Good morning and greetings, winter storm fans. Last week, we had five straight days of driving rain, heavy winds and big surf. I don’t want to say things were a bit moist, but it rained harder than the tears coming down the cheeks of Democrats in Massachusetts. Fortunately, my writing is covered by an umbrella clause, so I remained high and dry during the blogging process.

But in honor of our inclement weather and to celebrate the moisture we so badly needed here out west, I thought I’d pass on a few rain jokes. You know, some raincoat humor. And away we flow. There’s a technical term for a sunny, warm day which follows two rainy days. It’s called Monday. “Gosh, it’s raining cats and dogs,” said Fred looking out of the kitchen window. “I know,” said his mother. “I’ve just stepped in a poodle!” There was a communist named Rudolph. One day he looked out the window and said, “It looks like a storm is coming.” “No it isn’t,” said his wife. “Besides, how would you know?” “Because,” he responded, “Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear.”

Moving along, let’s revisit the lyrical front, where in the words of the Carpenters, “Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down.” But that is not true for yours truly, as Monday is the day that I share my flowing stream of unconciousness with the ever increasing cyber world, my parents and my rabbi. The Allman Brothers told us, “They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad,” but according to Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Tuesday’s gone with the wind.” Jimi Hendrix proclaimed, “Rainy day, dream away. Let the sun take a holiday.” But our last word of precipitation today will come from the great Eric Clapton, who said, “Let it rain, let it rain, let you love rain down on me.” And that my cyber friends, is why I never carry an umbrella.

But let’s move out of the rain and into the sun. Today’s photo journey brings us back to the final day of the decade, December 31, 2009. I wanted to make sure I captured this day on the photographic front, so we start off with a lovely sunrise from Its Beach and Lighthouse Point, two locations I am as familiar with as Julianna Margulies’ character on CBS’s “The Good Wife.” It was a good start to the special day, which at this point held more promise than the violent drug war ending in Mexico anytime soon or the US convincing Afghan farmers not to grow opium. How’s that for a smooth political transition?

But wanting to make this a full day experience, much like my graduation day from driving school, I then headed up the coast to Four Mile Beach to take in the gulls and the furthering clouds expansion. The beach was deserted, except for the large flock of gulls, and they greeted me with the same warmth and understanding as did the Iraqis on our decision to continue to occupy their country. Basically, okay, you got your shots in, now get out of here and leave us alone.

For the end of the day tapestry, I returned to the coast and Its Beach. It was an extreme low tide, so I strode thru my favorite arch the same way as General Sherman did thru Atlanta in his March to the Sea back in 1864, but a tad less destructively. I was hoping for a spectacular sunset to close out the decade, but a cloud front blew in from the north, so the final shot features the last bit of pure sunlight from the decade. And because of the low tide, brilliantly colored sea anenomes and sea stars were scattered throughout the beach, all rock stars in their own right. All in all, a tremendous end to the decade, although if a few more colors had appeared in the sky, I wouldn’t have held it against the big guy, and I don’t mean Alec Baldwin.

On to Conan O’Brien’s former neighborhood. “I’ve been having a hard time explaining this whole situation to my kids, because they’re still very young. So I had a doll made of myself, and now I can show my kids exactly where NBC touched daddy. I should have known something was up when NBC sent me that 2010 calendar that only went up to January.” –Conan O’Brien “Things are crazy. I don’t know what is going on on NBC. I don’t know what going on in the ‘Tonight Show.’ Earlier today I get a call from the executives at CBS and they wanted to know if I would consider a jaw enhancement. What? Are you kidding?’” –David Letterman

‘The big CBS show here, anybody seen the ‘Medium?’ It’s about a woman who can communicate with the dead. A woman without can communicate with the dead. As a matter of fact, this Sunday, this week, Johnny Carson calls up the medium and he asks her what the hell is going on with the ‘Tonight Show.’” –David Letterman “Former presidential candidate John Edwards has finally admitted that he did father a love child with his former mistress, Rielle Hunter. He released a statement today. Edwards said, ‘It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she’ll forgive me.’ Hey, if she inherits that hair, what’s to forgive?” –Jimmy Kimmel “The heaviest snowfall in over 60 years is being reported in Beijing, China. To give you an idea of how bad it is, the army is now having to use snowplows to run over dissidents.” –Jay Leno

