Good morning and greetings, vacation fans. I normally spend the first part of the winter break meditating along the lovely fairways of the Palm Valley Country Club in Palm Desert , but due to programming changes we decided to stay here at home on the central coast. I miss the desert experience-nothing like cascading waterfalls, palm trees swaying in the wind and orange, grapefruit and tangerine trees in full bloom in late December. Throw in the San Jacinto mountains changing color as often as Henry Paulson changes his plans for use of the bailout money and you can imagine what Moses saw when he first ventured to the desert on a horse with no name. It must have felt good to get out of the rain.

Anyway, it’s been clear and cold here in Santa Cruz as the rest of the nation has been bombarded by snow, ice and blizzard conditions. It’s been particularly frigid in New York. How cold has it been? It was so cold in New York City last week that Bernard Madoff asked if he could actually go to hell early to warm up. And it was so cold that the Statue of Liberty was actually holding her torch under her dress. Thank you, Jay Leno and his staff writers.

Staying in the area has allowed me to catch some coastal highlights that I normally miss at this time of year. Our photo funhouse today features moments from our twelvest of months. We begin and end with sunrise splendor from Lighthouse Point. The rainbow hails from Christmas Eve. The skies had been gray all day but just before sunset the sun dropped thru and horizon was suddenly flooded with bright yellow light streaming from the north. At the same time, a vivid double rainbow appeared in the east which I shot over the trees at Natural Bridges State Park. I hit the coast as the colors of this beauty were fading but seeing the rainbow flowing into the ocean with the plethora of white water was just an amazing sight. It would have even been more amazing if I had recorded it digitally rather than in my offshore memory banks.

2008 has been an challenging year, with the mortgage crisis, the stock market crashing and the Yankees not making the playoffs. And according to Conan O’Brien, “The White House staff has been briefing Barack Obama’s team on a series of worst-case scenarios that could face the country after President Bush leaves office. Apparently, the absolute worst case scenario is that Bush doesn’t leave office. On the positive side, the New York Giants won the Super Bowl, the Giants won the Super Bowl and the Giants won the Super Bowl. I’m really hoping for good things in 2009, like the Giants repeating as Super Bowl champs but I’m not holding my Eli Manning breath on that one. But fortunately, Ford Motors is working on a brand new car called the Fusion. It’s a hybrid that runs on a combination of gas and bailout money-Jay Leno.

Now here’s some more good humor, these jokes courtesy of my weight-training (he says it will make him quicker) son, Jason. A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office with a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear and a banana in his right ear. He says, “What’s the matter with me?” The psychiatrist says, “You’re not eating properly.” And a woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”

So that’s our last blog for 2008. I hope you’ve enjoyed these stream of unconciousness postings as they have been picked up by my medulla oblongata for the 2009 season. Yesterday (Sunday) was this year’s daily double as I shot both a gorgeous sunrise and a dazzling sunset. Combine that with ten hours of NFL football and some Kobe Bryant NBA action and I’m a happy camper. So bring on the NFL playoffs and congratulations to the Golden State Warriors for knocking off the world champion Boston Celtics last week. Now go back to Maui, Don Nelson. So enjoy the final days of 2008, have a fantabulous New Year and we’ll catch you in 2009. Aloha, mahalo, peace and later, Sunrise Santa Cruz fans.

Good morning and greetings, Sunrise Santa Cruz fans. Much like the monarch butterflies returning to the eucalyptus groves of the central coast or the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, the blog is back. And like devoted fans waiting for Mariah Carey’s next CD or costume change, I’ve been patiently waiting for some fall clouds to make their network debut in the California sky. Well, the wait is over as exotic color returned to the Monterey Bay skies on Monday night.

From the genesis Phil Collins along with Phillip (Earth, Wind & Fire) Bailey proclaimed that “She’s an easy lover.” Myself, I’m more of a cloud or NBA lover. And when I saw the late afternoon sky convulsing with all kinds of cloud formations I knew one of two things was going to happen. Either we going to be in for a fabulous display of colors or the fog was going to blow in like the bikers on my favorite new show “Sons of Anarchy” (it’s on FX-a really warm and fuzzy, feel-good program) and spoil everything. Fortunately, unlike Sarah Palin’s explanation of her foreign policy experience, the skies remained clear so the feature presentation went off on the big screen.

