Good morning and greetings, ice dancing fans. Yes, February 2010, much like my keen eyesight, razor-sharp hearing and six pack abs, is now history. Our second month of the year is unique, as much like my status in my high school hoops days, it is the shortest month on the calendar and flies by faster than my son in the open court with his new driving permit.

February also brought us the Winter Olympics from Vancouver, Canada. For those of you who may have missed out any news from north of the border, today we are featuring complete gold medal coverage from our award-winning correspondent from north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now here, in his own words, is the guy who followed me out our mother’s birth canal, Paul Gilbert.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been a visitor in the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Well, it’s been more of a virtual vacation, as I’ve been riveted to my TV set watching the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. I didn’t think I’d be anywhere as interested in them as the Summer Games, but once the curling competition started, I was hooked. C’mon, name another sport where your team includes people sweeping brooms like they’ve just had 50 triple espressos? I wish they would come over and clean our house.

There was such a potpourri of athletic competition to choose from, it was like sifting through the menu at a Cheesecake Factory. To get things off on the right ski, I was curious to see if Lindsay Vonn would look as good in high def as she did in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Actually, I was hoping that Brooklyn Decker would qualify in the Super G-string and wear her cover outfit, which was the size of a large snowflake.

As it turns out, Vonn ended up riding a roller coaster on the slopes. Gold medal, crashes, disqualifications, and the media doing everything it could to provoke a cat fight with her teammate, Julie Mancuso, who clearly did not enjoy playing second fiddle, especially after getting the unintentional shaft in the slalom, when Vonn did a pinky swear with the snow fence. The fact is both are great athletes and male or female, it takes a lot of balls to compete in a sport where you’re hurdling down an ice-covered mountain at 90 MPH.

Loved those crazy, high-flying snowboarders working the half-pipe (which they used to smoke after each competition, until the Olympic drug-testers ruined the party). Shaun White was truly amazing, as evidenced by replays that compared his run with the second place finisher and White was about 20 feet higher (OK, insert joke here). We all know he created his best tricks on the private half-pipe his sponsor, Red Bull, built him in Colorado and the question is, does his famous Double McTwist 1260 come with fries?

I enjoyed some of the speed skating events, especially the short tracks where competitors jockeyed for position like New York City cab drivers. The South Koreans were amazing, I wonder when they became a speed skating superpower, id the North Koreans threatened a nuclear response? I think the Dutch coach might want to take a long vacation before heading home for his public execution and I’m now considering wearing a red headband, growing a little soul patch and changing my name to Apolo. Oh-yes.

In deference to my lovely wife, I also watched some of the ice dancing. There are moments of grace and artistry, but whoever designs those costumes must be the rejects from the first round of Project Runway. It’s hard to take a sport seriously where the athletes dress like Halloween on Acid on Ice.

The figure skating competition felt a little drawn out, but since I can barely stand on a pair of skates, I have to admire the skill of these athletes and their ability to perform under pressure. I was glad to see Evan Lysacek beat that sourpuss, sore loser Russian. That’s what you get for dressing like Lenin doing Liberace and having a bad shag haircut.

On the women’s side, Yu Na Kim of South Korea breathtaking and seemingly effortless performance was mesmerizing. And whose heart didn’t go out to Joannie Rochette, the Canadian skater whose mother died on her way to watch her compete? This reminded me of the many side stories that make up a whole other side of the Olympics, which is how an athlete’s parents sacrifice their time, energy and money to support their children and then, have to live vicariously through the both victories and the defeats. Truly, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

As usual, NBC decided to tape delay the most popular events and play them back in prime time. That meant I had to avoid reading the news online or watching SportsCenter before I tuned in for my nightly Olympics fix. And since the New York Times is my browser homepage, it’s hard not to notice when you see a headline like USA UPSETS CANADA!! Then again, haven’t the Canadians been upset with us for the last forty or fifty years?

The USA hockey team beating Canada in the first round was immensely satisfying. I don’t watch a lot of hockey, except for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which are incredibly intense, but this was just as riveting. My adrenaline was pumping so hard that I was throwing crosschecks into my son and got called for high-sticking the dog.

The gold medal game was equally intense, a fitting end to the Olympic competition. Just when it looked like Canada had it in the bag, Team USA scores with twenty-four seconds left to send it into overtime, which put the entire population of Canada on suicide watch and sent our puppy into a frenzied “who let the dogs out, eh?” But in the end, hockey’s best player, Sidney Crosby, did what the great ones do. Will his way to victory. So as for as a repeat of “do you believe in miracles?” let’s see if the Knicks sign LeBron.

As for the TV coverage, there were so many commercial breaks that Bob Costas might as well have said “we’ll be right back after this brief glimpse of actual sports action to bring you more commercials from Vancouver.” I don’t quite understand how NBC can claim to have lost $200 million on these Games, when they ran 200 million commercials.

Got to give Costas his due, he’s the consummate pro. He switches seamlessly from sport to sport and brings out the best in his guests. NBC pulled out all the stops on the various commentators and expert analysts in each sport, but one person who received mixed scores in my book was Mary Carillo. Some of her up close and personal pieces were good, but when it comes to late night comedy, she ain’t exactly Wanda Sykes.

All kidding aside, the reason I enjoyed watching the Winter Games so much was to see great athletes competing at the highest level of their sports. They have put in thousands of hours of practice, endured injuries and hardship, and basically dedicated their entire lives to perfecting their performances. While some are multi-millionaire professionals, the majority are not making the big bucks. They’re doing it for the love of their sport, the honor of representing their country and the ultimate challenge of being the best in the entire world at what they do. No matter how bureaucratic and corporate the Olympics have become, in many ways, it’s still the purest and deepest experience in the sports universe.

So it was a great ride while it lasted and now, looking ahead to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, my daughter is immersed in her training for Olympic Gold in Downhill Texting. And knowing her, she’s already planning the photo shoot for Sports Illustrated.

Do me a favor, cancel your subscriptions, now.

Whew. Thank you, brother. Now, being a big fan of the lunar year, I’m always jacked up for the start of the new month and flipping to a fresh page of the calendar. It’s the same feeling I get when popping off the top of a Tropicana Orange Juice or ripping open a package of Pepperidge Farm Orange Milano cookies, a semi-religious experience without the jolt of sugar. I was going to blast out some fabulous winter color to welcome the Ides of March, but then Friday evening came so we shifted Disraeli gears.

Ominous-looking storm clouds and herbal tea had been brewing all morning, as the heavy rain started to fall in the early afternoon. Throughout the day, the sky was as gray as Richard Gere’s hair at a Free Tibet fundraiser. Towards early evening, I gazed into the western sky and spotted an opening in the horizon (photo #1.) At the same time, clouds were coming forward from the east and a small rainbow made an appearance (photo #2.) It paled in comparison to the rainbows I viewed on Saturday in San Jose, which were as fabulous as the dialogue in “The Hangover.”

The wind was whipping off the coast as the sun slowly dropped thru the cloud cover and cast a gorgeous shining light on the churning waves (photos #3-4-5) before disappearing and heading to China. Adding to my dusk delight, hundreds of gulls were cruising south as a full moon appeared from behind the clouds (photo #6). Bingo! A fantastic end to a day that had shown no potential for greatness just minutes earlier. Kind of like Conan O’Brien’s final “Tonight Show” appearance.