“You know, it’s hard to believe President Obama has now been in office for a year. Isn’t that amazing? It’s a year. And you know, it’s incredible. He took something that was in terrible, terrible shape, and he brought it back from the brink of disaster: The Republican party.” –Jay Leno “President Obama says he blames himself for the upset in the Massachusetts Senate race because he was too remote. Meanwhile, today in Arizona, John McCain couldn’t find his remote. One of Osama bin Laden’s sons has written a book. He said his father was a cruel parent. For example, he made the kid wait until he was 18 years old before he let him blow up his first car.” –David Letterman

So that’s this week’s version of “Meet the Impressed.” Rumor has it that next week will be our first guest blog of the year, and mark my words, you will be impressed or we guarantee your money back. Caught a beautiful sunrise on Sunday that made up for the missed snow on the mountain shots from last Friday, as the clouds, just like my 9th grade algebra teacher, just wouldn’t cooperate. Hope you caught the NFC Championship game yesterday, as it had all the drama of Don Draper on a good night out. So enjoy the moisture from the skies and we’ll catch you deep in the end zone. Aloha, mahalo and later, New Orlean Saint’s fans.

Good morning and greetings, August fans. A few posts back, I wrote about the summer humidity on the east coast as compared to the summer frigidity that inhabits our central coast. This past week, on my early morning jaunts along West Cliff Drive, the ground and air were soaking wet. I hadn’t experienced that kind of moistness since I roasted a cornish game hen in honor of Anthony Randolph’s spectacular play in the Las Vegas summer league. I was thinking, here we are in the middle of fog season, while other parts of the nation are sweltering like Scotter Libby before the pardons board. Across the country, the weather has been wackier than Mark Sanford’s travel intinerary.

Meanwhile, 3,000 miles to the east, New York experienced it second coldest July on record. Fortunately, Mark Teixeira and New York Yankee bats were hot which counteracted the lack of summer sun for beachgoers and Met’s fans. Up and down the eastern seaboard it’s been cold and wet, as frustrated families ask themselves, “Where is summer?” I believe right next to thumbkin.

At the same time, last week in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle recorded the hottest temperature in its history at 103 while Portland topped out at 106, one shy of the all-time record. We are talking a major Martha and the Vandellas heat wave, my marine layer loving friends. Folks in these parts were flocking to the coast faster than Brandon Roy scorching up the floor on a Blazer fast break.

So as the moist air filled my delicate lungs, I was hit with my usual early morning revelations. I never ceased to be amazed by the 24/7 travelcade of birds as the flyways along the edge of the continent are always going full tilt. Prehistoric looking pelicans fly by in both directions, sometimes stopping to dive headfirst in search of some fish sticks, cormorants furiously flapping their wings in flight while their compatriots line the cliff walls. Throw in some screaming gulls, exotic pigeons and other various sea birds and I’ve painted your daily aerial display. It reminds me of the first time I visited Yankee Stadium. I was initially shocked by the foul language, drugs and alcohol, and those were just the security guards.

So once again, you may be thinking, what’s this bi-monthly obsession with byrds? The answer, my friends, is not blowing in the wind. There is a reason that I come out blasting with my Canon. And a time for every purpose under heaven. It’s my honest attempt to turn, turn, turn and try and churn out the best stream of conciousness this mind has to offer. And as we know, a mime is a terrible thing to waste.

Today’s photo lineup takes us back to the north coast, as we return to the sands of Four Mile Beach. When I’m looking for large quantities of gulls draped against the background of cumulating clouds, there’s no other place in this area I’d rather be. If you were to shoot these same shots without the birds in the sky, it’s an empty landscape. These gulls just wanting to have fun give the pictures life, liberty and in my case, the pursuit of semi-happiness. Here’s the bottom line. I love shooting birds and three-pointers. Just seeing them in motion and hearing the sound of the ball swishing thru the net, to paraphrase the Doobie Brothers, “it keeps me running.”

