Good morning and greetings, April fans. Well, last week we started off the new month with some spring showers, which according to my Mariah Carey wall calendar, will then lead to May flowers.

However, at my humble abode on the highly desirable upper westside of Santa Cruz, the gophers and rose bushes are already in full bloom, as my front yard is bursting with color, fragrance and a network of freshly dug tunnels that the recently captured Mexican cartel boss El Chapo would be proud to list on his resume.

Yes, the smell of spring is in the air. As I said to my wife the other day, “If I had a rose for every time I thought of you, I’d be picking roses for a lifetime.” And she replied, “Just remember to turn on the dishwasher before you come upstairs.” Ah, another Hallmark moment.

It was back in 1967 that the Beatles released their psychedelic studio album, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ Which brought us this classic Lennon and McCartney line, “It was twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper’s taught the band to play.”

So with a shout out to Billy Shears, I thought we might take a quick look back at what was happening two decades ago. Because if you don’t remember the past, you’ll never remember the future.

Taking a look at 1994, ‘Forrest Gump’ was number one at the box office and ‘Seinfeld’ was TV’s most popular show, as they were all masters of their domain. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The number one hit on the song charts was ‘All I Wanna Do’ by Sheryl Crow, a baseball strike cancelled the World Series and the Wonderbra was relaunched and celebrated as one of the greatest fashion innovations in history. Who knew?

And it was twenty years ago today, on April 7, 1994, that the world witnessed the start of the Rwandan genocide, where for a 100 day period, an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 Rwandans were slaughtered, going down as one of the most horrific and shameful events to occur in our lifetimes.

But out of darkness on this day came a shining light, in the form of a child, the birth of my son, Jason. He was supposed to have entered the world a day earlier, but due to my wife’s reluctance to go to the hospital after her water broke, his entering into the universe was delayed.

Now April 6 was a day to remember. We arrived in the morning at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, where I sensed that getting a kosher lunch was going to be a little tricky. All the birthing rooms where full, so they led us to the kitchen area and told us to wait. Ironically, there were bagels and cream cheese there to greet us, so the kosher action might still be a go.

We were supposed to meet our doula, who was going to be Allison’s labor coach. She was also a custom’s agent, and it turned out that day she had to go on a raid and was a no-show. This put me right up on the front line, as I was now husband, coach and the lifeline to our doctor, who didn’t want to make an appearance until our son’s cranium was crowning.

Allison took a long time before being fully dilated. As her coach, I kept flashing the bunt sign, but the runners weren’t moving. Finally, at 1:47 am, Jason flew the coop, and we were no longer just a couple, but now a family.

The next 60 minutes were the highest moments of my life, as I couldn’t believe what had popped out of my wife. We just sat there and stared at him like mental patients. Eventually a nurse came in to clean him up and took my order for some matzo brie.

Jason is now a second year pre-med student at UC Santa Barbara, majoring in biological sciences and beach volleyball. He’s grown into a compassionate young man with an thirst for knowledge, who still will occasionally let me beat him playing one-on-one. He really wants to make a difference. It just goes to show that sometimes the apple falls far away from the cherry tree and keeps rolling.

But Jason already had some company on this day. Back in 1959, in Manhattan’s Beth Israel Hospital, my brother Brad entered the picture. Neither my brother Paul or I attended the birth, as we were too busy watching ‘Crusader Rabbit,’ the first animated series produced specifically for television
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Brad grew up in New Jersey, graduated from Amherst College and then headed west to seek his fortune. When he is not snowboarding, he is the President and CEO of People Productions, a video and digital based media company based in Boulder, Colorado.

Now Brad is his middle-aged years has become somewhat of a daredevil, unlike yours truly, who won’t leave his feet. His favorite hobby is heli-snowboarding, where the helicopter drops you off on the top of the glacier. I always feel that urge to accompany him on these trips, but I’m just not myself around avalanches.

So a couple of weeks ago, the helicopter dropped my youngest brother off at the summit of an Alaskan glacier, and while he was sitting on a cornice, it collapsed underneath him, sending him tumbling down a sheer 800 foot drop. He thought he was going to die, or at the least have something great to blog about.

It was a terrifying situation and when he finally stopped falling he was alive. However, his left knee took the brunt of the fall, with all the ligaments blown out like strands of linguine.

