Good morning and greetings, fall foliage fans. Yes, the leaves are changing color and dropping off the trees, as we are going through some changes here on the central coast. I believe our lovely 90 degree October days, much like me sleeping peacefully through the night, are now history.

Or as author Anthony Burgess once said, “Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone.”

As my body and what’s left of my mind continues to age, I don’t believe I’m getting the proper amount of sleep. Now according to researchers, if it takes you less than five minutes to fall asleep, then you are very likely sleep deprived. The ideal amount of time is about ten minutes. I chime in at about ten seconds.

And to think, I used to be so good at sleeping that I could do it with my eyes closed

So some might say I am suffering from severe sleep deprivation. The problem is lately, I am now waking up every couple of hours for no reason at all. Even though I consume half of Lake Erie before I go to sleep, I never need to visit the men’s room. And I know it’s not my wife drop kicking me because of my snoring, because that is no longer a problem.

In the past, I would always fell asleep first, and that would drive her batty. But, problem solved, as she now has aids that render her safe and gentle sleep. She has offered to share, but I hesitate to take anything stronger than milk and cookies, as my body is a synagogue and I want to remain meditation and medication free for as long as possible, or at least until the opening of the NBA season.

I’ve always been an early riser, which works well in the sunrise business. But I am not in love with being awake in the four o’clock hour, and recently, that’s the time that my mind has decided it wants to go to work. Because when my brain goes on red alert, further sleep and dreaming is out of the question.

Oh, I try to go back to that unconcious state by thinking of pleasant experiences in my life, like my bar mitzvah party, being massaged like an eggplant and taking the SAT’s, but it rarely works. Once my concious mind gets ahold of the rolodex of thoughts that have been lingering from the previous day, it’s over, Johnny.

We all know that it’s torture not being able to sleep. Or being waterboarded by Dick Cheney. Many a night I have woken up and laid in bed like a mental patient, wishing for sleep to come back on, and always being denied. Listen, I love TV, but I don’t want to be watching the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” at 3 am.

Okay, maybe a little “Three Stooges, but my brain gets enough TV stimulation during normal business hours. And it better be an episode with Curly. “I’m a victim of soicumstance.”

In the middle of the night, I want my mind to be open only to dreams. When I dream during our REM (Rapid Eye Memory) Sleep, they are usually wild and crazy. But it’s the same dream during the non-REM phases that drives me nuts. I have dreamt it dozens of times over the last forty years. I’m at school and heading to a class that I’ve never attended and haven’t studied for the test. It’s always math. I have this uneasy feeling of not being prepared. Half the time I can’t even find the classroom.

Author James Baldwin, talking about dreams, once said, “The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened.”

Now I have always been a wild REM dreamer, as in my dreams I am frequently in company of celebrities, old high school friends and Miss Universe contestants. My subconcious life is much more exciting than my concious state, as the excitement has slowed down in my care giving years.

So by not getting enough sleep each night, I spend my day my day actively yawning. This act of inhalation and exhalation of of air is linked to exhaustion, stress, ISIS, overwork, lack of work, Ray Donovan, fatigue, boredom and watching the first eight innings of a baseball game. I’m taking drowsiness to a new level.

However, I know in paradise, everyone naps.

It seems like I’m always somewhat tired. I know I suffer from sleep apnea, but my doctor says if I’m not falling asleep while doing 65 on the freeway, then not to worry about it.

We spend a third of our lives sleeping. I have already slept twenty years. I not asking for much when it comes to sleep. As rocker Warron Zevon once quipped, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” I just really want to pass that damn algebra test.

So for today’s photo library I am showcasing the first sunrise of the fall season. The day was last Thursday and the place Lighthouse Point. I hadn’t shot a sunrise since last February, and the view from the sand down at Its Beach and Steamer Lane was spectacular.

In the words of the Chicago Transit Authority, it’s “only the beginning.” And what a delightful and colorful entrance it was.

