Good morning and greetings, late spring fans. Another week has flown by and become a pleasant, yet quickly fading memory. Last week, both my children experienced some closure, as my son returned home from his freshman year at college and my daughter finished her sophomore year in high school. I have no memory of how I felt at those two junctures in my life, or for that matter, my thoughts at a good number of semi-momentus occasions from my past. No matter which way I slice it or dice it, my cranium is ripening like a golden papaya. As Mark Twain said, “What is human life? The first third is a good time, the rest remembering about it.”

I then must ask the question, is it really important to remember what I was thinking or feeling when these events occurred? I believe it was either Justin Beiber’s barber or the Dali Lama’s second cousin who had this thought. “One day at a time-this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone, and do not be troubled by the future, for it is yet to come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it is worth remembering.” As a photographer, I capture the present, then share the past in the future. I believe that was a Kodak moment.

I’ve got to admit, I’m a little concerned about my legacy, because at this point, no one will ever accuse me of being a workaholic. The words “I wish I had spent more time at the office,” will never be uttered from my lips. That’s why I got a little nervous when I ran into this quote from Theodore Roosevelt. “There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering?” Well, in the words of Charles Barkley or Charles Dickens, “Never say never.” And never, never, never look away.

These days I try to focus ahead, because all the stuff that happened in the past doesn’t really seem quite as important. I don’t plan on living forever, although my father is going somewhat strong at age 96, so I figure I’ve got a few more Chinese birthday dinners in me. Sometimes it’s just about the cream cheese filled wontons. That’s crab rangoon if you’re keeping score at home.

Bottom line, the only things we’ll never know is how much time we have on this earth and when that jury duty summons is coming. But it seems through advances in medicine and energy drinks that people are living longer and longer. Just my luck, I’m finally getting my head together and my body is falling apart.

I know my hearing isn’t what it used to be. I’ve turned the response of “What?” into an art form. It doesn’t surprise me, as neither of my parents have heard a word since the Carter Administration. It’s like the old joke. A guy is talking to his neighbor telling him about the new hearing aid he just got. “It costs a fortune, but it was worth it. It works perfectly.” “Really,” said the neighbor. “What kind is it?” “Ten thirty.”

Speaking of aging, last week in Japan, the world’s oldest person besides Johh McCain, and the oldest man to have ever lived died of natural causes at age 116. Jiroemon Kimura, who was born in 1897, died last Wednesday morning from old age. Kimura was was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest living person in December 2012, after a woman from the United States died at the age of 115 after a surfing accident.

That month he also broke another record when he was verified as the oldest man ever to have lived, after reaching the age of 115 years and 253 days. And this was without ever commenting on the weather, asking what time it was or changing his TV channel. He was but a simple man.

Although he was the only the third man in history to reach 115 years of age, he was well off the all-time record set by French woman Jeanne Calment, who surrendered in 1997 at the age of 122, when she was run over by a squirrel gathering acorns, making her the longest living person in history to be done in by a small rodent.

Kimura worked at a post office for about 40 years. Friends say that’s what killed him. After retiring he took up farming, which he continued to do until the age of 90, when he got a computer and spent all this free time cruising dating sites. He did not smoke and only ate until he was 80 percent full. But neighbors say he drank like a fish. Kimura’s motto in life was “to eat light and live long,” means I may have to back off the chocolate cake in the morning.

“Jiroemon Kimura was an exceptional person,” said Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records. “As the only man to have ever lived for 116 years, he has a truly special place in world history.” The new oldest living man is James McCoubrey, an American who was born in Canada on Sept. 13, 1901. He’s 111 years old, which makes him the 32nd-oldest living person in the world. And all those who are older are women.

I think I know why women live longer. They are born with stronger immune system, which gives them the inner strength to deal with the opposite sex. They come with a better set of instruments, which leads to greater understanding and insight. They know they’re going to be around longer, so they can kick back and go with the flow. So that’s why my wife lets me hold the remote control when we watch TV. Because she knows time, time, time, is on her side, yes it is.

For today’s photo galaxy we are heading to Natural Bridges State Beach on the night of February 2. The orange and red tone of the clouds and the reflection on the sand was a sight to behold. I took it as a good sign for the days to come from our shortest month. I never tire of photographing the last remaining arch, as once their was three and now there is one. And in the words of Three Dog Night “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do. Two can be as bad as one, its the loneliest number since the number one.” Joy to the world.

