Good morning and greetings, Final Four fans. Well, according to my Olsen Twins calendar, today is the final day of March, meaning the madness is soon coming to an end. We are now heading toward that one shining moment, when the NCAA champion is crowned, as every other team in the field of 64 will have ended the season on a losing note.

Finishing off a year in this fashion is always painful, for some more than others. Or in the words of former basketball coach Bill Musselman, “Defeat is worse than death because you have to live with defeat.”

This year’s NCAA basketball tournament certainly has lived up to the hype. Last Sunday’s heavyweight battle between undefeated Wichita State, riding a 33-game winning streak, and the much ballyhooed freshman of Kentucky was an all-time classic, one of the best ever. The Wildcats emerged as the victors as the Shockers got screwed in the bracket matchups.

But my favorite game was an opening round tilt between Mahattan College and the defending champion Louisville Cardinals. It pitted an emotional coaching confrontation between the teacher, Rick Pittino and his former student and assistant coach, Steve Masiello.

The 13th-seeded Jaspars almost pulled off the upset, as they had the lead with a few minutes to go, but a couple of mistakes proved to be their undoing as the Cardinals prevailed. This led to Friday night’s epic battle of the Blue Grass State between Kentucky and Louisville, with the young Wildcats prevailing as the champions were dethroned.

To read a tremendous story about the behind-the-scenes drama coming into the Manhattan game, click on http://grantland.com/features/ncaa-tournament-manhattan-college-louisville-cardinals-steve-masiello-rick-pitino/

For basketball fans and endodontists, this is must read material.

So with March leaving the arena, April takes center stage tomorrow at the midcourt stripe.

And if it’s April 1, we are talking April Fools’ day. Which brings to mind an old Chinese proverb, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, get a free order of egg rolls.

Or as English writer Charles Lamb once observed, “Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever.” Love the optimistic take.

Now no one, besides perhaps Carnac the Magnificent, knows how this day actually came about. Word has it that back in 1582, around the birth of John McCain’s great, great, great grandparents, King Charles IX of France put out the word that the New Year, which was then celebrated from March 25 to April 1, be moved to January 1, so that the peasants could get a bigger bang for their bucks on calendars.

Now this was during a time in history when internet access was limited and there was no television or radio, so word spread slower than I make changes. So people who forgot about the change or didn’t accept the new date system were goofed upon, as they were given funny gifts, invitations to nonexistent parties or a trip the guillotine. When asked for a comment, Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat sponge cake.”

Or as Mark Twain later wrote, “Let us be thankful for fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.”

Now some say it was actually Pope Gregory in 1562 who introduced the new calendar to the Christian world, but his website has been removed and his people did not return my calls.

As for myself, I don’t really participate in any April Fools’ pranks or jokes, as I prefer to fool or tell people white lies throughout the rest of the year. Over the first trimester of my nine year courtship, my future bride’s favorite question would always be, “Really?” And as I used to say, if you have to ask me that question, you already know the answer, a remark she always found quite endearing.

As to why I would mislead or run the misdirection play, who knows, it’s just in my DNA. I’ve always loved fooling people, of course, not maliciously, or as my wife likes to say, “He’s kidding.” Or as the great Winston Churchill once put it, “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”

So April 1 is a day for hoaxes, pranks, bloopers, blunders and practical jokes. Like putting ‘kick me’ signs on people’s butts. Humorist Will Rogers once remarked, “The trouble with practical jokes is that they very often get elected.

So courtesy of abs-cbnnews.com and wierdfacts.com, here are some of the more amusing April 1 jokes and pranks played over the years.

In 1957, the BBC television program Panorama ran a famous hoax, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. Millions were duped by the report, with many of them asking how they can grow their own spaghetti trees. Still even more called in asking if they knew of any trees that grew sauce.

In 1996, Taco Bell pulled the wool over Americans’ eyes when they took out full-page ads in major newspapers, claiming they had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. Now that’s thinking outside the bun.