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On to some late night humor. “Right around the corner is the midterm elections. There’s an anti-incumbent mood in the country. People are sick and tired of people who have been in the job too long and are lazy and overpaid and out of ideas. Wait a minute. I’m sorry. That’s me. The administration now has a name for the war against ISIS. Every military operation has to have a name so people can get behind it, and they now have a name for the war against ISIS — Operation Hillary’s Problem.” – David Letterman

“I was very happy to see that our old friend Jay Leno is coming back to television. He’s coming back to CNBC and he’s got a brand-new show. Jay drives a variety of exotic vehicles, and each week he runs down a different NBC executive.” – David Letterman “North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance yesterday in over 40 days. But since he saw his shadow, that now means 60 more years of nuclear winter.” – Jimmy Fallon

“On this day in 1912, President Teddy Roosevelt was shot, declined to go to the hospital, and gave a 90-minute speech with a bullet in his chest. Then on this day in 2012, I spent the whole day on WebMD because my eyelid wouldn’t stop twitching. Brad Pitt said in an interview this week that he doesn’t feel safe in his own home without a gun. Said Pitt, “I don’t even know half these kids.” – Seth Meyers

“For the last two months evil North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has been missing. Well, apparently he is back in public. It turns out he was buried in the end zone at Giants Stadium. He claims he was kidnapped by Neil Patrick Harris.” – David Letterman “Today they announced the Nobel Prize winner for economics. It went to the guy who sold Derek Jeter’s socks for 400 bucks ” – Seth Meyers

So that’s another week. Be grateful for your health and think positive thoughts for others much less fortunate.

We’ll catch you hitting a three run walk off blast in the ninth inning and sending the Giants into the World Series. Aloha, mahalo and later, Travis Ishikawa fans.

Good morning and greetings, row, row, row your boats fans. I don’t know about you, but I’m a wild dreamer. Now it’s perfectly understandable to dream about former classmates from high school. Then again, when you’re forty years removed from those wonder years and still dreaming about the lovely Denise Cinquino, you have to wonder what’s going on in the mind during the midnight hour. Thanks to Gary Wright, I never know what’s going to happen when I close my eyes and climb aboard that Dream Weaver train.

Over the years during my dream hours, I’ve partied with celebrities a plenty. David Letterman, Jim Carrey, Mel Brooks, Howard Stern, Charo-I’ve spent quality sleep time with all of these people over the last few decades. These dreams are very enjoyable, as compared to my reoccurring nightmares of not being able to find my car, not being able to see clearly where I’m driving, or NOT HAVING GONE TO CLASS SO THAT I’M NOT PREPARED TO TAKE THE EXAM.

If I’ve had this dream once, I’ve had it fifty times. It’s exam time, I haven’t been attending, and now I have to face the music. I love waking up to that feeling There are reasons why I dream this dream, but delving deeper into this issue would force me to confront things that not even Dr. Livingston would want to explore. It’s unresolved city.

Just last night, I had a wild and wacky dream, like when Seinfeld dreamt that the hamburger was eating him. I was being asked to take over as ruler of a small African country (seriously) because of the crops I raised. Unbelievable! What’s happening is that consciously, my life is fairly routine, but once I close my eyes my subconscious is having a party. I’m just lucky to be on the guest list.

So what is it about dreams? Here’s the story. In the first hour and a half after hitting the pillow, we’re go through deepening stages, going from light sleep to deep sleep, the kind I got during upper level math classes. When we enter REM or rapid eye movement sleep, your breathing, heart rate and shirt size becomes irregular. It is your deepest sleep. Your eyes move quickly and your brain activity rises towards the same level as when you’re awake, unless you’re a member of the Tea Party, and then there is no brain activity at all, day or night.

This is when our dreams are most vivid, when we go on these subconscious adventures that in many cases could never be scripted. We try to take away the worries of today and leave our troubles behind. In my case, that’s only the beginning. We go through this sleep cycle three to five times a night. I never worry when my head hits the pillow, because I know the Dream Weaver will help me reach the morning light.

Now here’s something that my Thai boxing instructor finds fascinating. During REM sleep, the rest of the body becomes paralyzed, like when I was reciting my wedding vows. According to Dr. William Kohler, the medical director of the Florida Sleep Institute, this is ”nature’s way of making sure you don’t act out your dreams, whether it’s repeatedly kicking your spouse or jumping off the bed and hurting yourself.” It’s nature’s way of telling you something’s wrong when if you’re about to swan dive off the bed at 2 am.”

Four out of five researchers that chew sugarless gum estimate that most people have more than 100,000 dreams in a lifetime. In an eight hour stretch, we spend two hours dreaming, while I spend the other six trying to locate my car keys. Dreams are a way of cleansing the mind, a kind of draino of the braino. We dream in order for a specific part of the brain, the medula fun zone, to sort through memories and events, trying to figure out which ones to keep and which ones to let go. In my case, I keep a rolodex of high school memories on active alert. Just ask Denise.

