto losers. Remember, you’re not just losers. You’re mega-losers! If it makes you feel any better, the odds of winning were 176 million to 1 — about the same odds the Supreme Court will pass Obamacare. “Despite being broke and coming in last in the polls, Newt Gingrich says he’s in the race for the long haul, describing himself as ‘the tortoise in the race.’ The tortoise! See if he picks Donald Trump as his running mate they could be ‘the tortoise and the hair.’” –Jay Leno “Congratulations to Mitt Romney, the big winner in yesterday’s primary. He won in Wisconsin.Rick Santorum finished second. Newt Gingrich came in fourth behind Ron Paul. But Wisconsin was not a total loss for Newt. He did make off with a 45-pound wheel of cheese.” –Jay Leno

So that’s our first blast for the new baseball season. Slightly belated birthday wishes go out to my webmaster, chess grandmaster and lover of all forms of chow fun, Kevin Deutsch, who celebrated his big day on Sunday.

We’ll catch you posterizing opponents and throwing down vicious dunks like no one else. Aloha, mahalo and later, Blake Griffin fans.