So I valet parked myself at the edge of the cliffs at Stockton Avenue along West Cliff Drive and watched the late October sun french dip into the horizon. As the sky to the west was going thru its changes (photos 1-3) I turned and looked south towards the lighthouse and saw that pink was very much in season (photo #4.) I then shifted my auto focus back to the west as the colors changed from orange to red as did the reflection on the water of the lovely Pacific. And much like me and Kobe spinning in the lane, this pre-Halloween event brought with it a 360 degree cloud experience. All in all, not a bad night, and it’s not even November.

So here’s a couple of rambling thoughts. From the political front, courtesy of Jay Leno, “As you know, Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama for President. That’s bad new for John McCain because at his age, he’s already having enough colon problems.” As for myself, I think the whole McCain campaign of negativity and grasping for Palin has been rather sad and pathetic. I find it very hard to believe that people think he is the kind of change this country needs. Or to quote the former Mrs. James Taylor, Carly Simon, “I haven’t got time for the McCain.” Or Sarah Palin. You betcha.

So Yankee-less World Series was delayed last night by an October snowstorm that blew into the east coast. And as one door almost closes another back door opens as the NBA kicked off its new season las night. Ah, the almond joy of eight straight months of basketball on the big screen. And Halloween is just around the corner and that means I’ll be eating mini chocolate bars for months. On that note, let me end this Octoberfest by saying that life is not a trick, it’s a treat. So be damn grateful for the all the good things you have like family, food and TiVo and don’t take your good health for granted. Because you never know what’s around the corner.

So enjoy the autumn skies, enjoy the day and most importantly, enjoy the moments. And remember, every day is sacred, except for some Tuesdays. We’ll catch you on the rebound in November. Aloha, sports fans.

Good morning, beach lovers. When a old friend flew into town back in May, despite the fact that she’s a Red Sox fan I decided to show her a few of the tasty treats on the north coast. One place I thought she’d like is Hole in the Wall Beach.   And in case you’re  wondering where the name comes from, just check out the first photo. When you come down the steep path from the parking area you are greeted by Panther Beach to the right and this massive arch.   This truly amazing sight is less than ten minutes from Santa Cruz and one of the hidden wonders of the north coast.

Hole in the Wall offers a beautiful wind-swept beach, towering cliffs and spectacular rock formations (photo #4.) This jewel along the coast is only accessible at low tide and has more natural beauty than a Miss Hawaiian Tropic contest. Nature has gone wild with sea stars (photo #5) of every race, creed and color and tide pools packed full of sea anemones (photo #6.) This is a place you definitely want to visit.  Bring and friend and a camera.

It’s also a great place to toss around a frisbee. And speaking of toys, it’s hard to believe in the age of iPhones, Xbox 360s and educational video games like Grand Theft Auto, that the Hula Hoop once was the hippest toy around. That’s right, boys and girls. All the hoopla began 50 years ago when entrepreneurs Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin sought a trademark for a plastic cylinder based on a similar toy that had enjoyed modest success in Australia’s school yards. Before long, the Hula Hoop had more hips swiveling than Elvis Presley on amphetamines.

Wham-O Inc. sold more than 100 million Hula Hoops at a suggested retail price of $1.98 apiece after just a year on the U.S. market. In the words of Bob Barker, “the price was definitely right.” “It became a real piece of Americana,” says toy historian Tim Walsh, whose book about Wham-O is scheduled to be published in October. Just like baseball, apple pie and cigarettes.

The Hula Hoop became so ubiquitous that the former Soviet Union banned the toy as a symbol of the “emptiness of American culture.” In response, the United States banned borscht as a symbol of ” a really weird colored soup” and forbid Americans from playing Russian roulette.

Not long after that, the Hula Hoop became a glaring example of the toy industry’s now familiar boom-and-bust cycles. Almost as quickly as they became a household staple, millions of Hula Hoops began collecting cobwebs in garages, closets and malt shops across the country. “The Hula Hoop was the grandaddy of all fads,” says Chris Guirlinger, Wham-O’s vice president of marketing and licensing. This was followed by Pet Rocks, the Chia Pets and voting Republican.