Let’s go to the late night. “Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin resigned yesterday, and during her speech, she was heckled. Apparently, it was just someone in Russia yelling, ‘Keep it down over there!’” –Conan O’Brien “Sarah Palin’s decision to resign has resulted in an 18-point drop in her approval rating among Americans and a 52-point drop among terrified moose. She says she’s going to divide her time between traveling to support conservative causes and learning to pronounce the ‘G’ at the end of words” –Jimmy Kimmel “Some people now are saying, this is true, that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wants to host her own TV show. The show is going to be called ‘Am I More Coherent Than a Fifth Grader?’” –Conan O’Brien

“This August, President Obama is renting a vacation home on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s amazing. It has a basketball court, swimming pool, apple orchard and a driving range. The president says he can’t wait to shoot hoops, while Michelle looks forward to pulling apple trees out of the ground with her bare hands.” –Jimmy Fallon “President Obama held a Q & A session about healthcare reform with senior citizens over the Internet. Unfortunately, the senior citizens spent the entire hour typing questions into their microwave ovens. “President Obama is hosting a delegation of 150 Chinese officials in Washington. Among the questions the Chinese have for the U.S.: ‘What’s your military policy? What is your stance on global warming? And where’s our money?’” –Conan O’Brien

“Of course, President Obama has invited Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and the policeman who arrested him to the White House. Reportedly, Obama is going to serve them Budweiser. And in the spirit of racial harmony, Budweiser is changing its nickname from the ‘King of Beers’ to the ‘Martin Luther King of Beers.’” –Conan O’Brien “Now here’s the way President Obama likes to do stuff. They had this problem up there at Harvard. So President Obama says, ‘Here’s what we’ll do. Come to the White House. We’ll settle our differences. We’ll have a beer.’ And if it works for those guys he’s going to try it with Jon and Kate, and he is going it to try it with the Israelis and Hamas. “And then in the spirit of this, I thought it was nice today, Rush Limbaugh called up Professor Gates and Officer Crowley and he invited them over for some OxyContin.” –David Letterman

So that’s our first post for August 2009. I’ll be taking next week off, as the Gilbert family is heading to Sunset Beach on the fabled north shore of Oahu. In between body painting seminars and cooking with coconut classes, I’ll be studying the effects on the psyche of gentle trade winds, scented plumerias and most importantly, warm ocean water that doesn’t lead to shrinkage action. Of course, it will all be documented for those of you not making a trip to the South Pacific or the new Safeway on the westside this summer.

So enjoy the weeks before the back to school fever kicks in. And again, thanks to Aimee and Jason Gilbert for their guest blogs. Now if they would just stop asking me about royalties. We’ll catch you at Waimea Bay. Aloha, mahalo and later, Pipeline fans.

Good morning and greetings, NFL playoff fans. It’s been a week of chilly mornings and clear skies here on the central coast so we’ll have to journey (or is it Foreigner?) back to December of 2008 for today’s photo highlights. But before we hit the North Coast, for a little taste of politics, let’s head to our nation’s capital. “Barack Obama’s daughters started at their new school in Washington, DC. Yeah, their teachers are really impressed and said that both girls are already reading well above President Bush’s level.” And earlier this week, Obama met with all three living ex-Presidents and one current brain dead President. Thank you, Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. I’m going to miss our Commander in Chief. Our as the bumper sticker says, “Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its Idiot.”

Within ten miles of my lovely abode on the upper westside lie many spectacular North Coast beaches. We’re talking Wilder Ranch, Laguna Creek, Panther Beach, Bonny Dune, Shark’s Tooth and Davenport Beach, among others. But my personal favorite is Four Mile Beach, which according to the way the Black Crowes fly, is just four miles up the coast. As I mentioned in this blog before, it’s a beautiful feeling pulling off of Highway 1 and being the only car in the lot. As Dave Mason would say, “Alone, Together.”

I then hop out of my car and sprint like Usain Bolt to the railroad tracks where I always stop to take a couple shots and perhaps score a few brussel spouts that have swan dived off the passing trucks. You can see two of the tracks of my dreams moments in today’s photo display. The cloud cover on these two mornings was thicker than the swarm of golden raisins I add to my morning oatmeal which created a pleasant backdrop to highlight the always present groups of gulls that like to party at Four Mile.