On to some late night humor. “The Winter Olympics is apparently a big thing for a lot of people, and America has won the most medals. The only sport I really get into is snowboarding because that’s the only sport where they perform a half pipe just after smoking a full pipe.” –Bill Maher Dick Cheney loves snowboarding. He thinks it’s waterboarding, but colder.” –David Letterman “Tiger Woods was adamant that his wife Elin never hit him with a golf club. I guess his Escalade fell down the stairs.” –Jimmy Kimmel

It’s a great day for former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was released from the hospital today. He’s doing well. Doctors say he’ll be up and shooting lawyers in no time.” –Craig Ferguson “Something weird happened in the hospital. When they were putting the electrodes on him for the EKG, he suddenly started screaming, ‘Stop! I’ll tell you everything you want to know! It was a fun day for the head of Toyota U.S.A. today. He had to appear in front of Congress. “I have to say, it was actually refreshing to see a car company C.E.O. appear before Congress and not ask for $10 billion.” –Jimmy Kimmel

So that’s our first blast for the month of March. Coming up next week, we’re going to continue the guest mode as we’ll feature nature photographer Judy Bingham on these cyber pages. This will be a pick six pack of photos you will not want to miss. So I hope you enjoyed our Olympic coverage as we can now return our full attention to the NBA and SCCAL varsity volleyball. We’ll catch you in the paint. Aloha, mahalo and later, Stephen Curry fans.

Good morning and greetings, winter weather fans. Last week, the Atlantic seaboard was bombarded with two blizzards that led to record snowfall, so much so that it completely shut down Washington D.C. for three days, but not the lips of Sarah Palin. Her criticism of President Obama was somewhat puzzling for a woman who admits to not reading a newspaper. But give the former Lens Crafter model and governor of Alaska credit, she was able to read the crib notes written in her palm so that she wouldn’t forget what planet she was on.

Now perhaps I’m being a bit harsh towards the former Vice-Presidential candidate, and if that’s the case, I don’t apologize. How she is being touted as a presidential candidate for 2012 is more mind-blowing than the Warrior’s Monta Ellis not being selected to the western conference’s all-star team. But for now, let’s leave her politics back east and get back to the weather, which was as wild on the central coast this past Tuesday as the snow drifts around the George Jefferson Memorial.

Storm clouds were lined up across the sky and the air was chilly as I headed out onto West Cliff, but fortunately I had come prepared and put on a warmer pair of shorts. The sun was darting in and out from behind the clouds as the light was changing quicker than Peyton Manning’s status from Super Bowl hero to goat. A flock of 35 pelicans (yes, I counted them) flew by in a v-formation, and then all of a sudden turned around in mid-flight faster than you could say “Happy Valentine’s Day” and started heading north. Now, I’ve seen hundreds of squadrons of these prehistoric birds in action, but I had never seen this about-face manuever. There was some strange magic in the air as I really wanted to be pelican briefed.

As I continued my sentimental journey down the cliff, I was joined by an artist friend of mine, who brought up the poet Mary Oliver. Her work focuses on her intense observations of nature from her walks through the wetlands near her home in Massachusetts. She has been called a visionary as “her poetry combines dark interpretation with joyous release.” That would be in contrast to yours truly, who combines dark meat chicken with jellied cranberry sauce.
As the skies starten to darken, I told my friend that I knew where Ms. Oliver was coming from, as when patrolling the coastline, I am always looking for images to capture for my digital sonnets. Mary Oliver says that the self is only strengthened through an immersion with nature. Well, that and NBA basketball.

We continued skipping down the cliff when a rain squall hit while the sun peeked thru the clouds. This meant it was rainbow time. And sure enough, before I could click my feet, grab little Toto and head back to Kansas, a spectrum of light with beautiful colors appeared in the sky. Now, I should mention I wasn’t carrying my camera on this expedition, so I just had to take in the moment for what it was. And in the words of Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr, “you know it don’t come easy”

It reminded me of a rainbow I saw early in the morning on the cliff some thirty years ago. I lived on West Cliff Drive from 1975-89 and it was the only rainbow I remember appearing in the western sky. All the others made appearances from the east or the south. And in case NASA, the weather channel or classmates.com is monitoring this report, yes, I do have photos of that multicolored beauty. Oh, and I also have pictures of the rainbow.

It was actually the second rainbow I had seen that morning, so I was already feeling my lucky charms. And as we all know, they’re magically delicious. My son had a basketball game in Monterey in the afternoon, so we headed south down Highway 1. The clouds were performing a matinee show and you could see the rain falling over the mountains in the distance. I then glanced into the rear view mirror and saw a rainbow as big as bus and brighter than Albert Einstein. My son asked me if he should make a wish and I replied, “No, just hit a few three-pointers and I’ll be happy.”

When we arrived at the gymnasium, all the talk from the parents was, “Did you see that rainbow? And did anyone bring water?” It was one of the all-time brightest, shining bows. Jason and I had seen one like that a few weeks earlier as we exited the Oracle Arena after an afternoon contest on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. It was beaming so intently into the Oakland hills that at the time I thought, these colors are just unbelievable. Actually, what was even more unbelievable was that fact the Warriors won that day.

So, you’re probably wondering, where are those rainbow shots and how the hell did they Warriors win? Due to election coverage, there were no photos that day. But to make up for the lack of images from Tuesday’s refracted, reflected and neglected light show, we’re going to dig into the 2010 archives and unearth another recent winter olympic classic.

The date was January 22, and it was late afternoon as I perused the thundercloud-filled sky. I started off by shooting the clouds over the wharf and Boardwalk, before heading down West Cliff and stopping at Woodrow Avenue to take in the sun hiding below the clouds. I then took in the clouds streaming from the north as the sets rolled in at Stockton Avenue. The last shot is from Natural Bridges, looking south back towards Lighthouse Point. All in all, a lot of drama in the sky on this rainbow-less night. Oh, and in case you missed the box score, Jason’s team won going away and clinched it’s first league title.

On to the Conan O’Brien-less late night humor. “Well, tomorrow in Nashville, Sarah Palin will speak at the Tea Party Convention. Tickets are $550 apiece. But Sarah Palin said she will not benefit from the speech. See, that way she’ll have something in common with the people in the audience.” –Jay Leno “I’ll tell you, you woke up this morning, and New York, a tremendous sight. I mean, it was whiter than a Tea Party rally. People are still talking about the Super Bowl. It was the most watched TV program of all time. The second most-watched event was the episode of ‘Dallas’ where J.R. gets shot in the face by Dick Cheney. This President Obama, I mean, give the guy credit. He keeps working and working and working. He’s going to invite a bunch of Republicans to have a televised debate on healthcare. It’s going to be a big, big event. As a matter of fact, at halftime The Who will be there doing a special song about Lipitor.” –David Letterman

“Sarah Palin’s also getting criticized because last week she demanded that Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, step down because he used the word retarded. But then, Rush Limbaugh did the same thing on his radio show and that, she said, was O.K. Unfortunately, she’s been unable to respond to the criticism because she’s wearing mittens. The federal government was shut down today, and they estimate it cost about $100 million in lost productivity. The House is literally stuck in the House, and they can’t do anything. I have to admit, it is nice to see lawmakers shoveling something else for a change, isn’t it?” –Jimmy Kimmel “Hey, be glad you’re not back East. Huge snowstorms. I don’t think Washington has seen a snow job like this since that last stimulus package.” –Jay Leno

“And with all this snow, President Obama told all nonessential White House employees they didn’t have to come in. Well, actually, just Joe Biden. It was so cold, Nancy Pelosi had to sit in her driveway for 10 minutes defrosting her eyeballs.
It was so cold, Sarah Palin had to cancel a speech because she didn’t want to take her gloves off to read.” –Jay Leno “Did everybody watch the Super Bowl? Everybody’s happy for New Orleans. In fact, FEMA announced plans to congratulate them in about two weeks.” –Jimmy Fallon “Osama bin Laden is very ecologically minded. Like, last year, it was documented by the C.I.A. that he switched to a hybrid camel.” –David Letterman

That’s our update from the winter games. Someone asked me last week if I learned anything from shooting clouds. In the words of Joni Mitchell, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow, it’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all.” Coming up next week will be our first guest blog of the year. This is one you’ll need your snow shoes for. Hope you caught some footage of the epic waves from Saturday’s Mavericks surf contest in Half Moon Bay which was described “as the best day ever.” So enjoy the skies and keep your eye on the NBA trading deadline. Aloha, mahalo and later, Kelly Slater fans.