Like a Brett Favre pass in the NFC Championship Game, Hula Hoop’s downward spiral nearly ruined Wham-O, which had increased production to satisfy the once-frenzied demand for the toy. Fortunately, the company had developed another offbeat toy – a flying disc called the Frisbee – that took off just as Hula Hoop sales plummeted.  I could be wrong, but I believe this Frisbee thing is starting to catch on-no pun intended.

Saddled with a glut of unwanted Hula Hoops, Wham-O stopped manufacturing the toy until 1965, when Knerr and Melin came up with a new twist: They inserted ball bearings in the cylinder to make a “shoosh” sound. That helped revive interest in the Hula Hoop, which still makes money for Wham-O. Ironically, I threw out one of these “shooshers” two nights ago as it had snapped. As a youngster I had a Hula Hoop. I loved putting backspin on it so when I would throw it out it would come spinning back to me. That’s unconditional love between a boy and a piece of plastic.

Wham-O has had other iconic toys like the Superball, Slip ‘N Slide and the Make Your Own Diet Pizza Oven, but none of them came close to enthralling kids like the Hula Hoop once did. But the Hula Hoop might be poised for another spurt in popularity. It’s one of the activities featured in a new Nintendo Wii video game promoting physical fitness. Sadly, at this point in life, I prefer hula dancers to hula hoops.

That will do it for another week in the blog land.  Coming up on Monday we’ll return to the color in the sky.  So enjoy the Hole in the Wall, have a great summer weekend and we’ll catch you on the offensive side of the line.  Aloha, Yankee fans.

Good morning and greetings from the Pacific coast. Last week we took a look at a group of cormorants nesting on a shelf along West Cliff Drive. When I went to check them out later in the week I immediately noticed the females were sitting differently on the nests. That meant one of two things. Either there was a breakout of hemorrhoids or the eggs had hatched. Sure enough, it was baby cormorant central as most nests seemed to hold three youngsters. What made it challenging were the angry western gulls who were strafing my tender scalp in an effort to protect their black-coated friends. Fortunately I was wearing my “Mission Accomplished” safari hat which protected me from the attack.

I thought to myself, what an interesting place (photo #1) to raise a family. Right on the magical edge of the continent with waves crashing downstairs 24 hours a day. Great view and the rent is cheap. But as you can see from the final shot, not all of the cormorants are in the family way. You might say some are a still a little nervous, like they’re sitting on egg shells. These little ones will hang out until August when they’ll receive a map and their flight assignments.

Let’s move from birds to mammals. Scientists and gossip columnists at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo have revealed they reversed a vasectomy on an endangered horse to allow it to reproduce naturally – the first-known operation of its kind on an endangered species. Immediately this question comes to mind? Why were they doing the scissors kick on this pony in the first place? Couldn’t they have told him to just stop horsing around or at the very least supplied this sacred stallion with a case of some extra large protection?

Veterinarians and racing fans said that the surgery was performed in October on a Przewalski horse named Minnesota. Luis Padilla, the zoo veterinarian who performed the reversal surgery with a spin move on the baseline, said the procedure was a first for this species and likely for any endangered species. The horses are native to China and Mongolia and were declared extinct in the wild in 1970. Since then several hundred have been bred and reintroduced to the wild in Asia along with enjoying the pleasures of a Mongolian barbecue.

“This is kind of interesting turnaround,” said Dr. Sherman Silber, a St. Louis urologist who pioneered reversible vasectomies in 13,000 humans and helped with the horse surgery. If I were in this guy’s office, the first thing I would do is turn around. “We’ve made so much progress because the human really is the perfect model.” I don’t know if you’ve been to a stable recently but I’m not sure if I agree with that visual assessment.

A similar surgery was successfully performed while Padilla was a resident at the Saint Louis Zoo in 2003 on South American bush dogs, which resemble Chihuahuas and former U.S. Presidents. They are classified as vulnerable but not endangered unlike our Commander-in-Chief, who would be classified as clueless and dangerous. By the way, this is my last shot at the administration for a while as I return to my kinder, gentler self.

