Good morning and greetings, New Year’s fans. Someone asked me last week if I had made any resolutions for the upcoming year. Up until that point, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, as New Year’s resolutions for me have always gone in one year and out the other. Or as Jay Leno once said, “New Year’s Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive.”

But I thought I would give it the old junior college try, as I usually look forward to the new year to get a fresh start on old habits. I wanted to do something significant to really challenge myself and prove that even at this advanced age, there were still some frontiers I could conquer besides walking more and watching less.

I was thinking about for some self improvement, and if that wasn’t possible, just doing something nice for people. There were so many directions I could go in, like eating healthier, exercising more or stop biting other people’s nails.

I could attempt to be a more positive person, to laugh more often at the news, to just enjoy life a little bit more. I could work on my career, or perform better at my job. But that would entail getting a job, and thus lied the problem. That would putting the cart light years ahead of the horse.

I could try to improve my inner and outer self by becoming more organized, as at this stage of my life, 98% of my time is spent looking for something I had in my hands just moments before. That might help reduce some stress. It’s not like I’m in a hurry, or as Mohandas K. Gandhi once tweeted, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Personally, I’ve always ascribed to the Chinese proverb, “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. Chow fun is where you want to be.”

I could volunteer to help others, try new foods or stop procrastinating, but I think I’ll start on that one next month. None of these resolutions felt right. So I decided to just go with what felt natural and stop eating chocolate for a hour each day. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but over a year’s time the numbers add up. That’s a two week, all-expense saved vacation from chocolate.

I’m just following the theory that chocolate slows down the aging process. It may not be true, but who am I to argue with science? Or as French actress Brigette Bardot once remarked, “It’s sad to grow old, but it’s nice to ripen.’ I’m just worried about being left on the vine too long.

So the holiday season has come and gone, and it will be missed. I got to see two movies, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ which I reviewed last week, and ‘American Hustle,’ which took us inside the world of a brilliant con man, a Congressional sting operation and Amy Adam’s cleavage. As she said, “You’re not nothing to me until you’re everything.” Everybody hustles to survive. I enjoyed this flick, although I was hoping for a little better.

So this being the first blog of the new year, I wanted to start it off in star spangled banner style. So we are heading back to the evening of December 17, when fire was burning in Big Sur and skies were torched with color. The previous evening’s sunset (which I posted back on December 22) was off the charts in beauty, or as my friend Bill Babcock described it, “the best sunset I can recall on the coast.”

So we were coming off a spectacular night, and this was to be the second half of a back-to-back, off the wall, plastic fantastic experience. For me as a sunset chaser, the only back-to-back evenings to surpass this experience came in January of 2008, when there were two nights of explosive color and light that set the bar. It was two nights of magical brilliance that I will never forget. But these December nights came awfully close to challenging for the gold.

I was shooting from Stockon Avenue along West Cliff Drive, and you can see early on that something big was underway. This night was a 360 degree viewing experience, as the entire sky was filled with glowing clouds. To the east it was pink city, to the west golden orange and ridiculous red. I was spinning like the Four Tops taking in this marvelous show.

If you look up world-class sunsets in the dictionary, you might see photos from this night. Moments like this is why I got into this business, being I’m a sunrise/sunset guy. It’s nice putting your arm around a memory.

So my resolution to my cyber audience is to bring you the best of what I see on land and in the skies above Monterey Bay, along with a little something to make you laugh and think. And not necessarily in that order.

Enjoy the NFL playoffs. We’ll catch you showing the basketball world why the Warriors are in a roll and you were an NBA all-star last season. Aloha, mahalo and later, David Lee fans.

Good morning and greetings, health care fans. Well, the weather map has been going through some changes, as the dreary coastal fog and ‘NBA Gametime’ have returned to greet me in the morning. The air, like my martinis, has a certain chill to it. Yes, colder weather has moved in and you can be damn sure I didn’t send out an invitation.

Now I can usually tell when there’s climate change around my house, as my wife goes from wearing three layers of clothes to six. I’m no longer basking in the glow from those September and early October days filled with subtropical temperatures and warm breezes, as they are quickly becoming as distant a memory as the Jacksonville Jaguars’ playoff hopes.

There’s an old Chinese proverb, “Three feet of ice does not result from one day of cold weather.” And no soup with to go orders. Now I realize that Jim Rome wasn’t built in a day, but this weather change came around quicker than excuses for the health care website screwup. I want to live in world where all sleeves are short. Or in the words of singer Jimmy Buffet, “The weather is here, wish you were beautiful.