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Good morning and greetings, State of the Union fans. Let's start off today's festivities with a quick no-look pass at the national scene. President Obama just celebrated his first year anniversary in the White House with cake and ice feelings. A year ago, he took the oath of office, promising to be, according to Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer "a transformational president who would cure our ills and cleanse our politics." Today, only 39% of people said they would vote for him again and over 70% put the blame for his failures on his being lefthanded.
As Obama himself has conceded, the country "has the right to be deflated," writes Sean Wilenz in the New York Daily News. My jump shot is in better shape than the President's health-care reform, the economy is unemployed, and Iraq and Afghanistann are a bigger mess than my garage. A year ago, Americans were talking about electing "another Lincoln." Adds Wilenz, today Obama looks "less like a political messiah and more like a victim of unrealistic expectations." Which sound hauntily familiar to my first year of coaching basketball at the Boys & Girls club.

On the other hand, the economy, unlike my archilles tendon eight years ago, didn't collapse (actually , I was kicked,) and unlike when I started losing my basketball quickness, the country didn't suffer through a depression. For those Americans who were looking for instant results or instant karma, there's been a lot of frustration, much like the feeling of missing a wide-open layup.

Overall, it's been a trying year for our Commander-in-Chief, who walked into a situation that was trickier than the questions in the math section of my SAT's. The question is, are we better off now than we were a year ago? Remember, Jim Rome wasn't built in a day, but for many Americans, these are very stressful times, particularly if you're a Golden State Warrior fan.

Moving right along, in the Declaration of Independence, which ranks right up there with the Gettysburg Address and John Belushi's "Animal House" rantings, "Over? Did you say 'over?' Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!," provides us with "life, liberty and the pursuit to view sunrises. Which leads me into today's point of interest. I ran across an article written by Abby Goodnough in the New York Times from January 5th. In it she wrote, in a new setback for a controversial wind farm proposed off of Cape Cod, which is not to be confused with a wind bag like Rush Limbaugh, the National Park Service announced that Nantucket Sound was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, guaranteeing further delays for the project.

Known as Cape Wind, the project is the nation’s first planned offshore wind farm and would cover 24 square miles in the sound, an area roughly the size of Manhattan, which we got from the Indians for $24 and a signed Derek Jeter baseball card. The park service decision came in response to a request from two Massachusetts Indian tribes, who said the 130 proposed wind turbines would thwart their spiritual ritual of greeting the sunrise, which requires unobstructed views across the sound, disturb ancestral burial grounds and change the television reception they receive for Red Sox home games.

In seeking the historical designation, the Wampanoag tribes — whose name translates to “people of the first light” — said their view to the east across Nantucket Sound was integral to their identity and cultural traditions. “Here is where we still arrive to greet the new day, watch for celestial observations in the night sky, follow the migration of the sun and stars in change with the season and watch Celtic games,” wrote Bettina Washington, historic preservation officer for the Aquinnah Wampanoag, in a letter to federal officials.

So this is where I pick up the story. What these two Indian tribes are asking for is the right to view an unobstructed sunrise, something they have done for a bit longer than I've been posting Sunrise Santa Cruz. They, more than anyone else, know that there is something spirtually cleansing to viewing the magnificence and beauty that daybreak brings to the dawning table. And I can relate to the "people of the first light," as at this stage of my life, I need some kind of light to read anything. The eyes may be the window to the soul, but I need those cheater glasses to see it. In conclusion, if it's important to Abby Goodnough, well, then that's good enough for me.

So for our photo journey, I have selected a montage of two shots of three different sunrises from the first eleven days of the new year. I could have gone with one more photo, but that would have been 7 from the first Eleven and that's just too much slurping for me.

Anyway, the first series is from January 2, just a wild display of some orange-tangerine wonder in the eastern sky above Lighthouse Point. We then move to the following day, where I was able to add my favorite arch to our photo ensemble. But my favorite sunrise of the year came eight days later on January 11, when I was shooting from Fair Avenue along West Cliff Drive and the sky just blew up with color. I shot from this spot to get a good overall view of the skies above Monterey Bay and it was just plastic fantastic. The windows of the houses along the cliff were glowing like my mind when people tell me that they were thinking about me while experiencing a beautiful sunrise. Reggie Jackson was known as "Mr. October." I'm thinking of myself as Mr. November, December and January.

Because of reruns, late night was a little light this week but here we go. "John McCain's wife and her daughter, Meghan, have posed for pictures endorsing gay marriage here in California, although Senator McCain — well, he's still very traditional. He believes marriage should be between an older man and a really hot-looking younger woman.
"Congratulations to the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. They're going to the Super Bowl. The Saints beat the Vikings. Former President George Bush Sr., he was at the game. Now, his son George W. was invited. But you know him, when it comes to New Orleans, he's always, like, two weeks late." – Jay Leno

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that California can save money by no longer incarcerating illegal immigrants and just sending them to Mexico instead. Well, actually, today, the immigrants had three words for Schwarzenegger – 'I'll be back.'" "Wal-Mart announced it's cutting over 11,000 jobs. "That's an amazing amount of people: The problem is they made the announcement in English, so everybody kept showing up for work." –Jay Leno "It's Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff's birthday today and he celebrated, spent the entire day waving to Sarah Palin." –David Letterman

So that's our first blast from the month of February. Last week I mentioned rumors of a guest blog, but much like Brett Favre going to Miami, it just didn't happen. But it shall and there are also major snow drifts on the horizon. And don't worry, I've got lots more sunrises waiting on the cyber runway. And just to keep the presidential record straight, President Obama would like to see the Saints win it all next Sunday. Michelle, on the other hand, is excited about checking out Peter Townsend and the Who at halftime. Or as she put it to her hubby the other day, "Barack, can you hear me"? That's it Tommy fans, enjoy Super Bowl Sunday and we'll catch you on the winner's podium. Aloha, mahalo and later, Archie Manning fans.

Good morning and greetings, January Jones fans. Yes, the first decade of the new millenium, much like my quick first step on the basketball floor, is now history. And like the season finale of “Sons of Anarchy,” I wanted our first sacrificial offering for 2010 something special. And I believe if you click on this week’s photos, in the words of my personal choice for man of the decade, George W. Bush, “Mission Accomplished.”

A few years ago, when I started to devote my early morning/late afternoon life to this sunrise/sunset obsession, an idea floated thru my mind like a Karch Kiraly set at match point. After seeing a book displaying a year’s worth of sunsets shot from the Oakland hills starring the Golden Gate Bridge, I thought to myself, what about a book featuring sunrises from all 50 states? How stars and stripish would that be?

Then I thought to myself, that’s too much territory to cover, and besides, I’m exhausted just going to the bank and CVS, so like a garter snake, I scaled the project back and thought, why don’t I just do the western states? Sunrises from Albuquerque, Boulder and Tucson, kind of a Diana Ross, “Ain’t No Mountain High” theme. But then I thought, I need to take a nap after trekking thru the gigantic new Safeway on the westside, so out went New Mexico, Hannah Montana and sweet home Arizona. Kind of the less is more school of thought.

So, in moving ahead with this mental menagerie of early morning imagery, I settled on the idea of dawnbusters from just the Golden State. Yeah, that’s the ticket, sunrises from up and down the coast of California. And maybe we’ll throw in a little Death Valley, Squaw Valley and in keeping with my new totally organic vegan lifestyle, a couple of Nature Valley granola bars.