But my favorite shot from this December cloud conference would be the first photo. The reflection of the clouds in the stream the feeds into the very surfable Pacific really works for me. Back in 2004 I saw a photograph of a sunrise by the now deceased photographer Galen Rowell. The sky was on fire and it was reflected in a lake in a mountain setting. When I saw that picture I said to myself, “This is what I want to do” and since than have always been fascinated by the reflection action. I believe I nailed it in this photo. Then again, I voted for Mondale.

What would be a blog without some jokes? Once again the credits go to my favorite son Jason. Two women were arguing over whose dog was smarter. The first woman said, “My dog is so smart that every morning he waits for the paper boy to arrive, then he takes the paper from the letterbox and brings it to me.” The second woman said, “I know.” “How do you know?” asked the first woman. The second woman said, “My dog told me.”

This next one is a little long but definitely worth it. A man was passing a pet shop when he saw a talking monkey advertised for sale. He was so impressed by its vocabulary that he bought it on the spot. That evening he took it to his local bar and bet everyone ten dollars that the monkey could talk. A dozen people accepted the challenge but despite the new owner’s coaxing, the monkey refused to say a word and the man had to pay up. When he got home, the man was puzzled to hear the monkey chatting away merrily.

The next evening the man returned to the bar and bet everyone twenty dollars that the monkey could talk. Again there were plenty of takers, but to the man’s anger, the monkey remained silent. After paying up, the man took the monkey outside. “I’m taking you back to the shop, ” he screamed. “You’re a complete waste of money.” “Chill out,” said the monkey. “Think about the odds we’ll get tomorrow.”

That’s the end of our programming for today. And the dream is over for the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants as Eli Manning and the Giant offense put on a pathetic display in the Meadowlands yesterday as they lost to the Eagles. I’m not a big Philadelphia fan but I do love their cream cheese. Shot that beautiful full moon rising on Saturday night that we’ll check out in our next blog. So until then, enjoy the magic that comes from living along the edge of the contintent and able being to see, hear and experience NBA basketball. We’ll catch you in the lockeroom. Aloha and later, LeBron James lovers.

Good morning and greetings, transition team fans. The skies of late have been clearer than the broth in my wife’s matzoh ball soup, so instead of a sunrise or sunset experience we are going to the aviary card. The first shot of the gulls along the Main Beach at the Boardwalk was taken in October of 2005. The rest of the gulls just wanting to have fun were taken in the month of November. Thus, this is a pre-Thanksgiving salute to our eleventh month-you might say the calm before the cranberry sauce storm.

Shots two and three were taken along the Main Beach in mid-afternoon. The sand was loaded with gulls with provided me with lots of birdshot. When I came back the next day to check out the scene there were just a couple of dozen birds playing bridge. It’s just another example of capturing the moment-I wish they all could be California gulls.

When I see potential in the morning sky I head down to Lighthouse Point to experience the grandeur, pagentry and fresh baked pastries . When the clouds are really exotic I then hop in the car and follow the Yellow Brick road to Four Mile Beach and gull city. That’s where the next three photos were taken. If you look at the last shot you’ll see hundreds of birds in the sky. Many people believe that birds are good luck and I was feeling quite fortunate in the moment.

My Zrii loving, Marin County-based sibling Paul was here this weekend and I asked him to join in selecting the subject title for today’s blog. Here are his top three selections. “Jethro Gull on Tour,” “Way to Gullible” and my personal favorite, “The Gulls of Ipanema.” It’s always good to see him because he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.

On to our humor selection from the small screen. This week’s comments come from one of my favorite vocalists of the day, Bill “I’m Hussein in the Membrane” Maher, who appeared on the Tonight Show last week. He’s got a program, “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO and is not afraid to take an occassional shot at the administration. Here’s a few zingers. Of the election of Barack Obama he said, “It’s a new chapter in America. Unfortunately, it’s Chapter 11.” Of John McCain calling Obama a “celebrity” who could fill stadiums, “Well, the Republicans can fill stadiums-like the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina. And finally, of Sarah Palin, he said it was the men of the Republican Party that loved her-they thought she was a MILF. And she was a MIFL-a Moron Who I’d Like to Forget.”