Now last week I wrote about my concerns for my new health insurance premiums, after receiving a letter from the folks at Anthem Clue Cross, explaining to me that my monthly rate was going to be almost doubled if I didn’t change my membership group. I wasn’t thrilled, as I had to wonder how much money I’d have at the end of the month to pay for food, water and HBO.

Now let me give you a little history on this subject. Back in 2010, I received notice from my good friends at Blue Cross that my monthly premium would be going up 39%. I was shocked that they didn’t want 40%. This grossly exorbitant rate request by Anthem led to the passing of a new law by Congress known as the Hopefully Affordable Care Act.

So then a year later, Blue Cross added a little more icing to my health care cake, when I received notice that my premium was going up another 25%. I guess they thought I would be happy with the 14% savings. Even with a huge deductible my monthly premium was now as as high as my home mortgage. But I was relieved when they didn’t ask me to help out with their property taxes.

So not wanting to donate any more organs or my hardly earned money to this wonderful and caring organization, I switched memberships groups at Anthem. But because I switched, I now have to join a new group or pay double. What a wonderful organization. It was the actor Oscar Levant who once said of politicians, “They’ll double cross that bridge when they come to it.” And standing right behind them were a group of insurance company CEO’s.

So when I called my helpful Blue Cross health plan advisor last week, he couldn’t help me as the systems were down until November 1. So I guess it’s hurry up and wait. My concern is that the rate increase on premiums for individuals in California, and particularly the Bay Area, will be astronomically high, and that the argument will be that although they’re more expensive, the new rates are justified.

Listen, when it comes to ‘Justifed,’ the only thing I’m interested in is the performance of Timothy Oliphant, as deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens, a federal lawman who dishes out his own brand of justice in Harlan County, Kentucky. This critically acclaimed series returns for its fifth season in January on FX “There is no box.”

So for now, I’ll keep what little faith I have. Everyone deserves affordable health care. But the way things are going, I’m either going to be demoralized or subsidized. Let’s hope it’s the latter.

A man walks into a Doctor’s office. He has a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear and a banana in his right ear. “What’s the matter with me?” he asks. “You’re not eating properly,” replied the Doctor.

So the last time I checked my Scarlett Johansson calendar, it seems like Halloween was heading fast down the pike. So for today’s photo segment, in honor of this festival of mini-chocolate snacks, we’re going to highlight some fruits of the earth, starting off with rows of orange squash from Rodini Farms up on the North Coast.

We then move over to the Garden Isle of Kauai for photos of some coconuts, papayas, and a young and tender pineapple. And we then finish at home with a double barrel shot of some organic apples, which can be eaten sliced up fresh or made into a sauce. A little water, cinnamon, brown sugar, a touch of vanilla, and bang, homemade applesauce. That, my friends, is a food for the gods and a true fall classic.

On to the late night humor. “The Obamacare website has all these glitches and now tech experts are saying that the only way to fix it is to completely start over and redesign the whole website from scratch. While the guys from the Geek Squad said, ‘Turn it off, wait five seconds, and then plug it back in.'” –Jimmy Fallon “Today there were more problems with the Obamacare website. It seems when you type in your age, it’s confusing because it’s not clear if they want the age you are right now, or the age you’ll be when you finally log in.” –Jay Leno

“It was kind of a rough day today. A friend of mine was given six months by his doctor – not to live, to sign up for Obamacare.” –Jay Leno “Things got screwed up with the healthcare website. So you can wait for them to get the site fixed or you can enroll in medical school, graduate, and then just take care of yourself, which would probably be faster.” –Jimmy Kimmel

“Due to system failure today, many people were unable to update their Facebook status. Incidentally, for the several hours Facebook was down we were actually competitive with China. In a speech today President Obama called for a new era of bipartisan cooperation. He said this because Obama likes to start off a speech with a joke.” –Conan O’Brien

“Yesterday John McCain said the government shutdown was worse than the one in ’95. That’s 1795. He was 44 at the time, cleaning a musket for his son. Chris Christie said if one of his children were gay, he would, quote, hug them and tell them I love them. Of course, he said the same thing about the Keebler Elves.” –Conan O’Brien

“Anthony Wiener is back in the news. He said an interesting thing. He said if the Internet didn’t exist he would probably be mayor of New York. Yeah, and I would be flying right now if gravity didn’t exist.” –Jimmy Kimmel “The shutdown cost the economy $24 billion, and caused China to lower our credit rating to A- – or as Chinese parents call it, an F.” –Stephen Colbert

So that’s our last blast for October 2103. It’s a big week, as the 2013-14 NBA season kicks off on Tuesday, with expectations at an all-time high for Golden State Warrior fans. We’ll have to wait and see if they’re justified.