On to some late night humor. ” The NSA has been listening in on phone calls. It’s people with cellphones. You know your phone is being tapped when you’re having a conversation and you hear the attorney general breathing. Happy birthday to the president’s daughter Sasha, who is 12 years old. For her birthday, her father gave her Justin Bieber’s phone records.” –David Letterman “There’s talk that boy band One Direction is trying to win over Justin Bieber’s fans who aren’t happy with Bieber’s recent behavior. Those guys from One Direction better be careful, or this could result in the world’s most adorable fistfight.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Hillary Clinton finally joined Twitter yesterday and racked up more than 200,000 followers in only five hours. Yeah, they were like, “Hillary in 2016!” and “Washington needs Hillary!” and “Hillary for the White House!” That’s not her followers. Those were her tweets. As part of a senior prank, students at a high school in Washington spray-painted all over their school, but they actually misspelled the word “senior” twice. That probably explains why they didn’t get into “collage.” – Jimmy Fallon

“There are reports that female terrorists are being fitted with exploding breast implants. How many guys are going to use this as an excuse? “Honey, I’m not looking at her breasts. I’m working for Homeland Security.” The guy who blew the whistle on the NSA scandal is a former security worker named Edward Snowden. He is a high school dropout. He was making $122,000 a year. He lived in Hawaii. He was engaged to a beautiful former ballerina. And he gave it all up. So not only is he a whistleblower. He’s also a moron. – Jay Leno

“House Speaker John Boehner called NSA’s Edward Snowden a traitor. But only because he leaked the name of his tanning bed. McDonald’s has started introducing breakfast items at night for what it calls an after-midnight menu. It’s all part of McDonald’s’ new slogan, “Welcome alcoholics.” – Conan O’Brien

So enjoy the NBA Finals. We’ll catch you showing NBA fans why, despite painful knee problems, that you can still light it up any night. Aloha, mahalo and later, Dwyane Wade fans.

Good morning and greetings, rising college cost fans. Well, much like my wedding day, the birth of my children and my first colonoscopy, this is one of those milestone moments, as my favorite son is heading off to college on Saturday. While it will be a sad day for his mother and myself, it should be extremely exciting for Jason, who has been chomping at the bit like Secretariat coming down the homestretch to get his college career underway, as most of his friends have already departed and scattered off to places like Colorado, Massachusetts and the Bermuda Triangle.

Back when Jason was 11, the thought of him leaving one day, like the prospect of the Mitt Romney in the White House, was quite painful. Now that he’s a young man of 18 and on the Selective Service hit list, I am much more emotionally prepared for his departure. I believe it was the philosopher David Lee Roth who said “Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.”

This is a child who I saw come flying out of his mother’s womb, and then for the next hour just stared at him like a mental patient, totally amazed that this little person was now part of us. It was the highest moment of my life since making the Dean’s List at Syracuse. And we knew we had something special when an hour later Jason picked up a John Grishman novel and started reading it before taking a shot at the New York Times crossword puzzle.

He spent his first five years in Southern California along the Strand in Hermosa Beach, a community which doubles as the world’s largest outdoor health club. There, he was introduced to the world of beach volleyball, and along with his partner Nathan Carson, has parlayed this into three tournament wins this summer and a national ranking a few sideouts below Olympic gold medalist’s Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser.

We then packed up the wagon train and moved back to Santa Cruz, so he could be raised in a place where the Shadowbrook, Crow’s Nest and redwoods meet the sea and where he could fine tune his Spanish by ordering a super burrito from every taqueria along the central coast. As Spanish conductor Pablo Casals once tweeted, “The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”

Along the way, my 6-foot point guard with a 5″9″ wing span achieved academic excellence at one of the finest charter schools in the nation, which has led him to his next destination. Jason could have chosen to go back east but decided he’d like to see the sun while in college, and that the best place for him was on the scholar’s floor in an oceanfront dorm at UC Santa Barbara. He’s on the road to making a difference. Or as Mother Theresa once told me at the Sizzler, “We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”

So I won’t be able to walk into his room any hour of the day or night to run by my thoughts on sports, news and sports. Up until now, I’ve had an unobstructed view of his unarrested development. Now he’s moving on to a place of higher learning with cafeteria dining, while I’ll be playing Macaulay Culkin, home alone with my NFL Sunday Ticket, NBA League Pass, that sweet child of mine Aimee and my golden retriever Summer, who I know will never leave me.