That’s our show for today. Have a great Thanksgiving holiday and we’ll catch you after the turkey, stuffing and sweet potato along with hours of NFL football with some NBA basketball thrown in for desert. Enjoy your families and this special time of togetherness with the ones you love or can barely tolerate. And lest we not forget, the New York Giants fans. 10-1. After last year’s Super Bowl shocker, this year is all gravy. Which is also the key to the Thanksgiving dinner. Aloha, sports fans and we’ll catch you next week on the goal line.

Good morning and welcome to my world. Today we are going to look at six different flavors of birds I’ve observed in the last week. On Saturday my daughter and I took the dog for an outing at Antonelli’s Pond and before you could say “Rajon Rondo” we came upon these two geese (photos #1 & 4.) Where they had flown in from I couldn’t say, how long they were staying was never discussed and just what where they doing there at that moment was never asked. But they were very observant and said I seemed quite relaxed, or as “loose or as goose.” When I returned the next day both had flown the coop with their Canadian passports.

I spotted the Great Blue Heron doing aerobics in an open field on Delaware Avenue. The cormorant was nesting along West Cliff Drive while grooving to Blue Oyster Cult. The little black and white fellow I actually shot a few weeks ago at Four Mile Beach. He seemed lost and wondered aloud if John McCain was really the Republican party’s best choice. The final shot is a couple of baby gulls who were just born on the rocks at Natural Bridges. With them are the proud mother and father who posed for this shot before getting back to the business of sending out birth announcements.

So let’s stay with the bird theme. There’s a crowing, or should I say growing problem in the Japanese city of Kagoshima. Crows have been setting up their nests on electric poles causing strings of blackouts in this city of 500,000 on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu. Blackouts are just one of the problems caused by an explosion of Japan’s crows, which have grown so numerous that they seem to compete with humans for space and jobs in this crowded nation. There are said to be 150,000 crows, 2 blue jays and an albino pigeon in Tokyo alone. Communities are scrambling to find ways to move or reduce the crow population as the birds have taken over parks, nature reserves and miniature golf courses, frightening away residents and caddies .

With wingspans up to a yard, intimidating beaks, sharp claws and money to spend, Japan’s crows are bigger, scarier and more aggressive than those usually seen in North America. Hungry crows have bloodied the faces of children while trying to steal candy from their hands and have carried away ducklings, prairie dogs and sushi vendors from Tokyo zoos. The city stepped up its efforts after a crow buzzed the head of the governor while he was trying to shoot an eagle while playing golf.

Japanese bird experts say the crow population and the use of teriyaki sauce have increased enormously since the 1990’s. Experts say that behind the rise is the growing abundance of garbage, many of them TV shows imported from the U.S. Actually, it’s because the Japanese have adopted more of a western lifestyle. This has created an orgy of eating for the crows and we’re not talking just grapes. They have become scavengers with an attitude. So the Kyushu Electric Power company has put together crow patrols that have removed 600 nests and a sushi bar since they began three years ago.

But despite these jumpsuited men in gray, the crows are winning as the nests, blackouts and adults with crows feet keep increasing. These birds are quite crafty. They have begun building dummy nests to draw patrol members away from their real nests. The crows have also shown a surprising ability to disrupt Japan’s supermodern technical infrastructure as over the last two years Tokoyo has reported 1,400 cases of crows cutting fiber optic networks, apparently to use for nests and better cable reception. Fortunately these black crowes are confined to Japan and have been unsuccessful in making the long flight to the U.S. mainland. I would estimate that’s about 6,000 miles by the way the crow flies.

So that’s our look at the black plague that’s reeking havoc in the land of the rising sun. Enjoy the menagerie of birds and congratulations go out to the new NBA champion Boston Celtics. This year’s playoffs were a tad disappointing (er, weak) as with a few exceptions the games and series did not live up to the hype. The western conference battles down the stretch during the regular season were a lot more intense. LA was a joke and a choke during the Finals. I guess this means I won’t be wearing my Kobe Bryant pajamas again till next season. Those padded feet were annoying anyway. Aloha, Laker fans.