We’ll catch you taking a walk on the wild side. Aloha, mahalo and later, Lou Reed fans.

Good morning and greetings, Valentine’s Day fans. What a great day this has become for chocolate lovers, romantics and stalkers of the world. On this day, one can display his or her affections with a card that someone else wrote (“I never believed in miracles and then I found each day has turned into one because of you,”) some sugar that we probably don’t need, or some jewelry that we can always sell on eBay if the relationship doesn’t work out. Meanwhile, many folks not involved in a relationship get left out in the cold and hope this day passes as quickly as possible. Now that may be a little cynical, but I think I’m right on the Eddie Money without two tickets to paradise.

But being a hopeless romantic, I always get caught up in the holiday spirit. However, last year, when I presented my wife with a box a chocolate matzos, she seemed a tad disappointed. I’m not sure if chocolate covered unleavened bread conveyed the thought of thanks for loving me, always being there and sharing the same DVR taping system. So this year, I’m going to do it right and go with dark chocolate pretzels.

I was immediately smitten when I met my future bride. I remember early on, an offer I made when she was looking to move into the oceanfront house I was living in. “Come live in my heart and pay no rent.” She then asked if that included utilities. An hour later, I told her that a hundred hearts would be too few to carry all my love for her. She blushed and then went out and bought a dozen defibrillators.

So Valentine’s Day is always a special occasion for us. I remember last year as she told me between commercials, “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” And then I held her closely and said, “If I could be anything in the world, I would want to be a teardrop, because I would be born in your eyes, live on your cheeks, and die on your lips.” And then I lobbed this winner, “When we met, it was not my ear you whispered into, but my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.” Now that, my friends, is a Hallmark moment.

So in honor of this day of love and chocolate, here’s a joke that made me chuckle. A prince was put under a spell so that he could speak only one word each year. If he didn’t speak for two years, the following year he could speak two words and so on. One day, he fell in love with a beautiful lady. He refrained from speaking for two whole years so he could call her “my darling.” But then he wanted to tell her he loved her, so he waited three more years. At the end of these five years, he wanted to ask her to marry him, so he waited another four years. Finally, as the ninth year of silence ended, he led the lady to the most romantic place in the kingdom and said, “My darling, I love you! Will you marry me?” And the lady said, “Pardon?”

So it was a good week on the weather front, as we had sun, clouds, rain, light, darkness and some golf. Last Wednesday, on a crisp morning at Natural Bridges, frost was covering the sand as I observed nineteen snowy egrets lined up in a row like bowling pins. Of course, being a semi-professional photographer, I didn’t have my camera or passport with me, so I raced home, grabbed it and was back before you could say “Zero Dark Thirty.” Or in the words of Jessica Chastain to CIA chief Tony Soprano, “I’m the motherfu****** who found this place.”

By the way, last three flicks I’ve seen all been big-time winners, tremendously enjoyable cinematic experiences. We’re talking “Argo,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” I walked out of all three saying , “Wow, that was great at a matinee price.

So getting back to the beach, the snowys were still there when I returned but in a slightly rearranged order, so I headed down to the far end of the beach to shoot these birds of a feather huddled together in the cold weather (photo #1). Also included is a smaller group shot and one of a dynamic duo. Then it was on to photographing a group of pelicans that had gathered for their morning coffee and sardines on the remaining arch. It was a great way to start off a chilly day on Monterey Bay.

The final photo is my Valentine’s day shot, as a caught a group of lovebirds, er pigeons, perched on a telephone wire basking in the morning sun. Next week we’ll return to the fabulous winter sunrise and sunset experiences, as I have many sitting on the runway waiting for clearance. They range from good to classic fantastic, and all will be seen. Because that’s the way we roll at Sunrise Santa Cruz.