So my neuoscience-majoring son will now be part of the Gaucho family at a major university with its own private beach. We will all miss him, including his younger sister, who will probably get through the pain with the knowledge that his TiVo system is now in her hands. His mother will dearly miss her first born, and will have to figure out what to do with all her free time now that she’s not his personal laundress.

As for me, I’ll miss watching him playing hoops and volleyball, talking sports and feeding him like an iron chef. But what I’ll miss most will be watching him seize the moments of his new found independence and discovering who he is while growing into the man that we’ll all be so proud of. Up until now I’ve had a front seat for the show. Now I’ll have to scalp a ticket. It was the writer Robert Gallagher who once said, “Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.”

So my son is entering onto the freeway of the next phase of his life. What routes he takes from here no one knows. Spanish writer Rosilia de Castro once penned, “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” I believe the final word on this higher road of education belongs to Irish poet Oscar Wilde, who once told a group of IRA terrorists, ‘Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” Or as the t-shirt says, “I got my degree in liberal arts. Do you want fries with that?”

So since Jason will be reaching for the academic stars, I thought we would head up into the sky and take a look at a couple of moon rises over Monterey Bay. The first three shots feature the earth’s only natural satellite coming up over the wharf and the Santa Cruz mountains. This January rise featured the biggest moon of the year, and when this celestial body first appeared, it was as exciting as last week’s return of Jax and the boys on the “Sons of Anarchy.”

I took the next three photos a few September’s back with the moon rising over Steamer’s Lane. I never tire of seeing a full moon rise over the water or an episode of Annie Walker’s CIA adventures in “Covert Affairs.” As Van Morrison texted me later on this fantabulous night, “What a marvelous night for a moondance.” Ah, the moonlight on this magical night.

On to some late night humor. “Early this morning in Los Angeles police were involved with a high-speed chase with a suspect drawing a crowd by throwing money out the window. Is it me or is Mitt Romney getting desperate? In Yemen, a U.S. drone strike has killed al-Qaida’s number two leader, the sixth second in command the U.S. has killed. This is one area where Obama can say he definitely is creating jobs. Over the weekend Mitt Romney made an appearance at a NASCAR race in Virginia. There was an awkward moment when he asked a NASCAR driver why he didn’t just hire a chauffeur.” –Conan O’Brien

“President Obama spoke last night. The speech must have been pretty good because today Clint Eastwood said he was voting for the chair. Did you see the Bill Clinton speech? He killed them with one word: arithmetic. He said Republicans lack skills in arithmetic, which by the way, is not fair to Sarah Palin because if there’s one thing her family has proved it can do is multiply.” –Bill Maher “Mitt, you just keep demanding that Americans answer the question: are you better off than you were four years ago? But just don’t answer it yourself, cause that would mean releasing more than two years of tax returns.” –Stephen Colbert

“We got some bad economic news. The United States has slipped further down the global ranking of the world’s most competitive economies. We’re now #7. Switzerland is number one. Romney said, ‘See, that’s why I keep my money there.’ “The economy is so bad, I saw Mitt Romney at the supermarket buying Lobster Helper.” –Jay Leno “Yesterday, Nicki Minaj revealed that in her new song, she only sarcastically endorsed Mitt Romney. Or as Republicans put it, ‘Wow, you too?'” –Jimmy Fallon “Mitt Romney released another ad that features Hispanic voters speaking in Spanish. The ad ends with him saying, ‘I’m Mitt Romney, and I have no idea what these people are saying.'” –Conan O’Brien

So that’s my college report. On this sweet day of apples and honey, let’s hope, for at least for our children’s sake, that one day the world comes to its senses, and we can watch the national news without wondering what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on. However, I’m not counting on it real soon.

We’ll catch you once again winning the U.S. Open and showing the world why you’re the most dominant female player in tennis history. Aloha, mahalo and later, Serena Williams fans.