In 1998, Burger King introduced the “Left-Handed Whopper.” This juicy burger supposedly included the usual condiments in original Whopper sandwich, but these were “rotated 180 degrees” to suit left-handed customers. And that’s why God gave us two hands to hold a Whopper.

In 2010, Google “officially” changing its name to “Topeka”, then in 2011 released a new product called “Gmail Motion” that supposedly let users send and receive e-mails using gestures. Last year, Google announced the shutdown of its popular video-sharing site YouTube, which drove young social media users into the panic over the possibility of having to read a book.

And finally, back in 1969, Dutch TV reported that the government had introduced a new way to detect hidden televisions by simply driving through the streets with a new detector. At that time, all households had to pay for a television license. The only way to avoid your television from being detected, was to pack the television in aluminum foil. Within a few hours all aluminum foil was sold out throughout the country.

So let that be a reminder to you ladies out there. Sometimes a knight in shining armor turns out to be a loser in aluminum foil.

So what’s a fool to do? For my money, I’ll go with the Beatles. “The fool on the hill sees the sun going down. And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.” And then he blogs about it. Enough said.

Which leads us into today’s photos, a collection of shots featuring birds in flight, accompanied by the sun dropping into the Pacific. This past fall was a fantastic time for pelican viewing at dusk, and these photos reflect some of the magic moments along with a few gulls that came along for the ride.

On to some late night humor. “Intelligence officials say they had a hard time predicting Russia’s invasion because Vladimir Putin doesn’t own a cellphone or use the Internet due to fear of being tracked. You can tell Putin doesn’t spend much time online. When he says “LOL,” he means “Look out, Latvia.” They’re considering a new 10-cent fee on grocery bags here in New York. My mom said, “Who’s laughing at the eight-thousand bags under the sink NOW?” – Jimmy Fallon

“First lady Michelle Obama is in China right now. Today she was busy doing some official business. She placed a wreath on the grave of General Tso, the creator of spicy chicken.” – David Letterman “There’s a new website that helps you write elaborate works of personalized fiction. It’s called Match.com.” – Conan O’Brien

“The NFL made a big announcement yesterday that will greatly impact how players celebrate in the end zone. The league has banned players from dunking over the goal post. If I want to watch a sport without dunking, I’ll watch the WNBA. Toronto held the first mayoral debate of 2014 tonight. Rob Ford faced four challengers. None of the other candidates specifically mentioned drugs. They let Mayor Ford say over and over again that he’s the only candidate with a proven track record. He’s also the only candidate with a proven crack record.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Americans have been given another month to sign up for Obamacare as long as they check a box on the website saying they tried to sign up before the original deadline. It’s expected to be answered as truthfully as boxes that say “Yes, I am 18.” In an interview with “Meet the Press,” former President Jimmy Carter said he won’t send emails because he believes the NSA is reading them. And also because he can’t find the “send” button on his typewriter. Google announced last night that it will launch a new security feature to make it harder for situations like the NSA spying program to happen in the future. Then they went back to driving around and taking pictures of the street you live on.” – Seth Meyers

So if you’re keeping scorecard at home, this is my 420th post. We’ll catch you being the best shooter in the NBA while wowing the crowds and willing your team to victory at crunch time. Aloha, mahalo and later, Stephen Curry fans.

Good morning and greetings, springtime fans. Well, March Madness got underway on Thursday, and it was the greatest opening day in 35 years, as there was major drama, wild upsets and fabulous finishes.

Then Friday started off with the Duke Blue Devils, picked in these pages last week by college guru Dr. Michael Schur and my son Jason to win it all, go flaming down in defeat to the Mercer Bears. It was upset city, baby, as brackets around the nation started crumbling.

Having surveyed the remaining field, despite their opening round loss, the good doctor still likes the Blue Devils to cut down the nets in Arlington.

So we have gone from a field of 64 teams down to the Sweet 16, which just happens to be the age of my ice cream scooping daughter Aimee, who performs her sundae-making, milk shaking, chocolate covered strawberry magic at Sweet Treats on Mission Street, when she’s not hostessing or waitressing at the new “Your Place’ restaurant next door.