But then I thought, it’s an awfully large state, and for sunrise workers the day ends absurdly early, so I thought, forget the whole state, we’ll stick with northern California. But then I thought of all the wear and tear of driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, so I got down to the Pigeon Point and thought, let’s just focus on sunrises and sunsets from Santa Cruz County. But then I thought, can I really handle the pressure of driving to the eastside or Capitola in the morning? Why don’t I just stick with my eminent domain and photograph sunrises from Lighthouse Point and West Cliff Drive.

And that, boys and squirrels, is where we find ourselves today. Somebody call Maria, it’s a Westside Story. My ambition runneth over.

That brings us to today’s photographic extravanganza. To start off the new year we are jetting from the coast to one of Moses’ favorite locations, Palm Desert, where there was no burning bush but where I burned everytime I heard the name George Bush. My digital mission was to part my own reddish Sea while bringing down ten commandments, or at least six photographs that were worthy of this cyber jury.

During my holiday tour of duty, where I ate like a ravenous shetland pony, I witnessed droves of exotic desert clouds, two spectacular sunrises, one fabulous sunset, one surprise rainbow, two turtle doves and a Partridge Family in a pear tree. Today’s entree, which comes with your choice of soup or salad, is a sunrise from the final week of December. I shot it on the back nine of the golf course at the lovely Palm Valley Country Club, where I spent ten rigorous days of hot tubbing, movie watching, pleasure reading and snacking like Orson Welles on Jenny Craig. There was no smoke on the water, but there was definitely fire in the sky.

Palm Desert is east of Palm Springs, about an two hour drive from the City of Angels, which for you Dodger fans is Los Angeles. It’s located in the Coachella Valley, which is surrounded by the San Jacinto mountains, which change color throughout the day, depending on cloud cover and the daily special at Sherman’s Deli, with two convenient locations for you fresh rye bread, hot corn beef and stuffed cabbage fans. I believe the group America summed up the desert experience best back in 1972 with the words, “I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name. It felt good to get out of the rain.”

So let’s catch up on the late night action. “There are a lot of holiday parties coming up at the White House. Obama is getting ready to host the Administration’s first Hanukkah party tomorrow. Kind of an embarrassing moment, though. Today, after they lit the menorah, Biden blew it out and made a wish.” –Jimmy Fallon “During an interview last night, Oprah Winfrey asked President Obama what grade he would give himself for his first year in office and he said a ‘B-plus.’ Then, Oprah shook her head and said, ‘I didn’t pay for a B-plus.'” –Conan O’Brien “Big day for President Obama. He accepted his Nobel Prize today and then got right back to the business of running two wars.” –David Letterman President Obama’s daughter Sasha says that she already bought her dad’s gift. She won’t say what it is but she did say, ‘It’s something he likes.’ Which begs the question: How did an 8-year-old get her hands on a carton of Marlboro Lights?” –Conan O’Brien

“Computer technicians in Washington say they have found 22 million missing emails from President George W. Bush’s Administration. And you can tell the emails are from the Bush Administration because they all begin, ‘Dear Santa. According to a new poll that just came out, 44 percent of Americans wish President Bush were back in office. However it’s only 20 percent if you exclude comedy writers. Former President Bush is writing his memoirs and he says they will focus on 12 major decisions he made in his life. The weird thing is, 11 of them were made by Dick Cheney. Former President Bush is currently working on his memoirs and he said he’s completed about 85 percent. His exact quote was, ‘I’m halfway done.'” –Conan O’Brien

“A man in Minnesota was arrested on Monday for trying to throw tomatoes at Sarah Palin during a book signing. Luckily, Palin was able to shoot them out of the air” –Seth Meyers
“It sure is cold. So cold that Osama bin Laden was seen hiding in the border region between Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.” –David Letterman “The wife of Al Qaeda’s second in command is now calling on women to become suicide bombers. To qualify, they must be able to push a car loaded with explosives, because, as you know, women aren’t allowed to drive over there.” –Jay Leno “In China, an animal trainer taught his monkeys Kung fu — and then they attacked him using his best kung fu moves. Luckily, they were no match for the parrot he’d taught to fire a gun.” –Conan O’Brien

So, resolution fans, that’s our first blast of the New Year. I hope everyone had a somewhat relaxing and enjoyable holiday, as this was a difficult time for many families throughout our nation. As for myself, I’ve been shooting away like Annie Leibowitz in bankrupcty court and the six pics photo features are now lined up in my computer like jets sitting on the runway at LAX. So much like Kobe Bryant fans and LeBron James lovers, we have a lot to look forward to this year. So get ready for the NFL playoffs and we’ll catch you in running the deep post pattern. Aloha, mahalo and later, Philip Rivers fans.

Good morning and greetings, change we can believe in fans. Well, it’s December, which means the holiday season is upon us along with office parties, college Bowl Games and the pressure to figure out what gift to buy for that special boss or co-worker who you could really care less about. Yes, mistletoe fans, I’m already knee-deep in the holiday spirit.

Despite Derek Jeter and the Yankees winning the World Series, 2010 has been a somewhat challenging year. One long-time friend suddenly passed away, another sufffered a heart attack and then there was the balloon boy. Not that I’m feeling vulnerable, but I’m at the point that when I feel a pain anywhere in the chest area, I’m thinking, heart attack, any discomfort in the stomach area, appendicitis and if I have cramps, I’m already picking out baby names. As I’ve mentioned before, I’d like to strangle the advertising executive who came up with the slogan “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better. Well, he’s close, I’m getting older all right, but I’m getting bitter.

Actually, it’s not as bad as I’m making it sound, although there are some things that happened this week that made me shake my head and wonder, what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on? Let’s start with Tiger Woods, or should I say, Tiger Wouldn’t? You’ve got a gorgeous Swedish wife who makes delicious pancakes, two beautiful kids and enough money to buy Hannah Montana and you can’t keep it in your pants? Do the words honesty, trust or faithfulness mean anything to you or your caddie? Then again, he’s no different than Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, half the Republican lawmakers and a multitude of sports superstars. I’m no New Orleans Saint, but c’mon, Eldrick, keep your putter in your golf bag.

I also find the situation in Afghanistan somewhat confusing and disappointing. I love President Obama, I think he’s the best thing to happen to this country since the invention of TiVo, but his plans to deploy 30,000 more troops to be put in harms way to fight the Taliban is difficult to swallow. The Afghan goverment, coming off the rigged election is a mockery of a sham of a travesty, and just ask the Russians how easy it is to fight an enemy in a country where opium is king. The Taliban are the devil and the need to crush Al Queda is quite understandable but at the risk of how many lives? I hate to be too serious in this blog, but the President’s decision has crushed the hopes of many who thought change was in the air. Can you imagine what he would have done had he not won the Nobel Peace prize? We’re eight years into this war and just the thought of this new surge leaves me tired, emotionally drained and Bushed.

Getting back to my aging process, this week I had to make a very easy decision and wave the white flag to my son, Jason. We have been playing one-on-one basketball since he was old enough to double dribble and has never beaten me, and due to the Geneva Convention and my personal Bill of Rights, I’ve never allowed him to win. We had some close encounters of the below the rim kind this summer but he was never quite able to get over the hump. That could have been due to the fact that I kept the score and never let him know it was game point till I was one away.

Anyway, we were playing last week and with his quickness, jumping ability and incredible genes, I realized I’d have to be at the top of my game to ever to beat him again. So, like any aging racehorse going out to stud, I told him that I will never play him again when we keep score so I can be led out to pasture with an undefeated record. Now, a bigger man would have played him again for the inevitable father-son pasage of rights but I am not that kind of man. In the words of Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, when asked if he were a man or mouse, Moe replied, “Put a piece of cheese in front of me and you’ll find out.” Or as I say, live brie or die.”

