Good morning, December fans and welcome to my 150th post, or blog for you sports fans. A beautiful sunset graced the skies above Monterey Bay on Saturday night (a friend described it as “endless”) but unfortunately yours truly missed it as I was vacationing in lovely Pescadero at the time. I was going to go with an array of sea anenomes for today’s photo display but decided that it has been too long since we’ve seen any arch action from Its Beach. But don’t despair friends and anenomes fans, they are on the way.

I love Its Beach. Before it was closed off to Swedish tourists and dogs, (much to the dismay of my golden retriever Summer) I would visit this spot eight days a week. I love shooting around the arch if for no other reason than, much like my outside shot, it will not be around forever. The constant wind and waves bring on the erosion that is always changing the look of the coast. Just like Natural Bridges once had three arches there is now one. And as Three Dog Night says, “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” I always feel that when I’m shooting at Its I’m not just capturing the moment but also documenting history.

The first shot is the initial photo I took at low tide with the view of the lighthouse through the arch. This was taken at around 10:30 in the morning. The next shot was taken on a late fall afternoon at the golden hour. Shot #3 was taken from the other side of the arch looking west. I caught a perfect reflection as the water was as still as the brain waves patterns coming from the oval office. The next shot features the beautiful aqua color in the pool of water beneath the arch. I have hundreds of shots of this arch as the rock and water change color with the sky, clouds and price of oil.

The arch is covered with all types of sea life that we’ll check out later in the month. While shooting the fifth shot I was waist deep in water which was helpful since my wallet and cell phone were still in my pocket. But I loved the look of the white water, the clouds and the fog so I didn’t mind getting a little moist. If you look really closely you can see a chain of pelicans and a UFO flying by in the far right hand corner. The final shot shows the contrast between a blue and gray sky day. And you know what they say, “Gray skies are gonna to clear up. Put on a happy face.”

On to some comedy. Today’s segment once again courtesy of Jay Leno. And this joke I can really relate to. “The economy is bad these days. How bad is it? The airlines are now charging $15 bucks for each of the bags under your eyes.” Now readers of this blog know that I’m a New York Giants fan, despite yesterday’s pathetic performance in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. “As you know, Giant’s superstar receiver Plaxico Burress was arrested last week after his unlicensed firearm went off in his pants at a nightclub. Mayor Bloomberg wants to throw the book at him. Today he was given a choice. Either 3 years in prison or he has to play for the Detroit Lions.” And finally, “Hookers in New York are getting very creative with the economic crisis. They are now offering the Plaxico Burress special. For $100 bucks, they’ll make the gun go off in your pants.”

That’s the Monday experience. Coming up on our next blog I’ll be showcasing a sunrise that you’ll want to tell your friends, neighbors and pet sitters about. The reason I missed Saturday’s spectacular sunset was because I was attending my freshman son’s basketball tournament in Pescadero (who even knew that had a high school?) Jason’s varsity PCS team took third place as my point-guard playing son had 12 points, 9 assists, 9 steals and 3 blocked shots in the final game to earn all-tournament honors. It just goes to show that if you nurture your child, build their self-esteem and feed them the right combination of chewable steroids that the triple-double sky is the limit. So enjoy the arch and Veronica and we’ll catch on the goal line. Aloha, mahalo and later, Derrick Rose fans.

Good morning and greetings, baseball fans. In the two previous blogs we’ve gone back to my days of shooting with film at 11. Today we will return there for one final time, but instead of viewing the horizontal highlights, we’ll be exploring the vertical vortexes of my photographic mind.

We start off along West Cliff Drive at Swift Street with some double rainbow action before moving down to Lighthouse Point for a shot I took in the late 70’s of the white water smashing up against the cliff. These were the days before fences, surf museums and the internet. Next it’s another West Cliff classic as on this morning I somehow mistimed the sunset but caught the sun rising up with these glorious clouds in the sky.

Next it’s out to Palm Desert for another sunrise delight and then it’s back to Lighthouse Point. This is actually an early digital shot but I liked the reflection and the verticality for this montage. We then head to Stockton Avenue for the sunset cruise as the group of cormorants flew by on their way to Happy Hour at the Crow’s Nest. You know what they say, birds will be birds.

I’ve written about the war in Iraq and our escalating and deadly conflict in Afghanistan. Well, there’s another battle going on with much at steak. America’s two largest hot dog makers are waging a wiener war, hoping to win over customers and secure the No. 1 spot atop the stagnating frankfurter market. The latest round in the long-running feud comes as Kraft Foods Inc.’s Oscar Mayer brand gives its signature hot dog a perm and a makeover aimed at stealing momentum from Sara Lee Corporation’s Ball Park Franks. To quote Laker Coach Phil Jackson from this year’s NBA Finals, “Momentum is a strange girl.”

Kraft hopes its reformulation, a massive promotional campaign and free relish will attract new customers with a zestier, meatier recipe for its all-beef dog. “Consumers are continuing to look for higher flavors, beefier, juicier hot dogs and we saw that as an opportunity to grow that portion of our business,” said Sean Marks, the top dog in the marketing department for Oscar Mayer. Both suburban Chicago food manufacturers claim the designation as the nation’s top hot dog brand, based on separate readings of market research, sales data and mustard connoiseurs. Hot dog consumption, at least among adults and pro athletes, has hit its lowest level since the mid-1980s. What a bunner.

About 956 million packages of hot dogs were sold to U.S. retailers in the past year. That’s on top of the estimated 30 million hot dogs that Major League Baseball fans down each season at the nation’s ballparks along with droves of garlic fries. And with grocery sales of about $2 billion last year hot dogs are far from being discounted. And here’s a number for you stat fans. 48 percent of American children aged 18 and under will eat at least one hot dog in the next two weeks. A few might even open a book.

Kraft, the world’s second-largest food company, is also spending the summer promoting its line of snack-sized hot dogs by sending its new “Mini Weinermobile” on a nationwide marketing tour along side the full-scale model. Funny, my salivary glands did not react to that last sentence. Meanwhile, Sara Lee is touting its angus beef franks, turkey franks, whole-grain buns and fluffy pound cake that it announced back in May. As I’ve sung in the shower many a time, “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” But in reality, “Oh, I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer Wiener. That is what I truly like to be. ‘Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer weiner. Everyone would be in love with me.”

Now that we’ve knocked off the main course, here’s some desert news. Americans last year spent $12.4 billion on ice cream, frozen yogurt, creamsicles, fudgicles, flying saucers, push-up pops and similar products in 2007. Though it may sound like a lot, the ice cream market is barely growing as sales rose just 1.8 percent between 2006 and 2007. What growth the industry is seeing comes from two contradictory trends. Increased demand for “decadent” products like ice cream with candy or other goodies mixed in and also for the healthier ice cream like the lower-fat slow churned kind. Yeah, you’ve got to love that slow churned double fudge brownie. Toss in a box of chocolate chocolate Haagen Daz bars and I’m climbing the stairway to sugar heaven.

That’s our Wednesday edition of Food for Thought. I hope you a caught a little bit of the all-star game last night from Yankee Stadium. My childhood home in New Jersey was just 20 minutes from “The House that Ruth Built” in the Bronx and going to the stadium was always a thrill. Bucky Dent, ‘Louisiana Lighting” Ron Guidry, Goose Goosage, Mickey Rivers, going to Yankee games was always a religious experience. Sort of like a bar mitzvah followed by a Hells Angels’ brunch. So enjoy the vertical colors, these summer days and we’ll catch you on Friday. Aloha, Derek Jeter fans.