So for Brad’s 55th birthday, he’ll be at the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado, prepping for major knee reconstruction surgery the following day. The outcome could have been much worse, but he’s facing a lengthy rehab program, with lots of physical therapy and sponge baths.

I’m just glad he got out alive and with use of all his limbs. Like his Denver Nuggets, he won’t be seeing any postseason action this year. But along with the Nuggets’ small forward Danilo Gallinari, who’s been sidelined all season with a knee injury, he’ll be back in uniform some time next year. So happy birthday, brother.

To check out his Alaskan escapade, click on http://www.glutenfreesnowboarder.com/2014/04/not-every-powder-tale-has-a-happy-ending/

As I mentioned earlier, we started off last week with some wet weather, and this brought some spectacular rainbows into prime time viewing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in photo mode, but it did not stop me from going back into the archives and bringing a few back into the light.

We start off with a lovely full arc double rainbow over the Santa Cruz Wharf, followed by another double shot off of West Cliff Drive.

We then jet over to the South Pacific, with a couple of doubles on Kauai’s beautiful Hanalei Bay. We finish up with the grand finale at Sunset Beach on Oahu’s famous North Shore, just step’s away from Ted’s Bakery, home of the world famous chocolate haupia cream pie.

I love these multicolored masterpieces of reflected and refracted light. It’s like what Charlie Chaplin had to say about rainbows. “You’ll never find one if you’re looking down.” Unless, of course, you’re at a gas station.

Or as my rabbi once told me, “We may run, walk, stumble, drive or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or to miss a chance to see a rainbow along the way.” Because that’s where happy little bluebirds fly.

On to some late night humor. “The Secret Service arrested a man today after he tried to scale a fence at the White House. They reportedly said to the man, ‘Sorry, but you still have two more years, Mr. President.’ A new study on unemployment shows that it is now harder to get a job at Wal-Mart than to get accepted at Harvard. Of course, it’s a lot easier if your dad went to Wal-Mart.” -Seth Meyers

“Willie Nelson’s stuffed armadillo has been returned after being stolen from a Las Vegas show. And I’m sure Willie was happy to get it back, considering what it’s probably stuffed with. That’s right, 75 percent of Americans think marijuana eventually will be legal, while the other 25 percent said, “What, it’s illegal?” – Seth Meyers

“California is having to drive 30 million salmon to the ocean because this year’s drought has dried up the rivers that normally get them there. Unfortunately, to make the salmon comfortable, the truckers had to drive against traffic.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Everybody’s excited about the beginning of baseball season. The Yankees are off to a rough start. They are 0-and-2. Alex Rodriguez, who is no longer a Yankee, sits home nights watching the games and injecting himself with dip.” – David Letterman

“The Discovery Channel just announced plans for a new miniseries. It’s hosting a race to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon. So technically savvy individuals can compete to see who can get their spacecraft to the moon first. It will be televised live. The show aims to prove that people who are bright and determined and work hard can accomplish anything we already accomplished 50 years ago.” – Jimmy Kimmel

So enjoy tonight’s NCAA basketball championship. By the way, after viewing the top prospects in the McDonald’s All American Game last week, our college basketball guru, Dr. Michael Schur, has the Duke Blue Devils once again cutting down the nets in next year’s NCAA Final in Indianapolis. Seems the Dukies have reloaded.

So we’ll catch you coming back from a knee injury and displaying the explosiveness that makes you one of the top young guards in the game. Aloha, mahalo and later, Eric Bledsoe fans.

Good morning and greetings, New Year’s fans. Well, twelve months have past since the big ball dropped in Times Square, and as I wander through this lifetime, I still have so many answered questions, like why are we here, why do bad things happen to good people, and why am I paying Direct TV hundreds of dollars per month and I still can’t get Showtime?

Since last New Year’s Eve, when I had a few too many wine coolers and tried to take my pants off over my head, I’ve pumped out 51 postings of my wit and wisdom here at Sunrise Santa Cruz. According to the fact checkers at MIT, that would equate to approximately 76,500 words, three hundred commas and one semi-colonoscopy. And with a nod to the folks at Canon, who at one point considered sponsoring this site, these pages also included over 300 images of semi-spectacular beauty from the central coast, South Pacific and my modeling days. I believe it was my high school driver’s ed teacher who once said, “Everyone has a photographic memory, but not everyone has film.” And that, my Kodak moment friends, is the reason I went digital.