Good morning and greetings from the windy west side of Santa Cruz. For Monday’s photo entertainment, we went with a montage of the color red. Today we are going to stay with the single color theme as we’re talking shades of green. We’re talking lime green, Lorne Greene and Al Green. We’re looking at pine cones and flowers on the west side, patterns on the rock at Laguna Creek Beach, extreme low tide at Four Mile Beach and a family of quackers at Neary Lagoon. We’ll be doing more of these color coded days as we’ve got mellow yellow, brilliant blue, outrageous orange and passionate purple waiting to take their cuts at the plate.

So what’s happening on the nature front this week? Well, according to a all-star team of California scientists, the earth may be on the verge of a massive release of methane similar to one that caused a global warming that ended the last “snowball” ice age. Writing in the journal Nature, lead researcher Martin Kennedy of UC Riverside suggested the same kind of warming could be about to occur, not over thousands of years but within a human lifetime In the words of the group Spirit, “It’s natures way of telling you something’s wrong.”

Methane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and 10,000 gigatons of frozen methane are stored zip lock bags in the world’s oceans and permafrost. The current trend of accelerated permafrost melting as the Arctic warms rapidly could release vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere, triggering a sudden climate change. Kennedy worries that rising carbon dioxide levels could drive enough warming to destabilize the Earth’s stored methane reserves. Says Kennedy, “Unzippering the methane reserve could potentially warm the Earth tens of degrees.” Personally, I live by the words of the lovely Carly Simon, “I haven’t gone time for the methane.”

Sunscreen lotions used by swimmers around the world are contributing to a phenomenon known as coral bleaching, (not to be confused with Cloris Leachman,) threatening the coral and the marine life that depend upon it. A study sponsored by the European Commission found that even tiny amounts of cream based UV filters used to protect the skin from the sun’s rays caused bleaching of the coral reefs.

The chemical compounds join climate change, industrial pollution, high UV radiation due to the “ozone hole” and talk radio as the leading threats to coral reefs. According the the report, an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 tons of sunscreen are released annually in water near coral reefs, with 25 percent of the sunscreen ingredients on skin released into water over the course of a 20 minute swim. And incidentally, this is after staying out of the water for an hour after eating.

Now onto my favorite story of the day. Beavers will soon be living in the lakes, streams and the Joan rivers of Scotland for the first time since before Mary Queen of Scots was executed in 1587. The beaver, Wally, Lumpy and Eddie Haskell were all hunted to extinction across Scotland in the 18th century and the government plans to capture four beaver families in Norway and then release them in the lochs of Argyll’s Wildlife Reserve.

When the animals are released next spring, it will mark the first time that native mammals have been reintroduced in Scotland. Scientists will closely monitor the beavers over the following five years to determine the impact on the local environment, economy and entertainment business before any decision is made on a wider reintroduction. “By bringing these useful creatures back to their natural environment, we will have the chance to restore a missing part our our world of wetland ecosystems and re-establish much needed natural processes,” said Alan Bantick, chairman of the Scottish Beaver Trail Steering Group. As far as the beavers are concerned, I say dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t.

That’s it for today’s look and world news and sports. I will leave you with the words of one Mr. Gary Wright. “I’ve just closed my eyes again. Climbed aboard the dream weaver train. Driver take away my worries of today. And leave tomorrow behind.” You know, after writing that, I really believe we can reach the morning light. Enjoy the green and get ready for the Lakers and Celtics to go at it in the NBA Finals. Let’s hope it’s as epic as the nature I saw today that I’ll blog out next week. Defense is desire. Later.

Good morning and greetings, four-day work week fans. On Saturday afternoon a Red Sox fan and I ventured up the coast to check out the action at Four Mile Beach. Although it was cloudy, I was still photographically hopeful because there’s always something happening on the north coast. As usual, I was not disappointed. Cliff swallows were all over the place, having built their nests along the eroding walls at Four Mile. There were some areas of the cliffs that were as dry as Salt Lake City on a Saturday night, but other parts were wet and lush as the rain forests of Maui and New Jersey.