Today’s photo fantasy tour comes to us from the month of November. The first two shots are the sun rising and cascading over the water at Steamer Lane. We then head over to Natural Bridges to see some magnificence in the western skies before finishing up with a sunrise shot that should have been first but got jumbled to due global warming and my declining basketball skills. There was a incredibly beautiful sunset that came out of nowhere this past Friday, but due to the fact that I was still basking in the glow of my son’s 21 point, 10 assist performance earlier in the day I was unaware that the sky would soon be aglow and missed it. It was as spectacular as Jason’s third quarter ending buzzer beater. It just goes to show, Ansel Adams fans, that I am still a work in progress.

On the the late fight funnies. “New reports on Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’ bus tour. They say she’s been traveling on private planes to various stops and then just hops in the bus at the local town. So, let’s see what you got. You have Sarah Palin, who’s no longer governor, who’s promoting a book she didn’t actually write by going on a bus tour which is not really a bus. Her big complaint? Politicians who aren’t real. Hey, congratulations. Chelsea Clinton just got engaged to her longtime boyfriend. That’s very exciting. And I understand Bill is already planning the bachelor party.” –Jay Leno “Speaking from West Point, NY, the President announced he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next six months and 2,000 additional troops to Tiger Woods’s mansion in Orlando. Peacekeeping forces.” –Jimmy Kimmel

We were a little light on the late night humor so here are a couple of jokes that will hopefully fill the bill. A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later, there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says “What the hell was that all about?”

A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence: he’s allowed to say two words every seven years. After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. “Cold floors,” he says. They nod and send him away. Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two words. He clears his throats and says, “Bad food.” They nod and send him away. Seven more years pass. They bring him in for his two words. “I quit,” he says. “That’s not surprising,” the elders say. “You’ve done nothing but complain since you got here.”

So that’s our show. Birthday wishes go out to my old radio partner, Jerry Hoffman, who shares the day of December 12 with yours truly. Jerry, who you can read at www.12sportsonline.com, can still turn the double play at second and in his mind is the Chase Utley of central coast. So for you apple sauce and sour cream lovers like myself, enjoy the festival of lights and potato latke experience of Hanukah that begins on Friday night. We’ll catch you in the right flat. Aloha, mahalo and later, Drew Brees fans.

Good morning and greetings, NBA fans. Per my psychiatrist’s orders, I was walking along West Cliff Drive last week, hoping that the edge of the continent would help enlighten me as to what to write about. And then, while being serenaded by the crashing waves, chains of pelicans and lost tourists, I remembered my wife telling me that I was soon going to turn 57. Fifty-seven! The number blows my mind. Holy middle age, Batman.

When I think fifty-seven, I usually think Heinz 57 Sauce, not the amount of candles atop my birthday cake. That’s a little too close to the big six oh. And here I am, at age 56, and I still haven’t decided whether I want to be a fireman, policeman or vice-president when I grow up.

So that got me to thinking, at this stage of the game, and we’re talking middle innings, I should write about what I’m grateful for. I’m not trying to get too personal, just trying to give you cyber readers and blog stalkers a little insight inside the mind, the spirit and occasional psychotic breaks that go into making Sunrise Santa Cruz.

Both are my parents are alive and living in Santa Cruz. My father is 92 and my mother, who didn’t breast feed me, is 83. Some thirty-odd years ago, on a hot summer night back in New Jersey with the humidity over 100%, I told my parents they should move to Santa Cruz. I wasn’t sure if they heard me over the whirring of the air conditioner, but a few years later they showed up on my doorstep at West Cliff Drive, wondering if they could stay for the night. Turns out they had sold their house and business, put their stuff in storage and manifest destinied to the west coast.

Well, that one night turned into five months, before I had to have them evicted for too many late night parties. At the time my modeling career going full bore and I needed my beauty sleep. They are now living happily in semi-retirement, enjoying the good life in Santa Cruz while running a small interstate bookmaking operation.

The house on West Cliff Drive, where I spent my wonder years (1975-89), is also where I met my wife, Allison. I was advertising for a quiet, female roommate and she showed up, spied the ocean view and asked when could she move in. I explained to her it wasn’t that simple. She then told me her father had Laker’s season tickets at the Fabulous Forum (3rd row across from the visitor’s bench) and I said, in that case, forget last month’s rent and a deposit, you’re in.

Then, after nine years, we rushed into marriage and the rest is AP World History. She is the greatest thing to ever happen to me, not including the time my freshman basketball coach stormed into the lockerroom at halftime and screamed, “Dammit, no one is playing any defense out there except for Gilbert.” Ah, high school memories.

Our marriage has produced two children and a golden retriever. Jason is a 5′ 10″ high school sophomore, with a 5′ 9″ wingspan, who speaks Spanish like the maitre de at the Tacqueria La Cabana. He is a smart, sensitive, funny kid who someday would like me to pay for his medical school. I still remember the day he told me, “Dad, I either want to be a doctor or the Oakland A’s video guy.” I am extremely proud of him and will be even prouder the day he dunks a basketball in traffic off the fast break.

My daughter Aimee is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed gift from God. She is a gifted artist who also has big ambitions. She told me one day that she either wanted to be a lawyer or a hair dresser. She knows how to make her father laugh. She has the smile, the glow and an aura surrounding her, and most importantly, can throw strikes all day as a lefty softball pitcher.

Which brings me to our golden retriever, Summer. Some say there’s no such thing as love at first sight, but when I saw that tubby, little six-week-old ball of fur, I was hooked, line and sinker. Unlike Jason and Aimee, she hasn’t mentioned any plans for the future, just that she wants to be fed and covered by President Obama’s new health care program.

That’s the immediate family. I’ve got two brothers and an imaginery sister. My brother Paul lives in Marin County and created all the “NBA action, it’s fantastic” promos when he was Director of Video Promotion for the league back in New York. He claims I didn’t speak to him for a week after he beat me in ping ping for the first time (never happened,) and even if he did, it wouldn’t have been more than two or three days.

My brother Brad resides in Boulder, Colorado and is CEO, President and head chef at People Productions, which involves Intelligently Integrated Media and delicious gluten free desserts. My youngest brother is very devoted to his work, as exemplified by the example he sets for his employees by snowboarding in as much fresh powder as possible during office hours.

And finally, as Jennifer Aniston once told me, you’ve got to have friends. Over the past year, through some difficult days, many of you have touched my heart, pancreas and other vital organs. Now, there are way too many of you to mention here, although if any of you had sponsored this blog, you’d have top billing. In any case, I’ll mention a few.
I had lunch on Friday with my oldest non-New Jersey pal, Doug, whom I’ve known for 38 years, yet, still don’t know his last name. I have a incredible friend and confidante named Nancy Mager, whom I speak to almost every day, and who fortunately allows me to call her collect. And then there is my old Garden State pal Steve, who I struck out swinging twice in our minor league championship game and who still remembers the grin on my face. Steve and I go way back, I knew him before there was history.

All right, enough of my life story. For our photo runway, we’re heading over to Natural Bridges State Beach. This would come under the heading, something old, something new. The first three shots are from a sunset from this week back in 2005, before Michelle Obama started going sleeveless. The last three images are from an outrageous night back on October 26, when this cloud formation lit up the western sky and dazzled partygoers, sports fans and focus groups gathered along the West Cliff Drive.