So as Smithsonian Magazine once pointed out, these weekly ramblings of mine are all about the humor. Whether it be a quip from Woody Allen,”Life is full of misery and suffering and it’s all over too soon,” or these gems from Rodney Dangerfield, “I met the Surgeon General. He offered me a cigarette,” or “If it weren’t for pickpockets, I wouldn’t have any sex life at all,” I only borrow from the best. You can throw in anything from Mel Brooks, the Three Stooges, Honeymooners or the Zucker Brothers. The list of comedy greatness, like the amount of recording hours on my new DVR, is endless. There are so many classic lines circling through my mind that I need to air out on a daily, weekly and bi-monthly basis, because that’s the way I roll. In the words of Jane Fonda, “We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconcious, and we are then master of the situation.” God, I loved her in “Barbarella.”

I find myself inserting simple everyday comedy into my daily life, as when I’m at Safeway, and the checker asks me if I need any help out, I always answer, “No, just emotional.” Gets ’em every time. And that’s a tough audience. Or when the bank teller asks how would like my money, I usually reply, “Regular size bills.” Or just the simple act of walking up to someone and tapping them on the opposite shoulder. That never ceases to amuse me. Yes, I’m what you might call a late bloomer.

As my former editor, pilates instructor and Nashville-loving friend Nancy Mager has often reminded me, everything is in a lyric. You’ve got the old standbys like “Does anybody really know what time it is?,” or “Does anyone remember laughter?,” and my mother’s favorite, from ACDC, ‘I’m on the highway to hell.” That song is so soothing. I always like to toss musical lyrics into these posts, because everything has been said in a song and it’s a clever way to paint a picture. And as Rod Stewart says, “Every picture tells a story.” At least that’s what he told his eight children with five different women.

So moving along, on Christmas night, the Gilbert entourage went out to eat at a local westside restaurant that will remain unnamed (Thai Orchid.) While I was happily downing my gai yang and pad see ew with enough sweet and sour sauce to fill the Red Sea, a couple sat down at the table next to us. We engaged in polite conversation and I then went back to filling my arteries with pad thai.

At some point, I believe while I was prospecting for the chicken in the kang ka ree, the gentlemen asked if I was a photographer. I replied, “why yes, I’m Ansel Adams Jr.” He said he had come to my house/gallery/fortified compound a few years ago for Open Studios and remembered me from all the 8×10 glossy headshots of myself that were hung on the walls.

But things revvved up a notch when his wife chimed in that she gets my blog every week. Wow, what a nice gift from Santa that left me with a sense of renewed vitality along with a twist of thai iced tea. I was so taken by the moment and appreciative of their kind words that I decided not to tell the restaurant manager they were planning on stealing the silverware from the table.

So on that note, I want to thank the millions, er thousands, er hundreds, er all my faithful cyber followers who have supported my non-profitable, subscription free site over the past year. I appreciate you coming back each week and going down the path of lies, exaggerations and half-truths that make this site what it is. I promise to always have a place for you to journey to each week to enjoy a little comic relief and take in some of nature’s beauty. They say they best things in life are free. Here’s hoping this is one of them.

For today’s photo outburst, we are heading back to the day Santa rested, December 26. It was a classic day along the coast, as the clouds played hide and go seek, with periods of rain and sun creating prime rainbow conditions.

These multi-colored arches were out in force a good part of the day, and I shot sections of the first in the early morning from the parking lot at Natural Bridges. I then caught another one looming over the upper westside that was a full arc wonder. We close the year with a couple of afternoon shots of the clouds above Steamers Lane and Its Beach. All in all, it was wet and wild, just a classic day with rainbows stepping up and making spectacular appearances up and down the coast. In the words of author Rachel Houston, “When you reduce life to black and white, you never see rainbows.” And that’s why, sports fans, I’m all about the color.

So that’s it for 2012. We’ll catch you shooting hitting the soft jumpers, driving to the hoop and knocking off Bin Laden. Aloha, mahalo and later, President Obama fans.