The “temporary vasectomy” could have a significant effect on how animals are managed in captivity by giving zookeepers a new way to control the animal’s offspring without having to neuter them or use contraceptives that can change an animal’s behavior. How about just telling them to knock it off?

Minnesota, the 20-year-old horse, had a vasectomy in 1999 at his previous home at the Minnesota Zoo. Boy, they really gave a lot of thought into naming this stud puppet. A vasectomy may be performed on an endangered animal because of space constraints, the size of species or if an animal has already produced many offspring and its genes are overrepresented in the population, says Budhan Pukazhenthi, a reproductive scientist at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va. I’m not that impressed by this scientist’s theory but I would love to use his last name in my next Scrabble conquest.

Scientists later realized Minnesota was one of the most genetically valuable horses in the North American breeding program based on his ancestry. Do you think a little research before might have be prudent so they wouldn’t have had to play snip to my lou. Zookeepers hope to find a suitable female for Minnesota in July. So far they’ve contacted eHarmony.com, Cupid.com and Yonkers Raceway.

Cheryl Asa, director of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Wildlife Contraception Center, said the reversible vasectomy could be useful in isolated cases but probably won’t be adopted broadly. That good news for members of the animal kingdom. As for myself, when I’m thinking reversible, I’ve thinking jackets or maybe a practice jersey. As you can see, I’m more into sniping than snipping.

So there goes another week of blogging with the stars. I hope you are enjoying our summer program here on Monterey Bay. So enjoy the baby cormorants, have a fabulous weekend and we’ll catch you on the last day of June. Aloha, sports fans.

Good morning, bird lovers. If you live on the central coast and you spend time at the magical place known as the edge of the continent, then birds are part of your daily vision. Whether strolling, running and recycling along West Cliff Drive, there is non-stop bird action. It could be chains of pelicans gliding in and out of the fog, gulls circling in the wind or large groups of cormorants flying in a straight line formation. That last group is the aviary organization we’re going to peruse today.

As I was walking along the cliff last week I noticed the cormorants hanging on their usual shelf just south of Natural Bridges. A observant friend pointed out that they were nesting and I was immediately intrigued. As I watched the females dust and clean around the nests I noticed the white objects they were sitting on. Eggs, glorious eggs. So I ran home, had a piece of toast, did a few push ups and then grabbed my camera and starting jump shooting away.

I see Brandt’s Cormorants every day and it got me to wondering, what is their story? What turns them on, what makes them tick, what are their names and on what streets do they live? So here’s the scoop. They are a medium sized bird who, like myself, have a sleek black body. This group is not to be confused with the double crested cormorant, because as we know, 4 out of 5 dentists recommend the double crested for their patients who chew gum.

Brandt’s Cormorants are common in California; over 3/4 of the world’s population resides here and have second homes in Palm Springs. Despite the high cost of living, the largest numbers are in central California. The bird is named after J. F. Brandt, a Russian naturalist who first described the bird in 1838 and first spelled it correctly in 1839.

Along the central coast hundreds of Brandt’s Cormorants are often seen flying in long lines near the water’s surface as they furiously flock to their feeding ground and doctor’s appointments. A group of cormorants has many collective nouns, including “a flight of cormorants”, “gulp of cormorants”, ” rookery of cormorants”, “sunning of cormorants”, a “swim of cormorants” and my personal favorite, a “sh**load of cormorants.”

Brandt’s Cormorants are colonial nesters, not to be confused with Eliot Nesters. A breeding adult has bright blue skin under its bill which is gray in nonbreeding season because gray goes with everything. The male Brandt’s Cormorant chooses the nest site, puts down a deposit and attracts the female to it. Once paired, they build a circular nest on the ground of seaweed, algae, grass, hash, moss, weeds, seaweed, sticks, rubbish and leggos. The male gathers the nest material and the female builds the nest while the male then watches sports on TV. Pairs may reuse the nest, adding more material and perhaps a second level or a deck in the following years. Both the male and female incubate the eggs, and both regurgitate food for the young, which is something I never understood my parents doing. When the babies are born, they are like I was most of my freshman year at Syracuse, naked and helpless.