On to some late night humor. “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants to become the first Iranian to go into outer space. He wants to study the effects of anti-gravity on anti-Semitism. Monopoly is getting a big makeover. They want to make the Monopoly game more modern and bring it up to date to reflect our current culture. Like, in the new version of Monopoly, the banker never goes to jail. This is kind of disturbing. The Justice Department has concluded that the president can order drone strikes on American citizens. And today, Rush Limbaugh came out in favor of Obamacare.” – Jay Leno

A Justice Department memo claims that President Obama has the right to order the assassination of an American anywhere in the world. Isn’t that crazy? In a related story, Donald Trump has gone into hiding. The justice department is saying that President Obama can order drone strikes on American citizens, that he can do that. In a related story, this is the last Obama joke I’m ever doing on this show. U.S. employers just added 157,000 jobs to the economy. Of course, most of those were for backup dancers for Beyoncé. During the Super Bowl there was a 35-minute blackout. Afterwards Lindsay Lohan said, “So that wasn’t just me.” – Conan O’Brien

“Pakistan is opening an amusement park and a zoo in the same town where the raid on Osama Bin Laden took place. The zoo is pretty cool, but I’ve heard you won’t be able to see the seals until it’s too late. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently got a smart phone. And you can tell it’s a smart phone because today it left North Korea. Last night runners from around the world competed in the annual race to the top of the Empire State Building. But there’s already a scandal brewing. It turns out one of the competitors tested positive for elevator.” – Jimmy Fallon

“A new report by economists lists the world’s most expensive cities. It turns out the most expensive city is Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo unveiled their new tourism slogan today. Their slogan is: “Tokyo: We’ll leave you brokeo.” – Craig Ferguson “This weekend a couple from Connecticut will have the longest marriage ever recorded in the U.S. They got married more than 80 years ago. They said the secret to their long-lasting marriage is love, compromise, and the fact that neither one of them has been able to hear a word the other one has said in more than 30 years.” – Jimmy Kimmel

So that’s our Chinese New Year report. I think the Year of the Snake is going to be a good one for my cyber readers and burmese pythons. We’ll catch you showing NBA fans why you’re the top scoring point guard in the league and an all-star in just your second season. Aloha, mahalo and later, Kyrie Irving fans.

Good morning and greetings, migration fans. It was an interesting week on West Cliff, as my morning walks were highlighted by hundreds of pelicans flying in formations both high and low above the water. Often I just stop in my tracks to view their magnificence. Throw in the usual gaggle of whales, dolphins, chargers, sea lions, harbor seals and Navy Seals, and this stroll along the edge of the continent was well worth the price of college admission.

But today being Halloween, we are going to delve into a subject that is both near and clear to my heart, pancreas and stomach. Now unlike Valentine’s Day, the mid-winter festival of chocolate, Halloween is the holiday that just
keeps on giving. Although just a few trick-o-treaters canvass our neighborhood, I find it necessary to have at least 500 mini versions of Hershey’s Chocolate bars, Nestle Crunch, Kit Kat, Almond Joys and Twix bars on hand, just in case there’s a late rush of skeletons or Kardashians at the end of the night.

Invariably, there’s a always a few bars left, and when I add my children’s donation to this bountiful fund of chocolate delights, I’ll be set through next week, er month, er until at my son starts packing for college next summer.

So what is it about chocolate? Why is it that I can come downstairs and pop a piece of chocolate cake in my mouth at 6 am and feel less guilt than OJ? So thanks to Kassidy Emmerson and Holly Bentz from Yahoo’s Associated Content, let’s take a look at the fascinating world of chocolate and why it’s just so damn good and emotionally satisfying.

The “Theobroma cacao” is the Willy Wonka of trees that produces pods, beans and truffles that are turned into chocolate. It was discovered along with Pez candy in the Amazon Basin of South America about 40 trillion Nestle Crunches ago. The earliest written account of
chocolate use is attributed to the Olmecs tribes of Southern Mexico, when they turned it into a chocolate drink called Yoo-Hoo. Chocolate was first made
into a solid, edible food in Mexico in the 1700’s, after which the drug cartels started smuggling it across the border and flooding the US with cheap, addictive, pure chocolate.

The word “chocolate” comes from the Aztec word “xocolatl”, which translated means “oh my God, I can’t believe how good this tastes”. According to researchers from the Cadbury Institute of Raisins & Almonds, the
best-tasting chocolate bar looks shiny and even, like my face after a smooth, close shave. A piece should snap off as cleanly as I enter the water after a half gainer off the high board. It should feel rich and and melt in your mind, not in your hands.