Good morning and greetings, tropical storm fans. What is it with the national weather picture? If you’re keeping a scorecard at home, the weather across our nation has been wackier in 2011 than the statements coming out of the mouth of Texas Governor Rick Perry.

It has been a year of extreme conditions in the USA, with killer tornadoes, paralyzing blizzards, unrelenting triple digit heat, record-setting drought, massive flooding, raging wildfires, unusual earthquakes and most significantly, the Yankees having the second-best record in baseball with just one proven starting pitcher.

In an article written by Associated Press Science writer Seth Borenstein, he states that total weather losses so far for the year top $35 billion and 25 cents, and that’s not counting Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee or the upcoming NBA lockout. This is not to say that the rest of the world has been having a picnic in 2011, as there was the horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan, major flooding in Australia, the devastating drought in Africa and the bring your guns to home and work program sponsored by the Mexican drug cartels.

And as Andrew Luck would have it, we’re right in the middle of September, when hurricanes and pro football take center stage. In the first six months of 2011, there were 98 natural disasters in the United States, not to mention the current field of Republican presidential candidates. That is double the average of the 1990’s, which doesn’t include the Columbine school massacre, the O.J .Simpson murder trial and “Beverly Hills 90210.”

Then there’s the unforgiving, relentless, sweltering heat that has been massacring the southwestern states. Tens of thousands of daily weather CD’s and records, including most consecutive mornings on West Cliff Drive without seeing the sun, have been broken or tied. Nearly 1,000 all-time records have been set, with most of them heat or rain, or in the supreme words of Diana Ross, “No wind, no rain, nor winter storms, can stop me babe, oh babe.”

This has also been the hottest summer in Texas history. How hot has it been? It was so hot, Tim Duncan saw an Amish guy buying an air conditioner. More records have been broken than at my high school graduation party. The word scorching doesn’t begin to describe it or Dirk Nowitzki’s outside shooting in the NBA Finals.

The Lone Star state has also experienced it’s worst fire season in history, with over 3.5 million acres burned to go along with it’s driest one year period ever. The stars at night may be big and bright, but it’s been a blazing inferno deep in the heart of Texas. And if that weren’t enough, in July, Oklahoma went into the books as America’s hottest month by any state in recorded history. And this doesn’t include Timothy McVeigh burning in hell.

One of the most troubling aspects of the extreme heat is the record-high nighttime temperatures. It may cool off at night here on the central coast, but a good part of the nation gets treated to the relaxing in an oven experience. The evening highs shows that the country isn’t cooling off at all in the evening, which is what the crops, the human body and my night nurses need.

So why in the wide, wide world of sports do I bring this up? Because here in Santa Cruz, instead of percolating in the heat, we’re still waiting for things to warm up. We had one day last week that I would describe as Indian summer, as the rest of the week was more like August fog mode. Now I’m not complaining, as I’ll take the fog and clouds any day over sweltering heat, but if it warmed up a tad and the sky turned blue before Oprah comes on in the afternoon, Steadman and I wouldn’t be upset.

For today’s photo relay we are going vertical, with three waterfall shots followed by three from the rainbow files from the Garden Isle. The first photo is Wailau Falls, followed by a brilliant red clay waterfall that I shot on the road to Waimea Canyon. The next are cascading waterfalls from after a rain on the mountains that form the backdrop to the town of Hanalei. This was the view from my bedroom on the north shore of Kauai along with an box of Mauna Loa chocolate covered macadamia nuts. It was a tremendous place to quietly read and sob in silence.

We finish up with some vivid Hanalei rainbow moments. According to my lunar calendar, we have one more week’s worth of South Pacific photos before returning to local action, so sunrises, sunsets and more of my fascinating life story are on the way.