On to some late night humor. “Sarah Palin announced that she’s gonna travel across the country on a bus to promote her new book. She’ll be hard to miss ’cause it’ll be the only bus on the road with a dead moose strapped on the hood.” –Conan O’Brien “On Monday, Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Palin will sit down and they’re going to talk for an entire hour. And I was thinking, too bad John McCain didn’t do that with her before he chose her as his running mate.” –David Letterman “CBS News is reporting that President Obama has decided to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Obama says it’s all part of his plan to finally deliver on the campaign promises made by John McCain” –Jimmy Fallon

“President Obama is traveling to Asia this week. He’ll be making a trip to China. While he’s there, Obama plans to visit the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and America’s money.” –Conan O’Brien “Al Gore was here in New York yesterday signing copies of his new book ‘Our Choice’ at Barnes and Noble. It was strange, Gore wouldn’t write his name. He just signed each book, ‘I’m sorry, tree.'” –Jimmy Fallon “The AMA is urging the Federal Government not to classify marijuana as a dangerous drug and do more research. That’s what they said. It’s a big story, yeah. Yeah, that request came not only from the AMA but also from KFC.” –Conan O’Brien

“Three young Americans have been charged with espionage in Iran after straying into the country while hiking in Iraq. Now, obviously, we all pray for their safe return. But hiking in Iraq? I mean — you know, if you’re hiking in Iraq and Iran, you might want to get a you new travel agent. I mean, who goes hiking in Iraq? What was the rafting trip to Somalia all booked up?” –Jay Leno “Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who was forced to resign because he used prostitutes, will deliver a lecture tomorrow at the Harvard center for Ethics. Yeah, if you want to check out the speech, it costs $500 for half an hour, $900 if you want to stay for the whole hour.” –Jimmy Fallon “Chrysler announced it’s coming out with a new logo that’s going to appear on all of its cars, and they hope it will boost sales. And it should help, because the new logo says, ‘Toyota.'” –Conan O’Brien

That’s it for our mid-November report. I’d like to welcome some new folks to the blog, who I met this weekend at the Autumn Artisans Faire. Glad you’re along for the ride. And thanks to everyone out there who has read this far down in this posting. So enjoy the November skies and we’ll catch you on the far sideline. Aloha, mahalo and later, Peyton Manning fans.

Good morning and greetings, autumn fans. Yes, just a week ago, we experienced the change of seasons. What this means is that summer, like my 40’s, is now pretty much history. We are talking solstice city. In New England, the leaves are turning red and orange, in Colorado, the aspen trees are painted gold, while in California, my once brownish-blondish hair continues to evolve into various shades of silver.

Somehow, somewhere, in last week’s post I failed to acknowledge the passing of my favorite season. Actually, I’m very much into the Four Seasons as grew up listening to Frankie Valli. I’ll always cherish those words, “Dawn, go away I’m no good for you” yet my path still led to Sunrise Santa Cruz. Who knew besides Sherry baby and I wonder, will we ever really know if she came out tonight?

So let’s reflect back for a moment on summer, 2009, a time of love, peace and happiness, or at least that’s how the Chambers Brothers might have described it. In our own bankrupt Golden State, raging fires burned out of control, scorching everything in their path. In Washington, the Republicans felt the love and got behind President Obama and his national health care plan by shouted, “You lie!” And most importantly, in Hollywood, fireman Tommy Gavin was shot in the shoulder by his crazed Uncle Teddy in the season ending episode of “Rescue Me,” thus leaving us to wonder, will he survive this carnage and if he does, will he be covered by his health insurance? Once again, I try leaving no rock unturned in my continuing quest to probe the important issues of our day.

For this week’s photosynthesis we are looking at three days of pelican action along West Cliff Drive. The first two shots are from a feeding frenzy that was an all-day affair. The birds were going wild for some kind of baitfish that was running-I hadn’t seen a feeding frenzy like that since back in the 80’s when we used to hit the Ming Dynasty in Aptos for their Friday all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. We’re used devour those crispy eggs rolls, tangy cashew chicken and outrageously delicious garlic shrimp like they were anchovies in black bean sauce. It was pure mu shu madness.

The only thing missing from these these pelicans on parade are sounds of the screaming gulls and some sweet and sour sauce. The beautiful thing is the next morning I came back to shoot the sunrise and there wasn’t a pelican or fried won ton in sight. I later learned they had gathered at the Dream Inn to eat breakfast-turns out they’re big fans of the Ahi Benedict and the stuffed french toast.

Moving along, in the words of the Allman Brothers Dickie Betts, “You’re my blue sky, you’re my sunny day,” is where we find our next squadron of pelicans cruising the cliff before heading off into yonder. We commence today’s aviary activity with a backdrop of the clouds that have convened upon the Monterey Bay skies. The fall is always prime time on the central coast for these prehistoric-looking birds so I’m trying to be seaonally correct. I heard the other night that pelicans can actually be found in Montana, which I found rather interesting as much like myself, I thought they were only a coastal bird. Well, you know what they say, live and burn. Disco inferno.

On to the late night hilarity. “Speaking of President Bush, did you see him last night at the big football game? It was the Giants and Cowboys down there in Texas. And President Bush did the coin toss at the start of the game. Now here’s a bit of trivia. The coin that they used to start the game was the same coin that the Supreme Court tossed that won Bush the election. You know the former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin? She’s traveling all over the world now, speaking gigs. And she went to Hong Kong and gave a speech. They paid her $300,000 for the speech, the Chinese, $300,000 for the speech. I guess she apparently could see the cash from her house.” –David Letterman “Today’s the first day of autumn, although Sarah Palin said today the dying leaves are because of Obama’s health-care plan.” –Jay Leno

“Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is coming to New York to address the United Nations, but many restaurants say they won’t serve him. You can tell which ones because their signs read, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no Holocaust, no service.’ Today’s a big day. The MacArthur Foundation gave out its annual genius awards. This year’s awards went to a journalist, a mental health scientist, and a couple who sold their house three years ago. The Senate just passed a bill allowing Amtrak passengers to carry guns in their checked luggage. However, folks, Greyhound passengers are still not allowed to carry deodorant.” –Conan O’Brien

“You know who was here last night? President Barack Obama was here last night. Politics notwithstanding, what a graceful guy. I mean, after the show, he was nice enough to autograph my swine-flu mask.” –David Letterman “The U.S. government is giving American Indian tribes $224 million of stimulus money to help fight crime on reservations. The tribes say that they’re grateful for the money and plan to bet it all on black.” –Jimmy Fallon “Well, according to the Los Angeles Times, the immigrant population in California actually declined last year. When asked if they had noticed, 80 percent of the people in California said, ‘Si.'” –Jay Leno

So that’s our show for the week. Congratulations go out to the New York Yankees for sweeping the Red Sox over the weekend and clinching the American League East title. And further congrats to the Giants and the Jets, who were both NFL winners yesterday and now stand at 3-0. And if you’re a 49er fan, that was a devastating loss yesterday on a last second TD pass by 80-year-old Brett Favre. NFL action-its fantastic.

So thanks for tuning in and I hope to see this weekend at the Open Studios Art Tour 2009. I’ll be the guy in the Hawaiian shirt. We’ll catch you in the deep center. Aloha, mahalo and later, C.C. Sabathia fans.

Good morning and greetings, August fans. A few posts back, I wrote about the summer humidity on the east coast as compared to the summer frigidity that inhabits our central coast. This past week, on my early morning jaunts along West Cliff Drive, the ground and air were soaking wet. I hadn’t experienced that kind of moistness since I roasted a cornish game hen in honor of Anthony Randolph’s spectacular play in the Las Vegas summer league. I was thinking, here we are in the middle of fog season, while other parts of the nation are sweltering like Scotter Libby before the pardons board. Across the country, the weather has been wackier than Mark Sanford’s travel intinerary.

Meanwhile, 3,000 miles to the east, New York experienced it second coldest July on record. Fortunately, Mark Teixeira and New York Yankee bats were hot which counteracted the lack of summer sun for beachgoers and Met’s fans. Up and down the eastern seaboard it’s been cold and wet, as frustrated families ask themselves, “Where is summer?” I believe right next to thumbkin.

At the same time, last week in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle recorded the hottest temperature in its history at 103 while Portland topped out at 106, one shy of the all-time record. We are talking a major Martha and the Vandellas heat wave, my marine layer loving friends. Folks in these parts were flocking to the coast faster than Brandon Roy scorching up the floor on a Blazer fast break.