Four out of five scientists who recommend milk chocolate for their patients who chew sugarless gum, proclaim that the shelf life of a chocolate bar is approximately one year. I can say from my vast experience that this
statement is true. However, if you’re a survivalist like me, you can place a chocolate bar in the freezer and it will keep forever, or at least until the return of Don Draper, January Jones and “Mad Men.”

Dr. Henry Stubbe (1632-1676), was a physician who considered drinking chocolate once or twice a day an
excellent cure for fatigue caused by hard work. The man was a genius. He also believed that chocolate helped benefit the heart, increased breast milk production in
women and was a major distraction for men.

Chocolate contains healthy antioxidants that can lower the incidence of cancer, heart disease and your LDL cholesterol, while adding iron and magnesium to your body and paying for your dentist’s vacation in Cancun. Chocolate also contains a chemical known as phenylethylamine, which has been shown to release serotonin, endorphins and porpoises, the first two known chemicals that make us feel happy and a third a marine
mammal that is much less acrobatic than dolphins.

The Aztecs believed chocolate to be the Spanish fly of the candy counter. The phenylethylamine creates a chemical reaction in the brain similar to that of falling in love or saving money on your car insurance. Chocolate also contains the stimulants theo bromine and caffeine,
which can reduce stress, give you a sense of mild euphoria and make you forget about the field of Republican presidential candidates.

Research has shown that allowing chocolate to melt in your mouth produced brain and heart rate activity that was simliar to and even stronger than that produced with passionate kissing. That explains my wedding night.
And a two and a half year study conducted by Charlie Sheen concluded that similar activity occurs in the brain with the consumption of chocolate as seen with drugs like cocaine.

Life got just a little bit better when the first Hershey’s hugs and kisses were first produced in 1907. In 1938, new ground was broken when Nestle Crunch was introduced. It was the first chocolate bar to combine milk chocolate and crunchy crisps to create a sensory eating
experience that blended taste, texture and sound along with tucking you in at night. Then in 1939, Nestle introduced Chocolate Chips and the earth starting spinning faster on its axis while dairy farmers rejoiced.

In summation, much has been written about chocolate, my favorite being “Forget love, I’d rather fall in chocolate.” Yes, chocolate is a many-splendored thing.

So in honor of Halloween, we sent our photo department up the coast for our annual visit to Rodoni Farms U Pick Em’ Pumpkin Patch. This field of pumpkin dreams is right across the road from Four Mile Beach, and features pumpkins of every race, creed and especially color. We’re talking shades of orange, red, gray, pink, white and green. There’s something very soothing about roaming around a field of pumpkins with a white water view. It’s all part of the experience that is the north coast.

Here’s a little Bill Maher. “Out badass ninja black president did it again. Don’t f**k with this guy. So
far this year he’s killed Somali pirates, he killed bin Laden, he killed al-Awlaki,, now he’s killed Gaddafi. The only threat to our way now is from Bank of America. Today Obama was seen leaving the White House in a nurse’s
uniform on a flight to Cuba to smother Castro with a pillow. “And you know what, if he did smother Castro with a pillow in a nurse’s uniform, Rush Limbaugh would say, ‘See, socialized medicine.'” –Bill Maher

“They found Gaddafi in a hole with a gun and luggage, or as it’s known here, the middle class. These Republicans, they will not give credit. They gave credit to the rebels, to the British, and to the French. But they would not
mention the president. In their world, Gaddafi died of natural causes, Bin Laden was shot in the face by the free market. You should’ve heard them, we went in too strong, everything they could’ve said that he did wrong. It’s like there’s some kind of hidden Republican clitoris, that they won’t let Obama find, and whenever he tries, they’re like ‘that’s not it!'” –Bill Maher

“I’m guessing our soldiers are happy to be leaving Iraq. It is no fun being in a country where there’s crumbling infrastructure and an ignorant population, but they said they’re happy to come home anyway.” –Bill Maher

So after today, October 2011, much like my quickness on the basketball court, will be history. I hope you caught game six of the Fall Classic, as it was perhaps the greatest World Series game of all time that I didn’t see all of. You’ve got to love those St. Louis and Stanford Cardinals. We’ll catch you hitting the game-winning home run. Aloha, mahalo and later, David Freese fans.