At her tender age, she can work 48 hours a week, and she is going for the gold. Or should I say the green?

Now this is basically her first real job, and she’s hit the ground sprinting. She’s got that strong work ethic, as she believes in its inherent ability to strengthen her character. And buy clothes.

As she told me the other day, “Dad, those on top of the mountain didn’t just fall there.” Or as columnist Ann Landers once tweeted out, “Nobody has ever drowned in their own sweat.”

Her new occupation struck a chord with me, as when I was her age, I took a summer job in the Garment Center in Manhattan, New York. As defined by the boys and girls at Wikipeda, “The Garment District is a dense concentration of fashion-related companies, home to the majority of New York’s showrooms and major fashion labels.” It’s packed into an area less than one square mile, just down the road from the very seedy Times Square district. And with not a tree in sight.

This was back in the years before Mayor Rudy Guiliani rode in and cleaned up the area, and if you were looking for sex shops, adult theatres or a little companionship for an hour, Times Square was the place to be. Or as the welcome sign reads down at the Manhattan Visitors Center, “New York. New Jersey is our bitch.”

As a child growing up in the aforementioned Garden State, I would take the bus into the Big Apple with my father. We’d hop off and head to the Greek barbershop on 42nd street, where he’d get a haircut and I was first introduced to the wonders of Playboy magazine. Of course, I only read the interviews.

Then we would head up the street to Tad’s Steak House to dine on salad, garlic bread, baked potato and steak for just $1.29. Fantastic. Of course, the taste of that steak would ruminate through my digestive system for days, but it was worth it.

The Garment District is the center for fashion manufacturing and design in the U.S. For me, it was to be a lucrative adventure, as I was a young man on the loose on the mean streets of New York.

I thought I was being hired as a showroom model, but ended up working in the shipping department of a company called Judy Bee, a manufacturer of children’s clothing. We were shipping out garments to all the major stores in the tri-state area, and I was responsible for making sure the right dresses got on the racks that the truckers came to pick up. It was interesting work, as I was the youngest person in the shipping department and certainly the only one with a possibility of one day landing on the Dean’s List.

I would take the bus through the Lincoln Tunnel and be deposited at the New York Port Authority on 41st Street. From there it was just a short walk through the bustle and the hustlers to work. Most of my fellow workers were immigrants from throughout the hemisphere. It was a melting pot of working souls.

Sometimes we had to deliver our goods to trucking facilities, so we would take the racks down the freight elevator and hit the pavement of the Big Apple. It was wild scene, pushing racks of clothing by whizzing taxis through the streets of Manhattan. For me, this was a summer job. For everyone else, it was their pasts and their futures.

The man running the shipping department was an older gentlemen from the Caribbean named Danny, and a few weeks into my employment he suffered a heart attack. I guess there were limited replacement candidates available, as they offered me the opportunity to take over running the department at a very tender age.

I was thrilled at the time, because of two words. Overtime pay.

I then began working a fourteen hour day. My parents were traveling in Europe and neither of my brothers were around, so I was home alone with our golden retriever. I basically woke up, went to work, came home and then repeated the pattern, as the hours on my time card took on a life of their own.

One of the thrills was when the day shift ended, and I got to order out dinner from one of the many restaurants in the area. I was living large, and although Danny came back to work and ended my brief in foray into management, I look back upon that time with a smile. It was day to day grind, but the my spirits were high and my paychecks kept rising.

Now I didn’t want to make it my life’s work, and I turned down an invitation to go back again the next summer. It was a time of learning, yearning, but especially earning. Opportunity knocked on my door and I answered it. I knew if I hadn’t, that it would be ringing my doorbell for years.

So for today’s photo chronicles we are going back to the final morning of 2013. The clouds were positioned a little further to the east than normal, so I shot this sunrise along a different section of West Cliff Drive. The clouds did their job as they rotated from red to orange to tangerine. After the sun rose, I took the final shot from Bird Rock to take in the waves, the lighthouse and the sky, all in one final December scoop.