So as the moist air filled my delicate lungs, I was hit with my usual early morning revelations. I never ceased to be amazed by the 24/7 travelcade of birds as the flyways along the edge of the continent are always going full tilt. Prehistoric looking pelicans fly by in both directions, sometimes stopping to dive headfirst in search of some fish sticks, cormorants furiously flapping their wings in flight while their compatriots line the cliff walls. Throw in some screaming gulls, exotic pigeons and other various sea birds and I’ve painted your daily aerial display. It reminds me of the first time I visited Yankee Stadium. I was initially shocked by the foul language, drugs and alcohol, and those were just the security guards.

So once again, you may be thinking, what’s this bi-monthly obsession with byrds? The answer, my friends, is not blowing in the wind. There is a reason that I come out blasting with my Canon. And a time for every purpose under heaven. It’s my honest attempt to turn, turn, turn and try and churn out the best stream of conciousness this mind has to offer. And as we know, a mime is a terrible thing to waste.

Today’s photo lineup takes us back to the north coast, as we return to the sands of Four Mile Beach. When I’m looking for large quantities of gulls draped against the background of cumulating clouds, there’s no other place in this area I’d rather be. If you were to shoot these same shots without the birds in the sky, it’s an empty landscape. These gulls just wanting to have fun give the pictures life, liberty and in my case, the pursuit of semi-happiness. Here’s the bottom line. I love shooting birds and three-pointers. Just seeing them in motion and hearing the sound of the ball swishing thru the net, to paraphrase the Doobie Brothers, “it keeps me running.”

Let’s go to the late night. “Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin resigned yesterday, and during her speech, she was heckled. Apparently, it was just someone in Russia yelling, ‘Keep it down over there!'” –Conan O’Brien “Sarah Palin’s decision to resign has resulted in an 18-point drop in her approval rating among Americans and a 52-point drop among terrified moose. She says she’s going to divide her time between traveling to support conservative causes and learning to pronounce the ‘G’ at the end of words” –Jimmy Kimmel “Some people now are saying, this is true, that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wants to host her own TV show. The show is going to be called ‘Am I More Coherent Than a Fifth Grader?'” –Conan O’Brien

“This August, President Obama is renting a vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s amazing. It has a basketball court, swimming pool, apple orchard and a driving range. The president says he can’t wait to shoot hoops, while Michelle looks forward to pulling apple trees out of the ground with her bare hands.” –Jimmy Fallon “President Obama held a Q & A session about healthcare reform with senior citizens over the Internet. Unfortunately, the senior citizens spent the entire hour typing questions into their microwave ovens. “President Obama is hosting a delegation of 150 Chinese officials in Washington. Among the questions the Chinese have for the U.S.: ‘What’s your military policy? What is your stance on global warming? And where’s our money?'” –Conan O’Brien

“Of course, President Obama has invited Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and the policeman who arrested him to the White House. Reportedly, Obama is going to serve them Budweiser. And in the spirit of racial harmony, Budweiser is changing its nickname from the ‘King of Beers’ to the ‘Martin Luther King of Beers.'” –Conan O’Brien “Now here’s the way President Obama likes to do stuff. They had this problem up there at Harvard. So President Obama says, ‘Here’s what we’ll do. Come to the White House. We’ll settle our differences. We’ll have a beer.’ And if it works for those guys he’s going to try it with Jon and Kate, and he is going it to try it with the Israelis and Hamas. “And then in the spirit of this, I thought it was nice today, Rush Limbaugh called up Professor Gates and Officer Crowley and he invited them over for some OxyContin.” –David Letterman

So that’s our first post for August 2009. I’ll be taking next week off, as the Gilbert family is heading to Sunset Beach on the fabled north shore of Oahu. In between body painting seminars and cooking with coconut classes, I’ll be studying the effects on the psyche of gentle trade winds, scented plumerias and most importantly, warm ocean water that doesn’t lead to shrinkage action. Of course, it will all be documented for those of you not making a trip to the South Pacific or the new Safeway on the westside this summer.

So enjoy the weeks before the back to school fever kicks in. And again, thanks to Aimee and Jason Gilbert for their guest blogs. Now if they would just stop asking me about royalties. We’ll catch you at Waimea Bay. Aloha, mahalo and later, Pipeline fans.

Good morning and greetings, sunrise fans. As I was walking along West Cliff Drive earlier this week, I thought to myself, what should I write about in this week’s blog? What pearls of wisdom should I give forth to my cyber optics? Perhaps it’s my ongoing fascination with NBA basketball? Or the top ten reasons why cranberry and apple sauce go with almost everything. Or maybe the reasons why the networks were so insanely obsessed with the death of Michael Jackson, while our soldiers dying in Afghanistan barely get a mention. For the record, we’re at 104 and counting in 2009.

So many subjects and way too much time. Mick Jagger once said, “Time, time time, is on my side, yes it is.” But that’s the funny thing. The one thing we never know is actually how much time we have on this earth, wind and fire. All of a sudden I feel like I’m Fox Mulder in an “X-Files” episode. And where the hell is Agent Scully?

So I’m strolling along on the edge of the continent on this somewhat foggy morning, wearing a jacket and then it Tony Orlando and dawns on me, why not write about the weather? Or in the words of Bob Dylan, “You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.” Every time I hear that I feel like taking over an administration building.

Here it is, mid-Julyish, and I’m wearing a jacket in the morning. Back in the old country, and I’m talking New Jersey, the only reason you’d need a jacket in July would be to hang yourself because of the moisture in the air. Phil Collins said, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight.” He was talking major humidity, my friends. And as the boys from Steely Dan know, “Any major dude with half a heart will tell you, my friend,” that humidity is first degree murder. There’s no pleading manslaughter when it comes to this summer bummer.

I used to spend my summers back on the east coast. These summer dreams that made me feel fine consisted of weekend getaways to Jones Beach on Long Island, which cemented my love affair with the oceanfront experience. We’re also talking thin-sliced, cheese pizza that God would go crazy over, Chinese food that you’d dream about and weather that would just be horrendous. I’m talking about the annual summer humidity festival, where the only safe place would be inside an air conditioned bunker, watching Yankee games while feasting on Good Humor Whammy sticks.

Throw in some Three Stooges in the afternoon, hikes along the Palisades cliffs with my golden retriever and dehydrating basketball in the evening and that’s a good part of my east coast story. But the weather was always a determining factor in whether we ventured out into the unreal world. Reports from a Tucson-based field scout tells me that, until recently, the Boston area has seen just three days of true sun since the beginning of May. I believe that’s called Red Sox karma.

I remember as a child back in the Garden State, the New York Mets would embark on a road trip to the west coast. I would watch TV and see fans sitting in the stands at Candlestick Park in San Francisco wearing down jackets and thinking, are we living on the same planet? Down jackets in August? I hadn’t put on a shirt all day and here were these people freezing in Willie Mays country. I believe that was the jump start of my manifest destiny. Or as Jack Nicholson once said, “go Jerry West, young man, go west.”

That bring us back to the present time. As you know, the weather is so diverse around the country. Hail storms the size of matzoh balls, torrential rains causing flooding in the midwest while severe drought torments the west. If you check out the national temperature extremes from last Wednesday, we had a high of 116 in Death Valley with a low of 25 in Bodie State Park, CA. That’s quite the difference, just like Al Gore would have been from George W. Bushed. We probably would have been fighting global warming and not Osama Been Hiding. Or as George Carlin once commented, “The weather’s dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high.”

Let’s bring on today’s photo fisticuffs. We harken back to November of 2006 and the place, of course, is Lighthouse Point and Its Beach. This is one of those world-class sunrises that comes with the Santa Cruz lifestyle package. As you can see, the sky changed color more often than AIG gives out bonuses to their executives. If you look closely at photo #5, you can see my golden retriever taking in the morning magnificence. A great, great beginning to a central coast day, and one that I think was certainly James worthy of this cyber audience.