Under breeding conditions, the adult Brandt’s Cormorant is very impressive with white plumes on the head and an exotic display of a colorful blue throat pouch. Here on the central coast of California, the displays and the NCAA tournament are underway in March-April, eggs are laid in during the NBA playoffs in April-May, youngsters are in the nest as baseball takes center stage in June-July and battles for custody and visitation rights get underway in August. When the eggs hatch, the youngsters look almost reptilian. It will take six weeks for them to grow to full size before they fully mature and start playing one parent against another.

So that’s it for part one of the Brandt Cormorant Family Saga. I will be watching those nests along West Cliff as closely as voting officials in Florida for when those youngsters hatch. I’ve seen photos of the babies and they are stranger looking than a Jerry Springer all-star team. So enjoy the nesting action and we’ll catch you on Wednesday. And remember to extend your hands on defense for deflections. Later, aloha and I’m out.

Good morning and greetings, four-day work week fans. On Saturday afternoon a Red Sox fan and I ventured up the coast to check out the action at Four Mile Beach. Although it was cloudy, I was still photographically hopeful because there’s always something happening on the north coast. As usual, I was not disappointed. Cliff swallows were all over the place, having built their nests along the eroding walls at Four Mile. There were some areas of the cliffs that were as dry as Salt Lake City on a Saturday night, but other parts were wet and lush as the rain forests of Maui and New Jersey.

Cliff swallows build gourd shaped nests out of mud pellets that they carry in their mouths and fanny packs to a site protected by an overhang (in this case, the cliff.) They nest in colonies and will patrol an area up to four miles away from their cliffside condos looking for food, snacks and beverages. The last time we saw these swallows we were shooting the underhang of the lighthouse at Lighthouse Point. These birds like their homes with a view and the one at Four Mile is spectacular. That is, if you don’t mind sharing the remote with pelicans, gulls and harbor seals in your living room.

On to the news. The playground legal principle “Finders keepers, losers weepers” is being put to a test in an international dispute over what could be the richest sunken treasure ever found: 17 tons of silver coins brought up by a centuries-old shipwreck. A Florida treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, found the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and argues that the age-old law of the high seas entitles the finders to most or all of the booty, said to be worth around $500 million. They later added that if this law doesn’t hold up, they want to go with the old standby “You snooze, you lose.”

But the government of Spain suspects the ship is Spanish and says it has never expressly abandoned any of its vessels lost at sea. The kingdom and Laker center Pau Gasol have made it very clear that if the treasure does have some connections to Spain, it wants every last coin and bottle returned for deposit. The case is being watched closely because there could be more disputes like it, now that sonar, remote-control submersible robots, deep-sea video and lightly breaded scallops are enabling treasure hunters like Odyssey to find ships that went to the bottom centuries ago. Back then they were written off as unrecoverable because no one could imagine finding anything so far beneath the waves except Atlantis records.

The question is, just because you’re the first one to get there to get it, should you get to keep it, especially if it belongs to someone else? For now, the spoils, about 500,000 coins are in Odyssey’s possession, tucked away in a warehouse somewhere in Tampa. Odyssey created a worldwide sensation with the announcement of the find last May but has so far declined to identify the wreck (not the Bush administration,) except to say it was in international waters. Soon after the discovery was made public, Spain’s attorney in Washington went to federal court in Tampa and slapped claims on three Atlantic wreck sites to which Odyssey had been granted exclusive rights under maritime law. When asked for his thoughts, the Spanish attorney said he could not comment on the on-going litigation but offered up this juicy nugget. “The rain in Spain falls gently on the plains.”

The ship is widely believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish galleon sunk by a British warship off Portugal in October 1804. This discovery was timely for Odyssey, whose first big strike was the discovery in 2003 of a Civil War-era steamer of the Georgia coast that yielded 51,000 gold coins and artifacts valued at around $70 million. We’re talking major dinero. Personally, when I go to the beach, I’m happy if I come away with a rock, a few shells and no sunburn.

That’s our post Memorial Day report. Birthday greetings today go out to my Marin County based sister-in-law Wendi, who loves life, the arts and chocolate, and definitely not in that order. So enjoy the swallows (or their nests, anyway) and remember to move your feet and not reach on defense. Later, sports fans.