On to some late night humor. “President Obama released his March Madness bracket this morning, picking Michigan State to win the tournament. In response, Vladimir Putin started moving troops into Gonzaga. The Obama administration announced it is going to require colleges and vocational schools to demonstrate that they are properly preparing students for jobs after college. So don’t be surprised if your chemistry class tomorrow is all about how to make a cappuccino.” –Seth Meyers

“Vice President Biden said today that the U.S. is considering sending troops to the Baltic states bordering Russia. According to Biden, the Baltic states are the territories located just past Boardwalk and Park Place.” –Seth Meyers “Some American cities go all out for St. Patrick’s Day. In Chicago they dye the river green. In Boston everyone wears green. In Colorado, they smoke the green. Then someone tells them it’s St. Patrick’s Day.” – Criag Ferguson

“St. Patrick’s Day is a huge deal here in New York City. Two million people turned out today for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It’s the one parade where the horses are the ones that have to watch where they step. Lawmakers here in New York are considering a plan to bring slot machines to LaGuardia Airport. Of course there’s always that other way to gamble at LaGuardia — checking a bag.” – Jimmy Fallon

So that’s our first post for spring 2014. We’ll catch you perhaps rethinking your plans about entering the NBA draft and going back to college for another year. Aloha, mahalo and later, Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins fans.

Good morning and greetings, severe weather fans. I’m still blown away by the power and destruction of the recent tornadoes, which wreaked havoc, death and destruction throughout the south and midwest. This has been the deadliest year for twisters since 1936, or back when the Republican party stood for something moral and decent.

So while nature’s most violent storms were leveling small towns while lifting homes and people’s lives off their foundations, another kind of destruction was going in our nation, but in a much more tropical setting. And in this scenario, it was more than tears that were flowing in the aftermath of this freaky Friday.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported last Sunday that a lava flow destroyed the last home in the Big Island’s Puna district. The neighborhood’s last resident, Jack Thompson, left his home about an hour before the river of molten rock plowed down a hill and burned his house to the ground, which was not a great way to celebrate the end of the work week. Personally, whenever I see a river of volcanic ash headed in my direction, I always like to get at least a two-hour head start on my dash to higher ground.

“I got as much stuff out of there as was practical, and everything else, had to leave it,” Thompson said. The lava was “pretty much coming in the back as we were going out the front.” Call me inhospitable, but I always hate it when old friends or lava drop by uninvited.

“I’ve been on this mountain about 40 years, and this is the second house I’ve had in this subdivision,” Thompson said. “I don’t think anybody will be living up here anymore.” Just to play it safe, if Thompson changes his mind and returns to the neighborhood, he might want to consider renting.

Mount Kilauea has been continuously erupting since 1983 and like my weight gains, has shown no signs of stopping. Scientists warned several weeks ago that the lava was becoming more active. Over the years, it has destroyed homes, cut off roads and put a damper on neighborhood luaus.

“I’ve been preparing for this for years. You’re hoping for the best, but in time expect the inevitable,” Thompson said. “It could have gone somewhere else just as easily, but this time I was in the way.” In the words of the Rolling Stones, “Time and lava waits for no one.”

So what do we know about the most dangerous volcano in the United States? Mount Kilauea is located on the Big Island in Volcanoes National Park,which grows around 42 acres every year thanks to Kilauea’s eruptions and the Mauna Loa Nut Factory. Locals continue to worship and pay homage to the goddess Pele, who lives inside the volcano, making offerings of fruit, flowers, fish and fatburgers to soothe her fury and to thank her for her generosity in expanding the great land of Hawaii with her perennial eruptions and sponsorship of surf contests.

K?lauea means “spewing, “much spreading, or holy crap, that’s hot” in Hawaiian. Thirty-five eruptions have taken place since 1952, the year my parents hit the jackpot. The volume of erupted material is large enough to pave a road around the world three times, not including toll plazas, vista points or Denny’s, a good place to sit and eat.