On to the late night. “The Republican presidential candidates will have a debate at the Reagan Library. They were going to have it at the George W. Bush Library but they couldn’t fit all eight of them in the bouncy house. The oil industry said if they were allowed to drill more, they could create over a million new jobs. Of course most of those jobs would be cleaning oil off ducks. In Iowa Sarah Palin ran a half marathon and came in second place. Of course no one saw her do it, because she refused to tell anyone she was running.” –Conan O’Brien

“A town in Arizona wants to have its own version of Spain’s running of the bulls. Right. If there’s one thing Arizona is missing it’s thousands of Spanish-speaking people running for their lives.” Apparently, Mitt Romney is planning to build a huge addition onto his beach house in California. And here’s the cool part: They’re using the same wood that they used to build Mitt Romney. A woman in Alaska punched a bear in the face after it threatened her dog Or as Sarah Palin put it, ‘Teach me, sensei.'” –Jimmy Fallon

“‘The White House agreed to move President Obama’s speech from Wednesday to Thursday because the Republicans have a debate scheduled for Wednesday. So the debate that no one is going to watch holds more weight than the speech no one is going to believe. “Michele Bachmann said that if she is elected president, she would consider eliminating the Department of Education because ‘the states could do a gooder job.’ “A New Mexico state trooper in full uniform was caught having sex with a woman on the hood of her car. She was so drunk that halfway through she said, “Hey, that’s not a Breathalyzer!” –Jay Leno

That’s our national weather report. So enjoy the last full week of summer and the start of the new fall TV season.
We’ll catch you banging winners from the baseline. Aloha, mahalo and later, Brooklyn Decker fans.

Good morning and greetings, photo blog fans. Sunrise Santa Cruz is back from the lovely South Pacific and we are ready to pick and roll. Ah, there’s nothing like being on vacation, getting away from the daily grind of shooting mainland sunrises and sunsets over the blue Pacific. It’s a different world on the the North Shore of Oahu. Take it from a rugged outdoorsman like me, it’s not easy going from a cold water paradise on Monterey Bay to the crystal clear 80 degree water on Sunset Beach. Somehow, I was able to make the tropical transition and relax Olympic style at the place known as the Jerusalem of surfing.

After a five hour flight from San Francisco filled with delicious airline snacks (well, a can of soda and a napkin, anyway), we landed at Honolulu International Airport, remembered the Alamo and headed to the North Shore. It’s about a 40 minute drive past the Dole Plantation thru the pineapple fields to surfing’s holy land. The most famous coastline of surfing on Earth lies at latitude 21,950 north, longitude 158,112 west. The Hawaiian islands comprise the most isolated archipelago on the planet, located more than 2,000 miles southwest of the United States and light years away from the layered sweatshirt dominated climate in Santa Cruz.

This geological miracle called the North Shore is home to waves that are considered the most powerful on earth. Or in the words of oceanographer Dr. Ricky Griggs, “The swells hit the northern shore of Oahu with their power intact, not slowed by any other island chains or continental shelves. What breaks on the North Shore is North Pacific power, pound for pound the most powerful wave on the planet.” Fortunately, the good doctor is referring to wintertime action. That is why yours truly brings his family over in the summer, when the swell is as gentle as a kiss from Oprah.

So we rented a house right on the sand at Sunset Beach. As you can see from photos #1 and 2, the beach and landscape are spectacular with very few people in sight. The third shot is the view from our deck and the colors are just dreamy. The weather and sky would be in constant flux. One second it would be deep blue and then a minute later the warm rain would come, bringing rainbows (photo #4) and then back to blue within minutes. Like they used to say when I lived in Boulder, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

Speaking of Boulder, my Colorado-based brother Brad made it to the North Shore and forced me to accompany him on early morning snorkeling trips to Shark’s Cove (photo #5), a five minute ride from Sunset and right across the street from the wonders of Foodland. Just 50 yards off the Kam Highway, a different world lies beneath the water’s surface. Fish of every race, creed and particularly every color swim in the coral reefs right off shore. We’re talking orange, yellow, pinks and purples, just super exotic colored fish available to anyone with a mask. What I liked most was the feeling of being surrounded by a group of hundreds of silver fish. It was surreal feeling and just an incredible display of what God has put into his sea collection. Just an awesome way for a land based former hand model to start the day.

The North Shore is also home to legendary surfing spots like the Pipeline and Waimea Bay (photo #6.) In honor of our 50th state we’re going to go with the Hawaii theme thru the Olympics and beyond. On Wednesday we’ll take a look at some of the wildlife on the island. And let me welcome a bunch of new people to the blog. I think you’re going to like the ride. So enjoy the day, the beach views and we’ll catch you for wildlife Wednesday. Aloha, mahola and God bless chocolate. Later, macadamia nut fans.