So why is it that we have wild and crazy dreams that come right out of a Fellini movie or Hayley Mills in “The Parent Trap?” It’s because, according to Dr. Kohler, “when we’re sleeping, the controls of our conscious mind are turned off.” So that explains me and Eleanor Roosevelt. As the brain sorts through different experiences and memories, it puts them together in strange and interesting ways. Thus my night with the Pointer Sisters.

Now I’ve saved the best for last. No, I’m not talking about those wonderful dream moments where I’m falling, being chased, about to be robbed or worse yet, forced to watch reality TV. No, I’m referring to appearing naked in my dreams. This is reoccurring dream 102. I’m somewhere, either at a poetry class, bowling alley, or my parent’s wedding and I’m buck naked, just wearing a smile.

Dream researchers say this is a very common theme, as nudity can symbolize a variety of things, including feelings of vulnerability, being caught off guard, or just flying free and not wearing any pants. Actually, in my naked dreams, no one else seems to notice. I certainly don’t mind the guys not taking a look but I’m a little hurt that the women aren’t glancing over to sneak a peek.

So for our final summer island photo adventure, we once again journey to the Garden Isle of Kauai. We start out with the sun making a morning appearance on the horizon in Poipu Beach, before heading to the north shore and the tarot fields, with the backdrop of the mountains above Hanalei. Next we view an island bird before checking out this green sea turtle, who hung out with his buddies all day in cove right off shore and loved the second season of “Louie” on FX. Photo credit for shot number two goes to my brother Brad, who still claims he saw a Miami Dolphin while snorkeling on the north coast.

We then take a look at a sampling of shells I collected at the absolutely gorgeous Tunnels Beach. We finish up with something special, a rarely photographed yours truly with his lovely daughter Aimee at the St. Regis Princeville Resort, which overlooks beautiful Hanalei Bay. As you can see from this photo, that is one dynamite view from the patio and not a bad shot of my blonde teen angel.

On to the late night. “President Obama described himself as an eternal optimist. He then explained that he’s the kind of person that sees the country as ‘half employed.’ Tim Pawlenty endorsed Mitt Romney, calling him a ‘bedrock conservative.’ When he heard this, John McCain said, ‘I grew up in Bedrock, and I don’t remember seeing him.’ “Rick Perry said he understands healthcare because his wife is a nurse. He also says he understands terrorism because he watched all the seasons of ’24.’ In high school, voted most likely to execute 200 people.” –Conan O’Brien

“President Obama said ‘No single individual built America on their own.’ When she heard that, Sarah Palin was like, ‘Hello? Paul Bunyan?’ “House Speaker John Boehner said that President Obama’s jobs plan merits consideration. Then he was like, ‘In fact, I’ll do it right now. OK, I hate it.’ “The government is about to release a report on what went wrong during the BP oil spill. Or as fish put it, ‘Hey, no rush.'” –Jimmy Fallon

“The candidates at the Republican debate looked like a board of directors that was lying about poisoning a river. “I tried to TiVo the debate and my TiVo fell asleep.” –David Letterman “Rick Perry and Mitt Romney squared off at the Republican debate. The only thing they agreed on was ‘shampoo, rinse, and repeat.'” –Jay Leno “Tonight was President Obama’s jobs speech and the NFL season opener. Which explains why Biden got confused and dumped Gatorade on President Obama.” –Jimmy Fallon

“The virus in the movie ‘Contagion’ is based on the bird flu which came out of nowhere back in 2008. Everyone thought it was going to change the way we live and it just faded away. Wait a minute, I’m talking about President Obama.” –Craig Ferguson President Obama wants to get Americans back to what we do best. He wants teachers teaching, police policing, firemen fighting fires, and the rest of us checking Facebook. Taco Bell is product testing a new taco with a shell made of a giant Dorito. Michelle Obama spent the morning watering the White House garden with her tears.” –Jimmy Kimmel

So that’s our final blast for the summer of 2011. Take a moment to feel grateful for all you have, because lots of folks out there are suffering. We’ll catch you breaking bats with a cut fastball. Aloha, mahalo and later, Mariano Rivera fans.