The late night quipsters are back. “President Obama is in Russia. Today he waved to Sarah Palin. Then he met with Putin. Meanwhile, in Arizona, John McCain was chasing kids off his lawn.” –David Letterman “President Obama went there because from Russia, you can actually see Sarah Palin cleaning out her office in Alaska.” –Conan O’Brien “But he’s over there. He’s talking about getting some major concessions from the Russians. And Russia has agreed — now, this is surprising — they agreed now to produce fewer nuclear warheads and more hot tennis babes.” –David Letterman

“It’s an emotional day. A lot of us are still mourning the loss of one of America’s most entertaining figures, who left us all too soon. But don’t worry, folks, Sarah Palin will be back. In a recent study, the United States was ranked the 114th happiest country in the world. Then Sarah Palin stepped down. Now we’re at 17. Since resigning as governor, many say Sarah Palin is now going to spend some time working on her memoirs. Alaskans are saying they can’t wait to start reading Palin’s memoirs and then quit halfway through.” –Conan O’Brien

“Here’s something wacky. Osama bin Laden’s first wife — and this guy has literally like 40 wives, well his first wife, wife No. 1, is writing a book all about Osama bin Laden. It’s a fascinating story. And it talks about when Osama was 16 years old, when he was just a kid, listen to this, he wrecked the family camel. But the book is going to be huge. It’s being published by Random Cave. Kim Jong Il today made rare public appearance. Here’s what happened. He saw the shadow of his hair, went back in his hole. And finally, David Letterman’s Top Ten Questions Bernie Madoff Asked Today In Prison. 10. Has it been 150 years yet? 2. Will someone TiVo ‘America’s Got Talent’ for me for the next 149 years?

That’s our show. My children have returned from lovely Costa Rica with enough photos to rival Animal Planet, so we have some special guest blogs coming down the pike. Sarah Palin continues to amaze me, and after reading the behind the scenes stuff from the presidential campaign, I am just astounded by this Alaskan snow babe. Or to quote Todd S. Purdum in this month’s Vanity Fair, “She is by far the best looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare dance with the big dogs.” She is as wacky with the truth as a fruit cake, and I believe has bitten off a lot more than she could ever possibly chew.

So enjoy the week and every once in a while in a while, think about our troops that are fighting overseas. And their families who are paying a very heavy price. We’ll catch you somewhere in the infield. Aloha, mahalo and later, Albert Pujos fans.

Good morning and greetings, rock and roll fans. It’s been a wild week on the news front, with my favorite story coming out of Pyongyang, where fun-loving North Korea is talking about obliterating the good ol’ US of A. Standing smack in their crosshairs is Hawaii, which is being threatened with a nuclear tipped missle, topped off with a side order of short ribs. Think what you want about that little dictator, Kim Jong-il, but this pint-sized maniac, who gets a kick out of starving his people and locking up a couple of our journalists, is now threatening to devastate the Aloha state .

I am heading over to the islands in August for a warm water meditation retreat. Before the threat from this “proud nuclear power,” my biggest concerns were sunburn, overipe pineapples or a wandering school of jellyfish, not radiation poisoning. Over in Oahu, they still remember the horror of Pearl Harbor the same way I continually dream about not being ready tests in school. But I’ve always shared a special kinship with Korea, ever since my basketball coach had us playing a demilitarized zone on defense back in high shcool.

And then there was the tragic passing of the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson, who died last week at the age of 50. I believe ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel summed it up best when he said, “What’s especially sad is that most people of a certain generation only know Michael Jackson as a crazy guy who had a lot of plastic surgery — whereas the truth is, he was not only an unbelievably talented, groundbreaking performer, he also helped break down the racial prejudice in this country. He was an extremely powerful symbol — a black performer who whites could relate to and then later in life, a white performer who blacks could relate to.” I loved the Jackson Five, especially Reggie, when he played rightfield for the Yankees.

Of course, there are the crazy goings on in Iran, the continuing and escalating violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wandering governor from South Carolina and the death of Farrah Fawcett. We’ll cover some of those topics in our late night comedy segment but let’s move on to our photo finish.

Today’s colorful theme takes us back to my favorite place to shoot the sunrise on the central coast. We’ll be seeing lots of Lighthouse Point and Its Beach throughout the summer as I blaze my own Appalachian trail through my photo archives. There has been very little color in the June skies due to fog, the marine layer and the breakup of Jon and Kate. So today we are journeying back to 2007, to a time when Phil Spector was still a free man, John Ensign was still faithful to his wife and Bernie Madoff sons still spoke to him.

The first three shots are from a sunrise in early March that came before a huge storm, where the rain was coming down harder than PETA did on President Obama for swatting that fly. This magnificent moment of Disney color came and went very quickly before the skies turned gray and the deluge began, much the way the greedy bankers bought into the bad mortgages and we, the taxpayers, were forced to bail them out. These bailouts still have many people, including yours truly, scratching their heads, much like suffering the heartbreak of psoriasis.

Our second dawn pleaser came a few weeks earlier. As a landscape photograher and part-time hand model, I am most attracted to the vibrant colors in the sky. These two sunrises reflect the kind of the moments I like to capture and the reason I get up before dawn even cracks. So you can look forward to a cyber summer of sunrises and sunsets as we bring the best of the central coast skies to the pages of Sunrise Santa Cruz.

On to the late night experience. Hey, you know what is going on over in Iran with the election? Have you been following that? Oh, it’s crazy. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who makes a great chicken salad,) has declared himself a winner. Had a victory party. And he came out at the victory party and he thanked the 148% of the people who voted for him. This Ahmadinejad guy, during all those protests, keeping a very low profile in Iran. His staff said he was hiking. And President Obama, this guy takes everything seriously. He’s very upset about what’s going on in Iran. As a matter of fact, today he announced that he’s going to stop smoking Camels.” –David Letterman

“Today, President Obama signed a bill that prevents tobacco companies from using misleading labels like ‘low tar’ and ‘light.’ The tobacco companies said from now on they’ll label their low tar cigarettes as ‘less cancerific. A British furniture company was caught trying to slip advertisements into Twitter by linking them to the Iranian election crisis. Isn’t that the lowest? Yeah, probably the most shameless had to be, ‘Tired of all the unrest? Try our Serta Perfect Sleeper. Today the governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, who’s the head of the Republican Governors Association, held a press conference to reveal he had an affair with a woman from Argentina. People were shocked because Republicans traditionally don’t do well with Hispanic women.” –Conan O’Brien

“You guys remember Dick Cheney? Vice President for eight years? Listen to this. He’s written a memoir about his life. Not just a memoir, a thousand pages! It’s a great book. You can actually use it to stand on to reach a better book. This guy doesn’t say anything for eight years, and now he’s got a thousand-page book? Talk about torture. There’s your torture right there. John McCain is being more outspoken about President Obama’s foreign policy and his Iranian strategy. And today, McCain got so loud and so angry, and he was screaming, that they asked him to leave Denny’s.” –David Letterman

That’s news, weather and sports. On the travel front, my two favorite children are leaving today on a fact finding mission to Costa Rica, which is being led by my brother Brad, as part of his Media Services Without Borders group. Which means that another guest blog will be coming down the pike from Aimee. And if we’re really lucky we might squeeze one out of Jason, but it will probably be in Spanish.

So congratulations go out to the Golden State Warriors, who last week lucked out and selected sharpshooting guard Stephon Curry in the NBA draft. This was a coup for the Warriors, who in the past have taken front office incompetence to a new level. I haven’t been this excited about something in Oakland since they opened up Raiderette tryouts to the public. So enjoy the day and we’ll catch you somewhere between the Carribean Queen and the Atlantic. Aloha, mahalo and later, Costco Rica fans.