After Ted’s Bakery on the north shore of Oahu, home to the original chocolate haupia pie, Kilauea is the most visited attraction in Hawaii. The image of black rock, orange fire, volcanic fog, smoldering sea waves, smoke on the water and fire in the sky is a must-see for anyone who visits the Big Island. At least that’s what the people from www.exinarticles.com tell me. Like LeBron James, it’s one natural wonder you shouldn’t miss.

I’ve been to Volcanoes National Park and it was spectacularly eerie. Lava flows, steam rising out of the earth and craters the size of football fields made for an amazing adventure while on my honeymoon. The excursion there was just like my wedding night, except I didn’t develop a cramp.

But before we leave the South Pacific, here’s an aloha update. Last week, Hawaii Governor Steve McGarrett declared Oahu and Kauai disaster areas after three days of relentless rain and rainbows which caused mudslides, never before seen hail, water spouts, eensey, weensy spiders, a tornado, severe flooding, dangerous surf and a rerun of the new ‘Hawaii Five-O.’

It was a nightmare on the north shore of the Garden Isle as vacationers were paddle boarding through strip mall parking lots. So far, four feet of rain have fallen in a week with more storms on the way and no let up in sight. Sounds like it’s been a tad soggy for sun-loving vacationers. But like the slogan says, come get lei-ed, but if it’s in March, you might want to pack an umbrella.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of Volcanoes National Park, as I hadn’t yet begun my digital journey. However, today I’m showcasing the beauty of our 50th state, starting in Kauai with a shot of Waimea Canyon, the island that was created by the collapse of a volcano approximately four million years and a week ago.

We then get into the flow of water with four spectacular beaches, starting with a double shot of Sunset Beach on the North Shore of Oahu. We then move on to the loveliness of Waimea Bay, before moving back to Kauai and Hanalei Bay, the location for the recent George Clooney drama, ‘The Descendents.’ We finish up at the golden sands of Lumahai Beach, where Mitzi Gaynor “washed that man right out of her hair” in ‘South Pacific’ before rinsing with a coconut oil hair conditioner.

On to the late night. “There is an HBO movie coming out about the 2008 presidential election. Apparently John McCain is very unhappy with the way he was portrayed. He said he came across as a clueless and angry man. No one had the heart to tell him he was watching the toaster.
Mitt Romney’s wife said she doesn’t even consider herself wealthy. Then she said, ‘If you don’t believe me, just ask my chauffeur. “Gas prices — it is $6 a gallon here. People in L.A. are furious. You can’t tell, of course, because of the Botox.” ” –Craig Ferguson

“Romney spent five and a half million bucks on TV advertising in the Super Tuesday states. Meanwhile, Ron Paul put a sticker on a light pole. Mitt Romney’s been out on the campaign trail even though he’s suffering from a terrible cold. I’m not surprised he’s sick. It’s very unsanitary to keep putting your foot in your mouth like that. It didn’t help matters that Romney kept blowing his nose into $100 bills.” –Craig Ferguson

“A man in Albuquerque has registered his dog to vote. Apparently the dog likes the current administration but he’s not sure he wants another 28 years of Obama.“Today is the multi-state primary known as ‘Super Tuesday.’ It’s going to be followed tomorrow by ‘Now we’re really stuck with Romney Wednesday.’” –Conan O’Brien “Last night was Super Tuesday – a 10-state GOP Primary orgy. A big, sweaty pile of lever-yankin’ Republican voters. And like most orgies, it involves a bunch of middle aged guys who are not appealing to women.” –Stephen Colbert

So that’s it for our update from the South Pacific. For college basketball fans, heaven has arrived as we begin three weeks of March Madness. If you like big dances, this is the prom we’ve all been waiting for.

Take a moment to be grateful everything you have. We’ll catch you hitting game winning shots at the buzzer when the other team doesn’t force you to give the ball up. Aloha, mahalo and later, Derrick Rose fans.