Cliff swallows build gourd shaped nests out of mud pellets that they carry in their mouths and fanny packs to a site protected by an overhang (in this case, the cliff.) They nest in colonies and will patrol an area up to four miles away from their cliffside condos looking for food, snacks and beverages. The last time we saw these swallows we were shooting the underhang of the lighthouse at Lighthouse Point. These birds like their homes with a view and the one at Four Mile is spectacular. That is, if you don’t mind sharing the remote with pelicans, gulls and harbor seals in your living room.

On to the news. The playground legal principle “Finders keepers, losers weepers” is being put to a test in an international dispute over what could be the richest sunken treasure ever found: 17 tons of silver coins brought up by a centuries-old shipwreck. A Florida treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, found the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and argues that the age-old law of the high seas entitles the finders to most or all of the booty, said to be worth around $500 million. They later added that if this law doesn’t hold up, they want to go with the old standby “You snooze, you lose.”

But the government of Spain suspects the ship is Spanish and says it has never expressly abandoned any of its vessels lost at sea. The kingdom and Laker center Pau Gasol have made it very clear that if the treasure does have some connections to Spain, it wants every last coin and bottle returned for deposit. The case is being watched closely because there could be more disputes like it, now that sonar, remote-control submersible robots, deep-sea video and lightly breaded scallops are enabling treasure hunters like Odyssey to find ships that went to the bottom centuries ago. Back then they were written off as unrecoverable because no one could imagine finding anything so far beneath the waves except Atlantis records.

The question is, just because you’re the first one to get there to get it, should you get to keep it, especially if it belongs to someone else? For now, the spoils, about 500,000 coins are in Odyssey’s possession, tucked away in a warehouse somewhere in Tampa. Odyssey created a worldwide sensation with the announcement of the find last May but has so far declined to identify the wreck (not the Bush administration,) except to say it was in international waters. Soon after the discovery was made public, Spain’s attorney in Washington went to federal court in Tampa and slapped claims on three Atlantic wreck sites to which Odyssey had been granted exclusive rights under maritime law. When asked for his thoughts, the Spanish attorney said he could not comment on the on-going litigation but offered up this juicy nugget. “The rain in Spain falls gently on the plains.”

The ship is widely believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish galleon sunk by a British warship off Portugal in October 1804. This discovery was timely for Odyssey, whose first big strike was the discovery in 2003 of a Civil War-era steamer of the Georgia coast that yielded 51,000 gold coins and artifacts valued at around $70 million. We’re talking major dinero. Personally, when I go to the beach, I’m happy if I come away with a rock, a few shells and no sunburn.

That’s our post Memorial Day report. Birthday greetings today go out to my Marin County based sister-in-law Wendi, who loves life, the arts and chocolate, and definitely not in that order. So enjoy the swallows (or their nests, anyway) and remember to move your feet and not reach on defense. Later, sports fans.

Good morning and greetings from this cold water paradise. Lately, a day hasn’t gone by when I haven’t seen a great blue heron. I spotted one this morning at the lagoon at Natural Bridges. They are beautiful birds with wing spans that would make both Yao Ming and a pelican jealous. I shot the first two photos this week right down the street from my lovely abode. I spied the next heron in the marshes at Four Mile Beach then it’s back to Natural Bridges. The yellow flower experience is from an open field on Delaware Avenue but it’s the last shot that’s the most unusual. I’ve only seen a great blue heron once in the ocean when this good looking fellow flew in very early one morning for a photo session at the arch at Its Beach. I paid him scale, he signed a release and we were both happy.

So on to the news of the day. Let’s play the Bush administration’s favorite game, “who wants to be average?” According to Time Magazine, the average U.S. household has 2.6 members not including pets, squatters and that friend who never knows when to leave. Our average age is 36.6 and while 17% of us exercise for well over one hour a day, the rest of us don’t even break a sweat. The vast majority of Americans believe in God and more than 90% own a bible. I don’t know what percentage own a gun but I’ll take a shot that it’s huge.

If you are an American at some point today you will say a prayer (perhaps at the free throw line,) use floss, and shower for 10 minutes. All you lovers of the outdoors will spend 95% of the day indoors and 2.5 hours online. You will also consume 20 teaspoons of added sugar and not save any money or souls. On weekends, people spend 1.5 hours reading while those aged 15 to 19 will spend seven minutes, much of which on instructions for iPods usage or text messaging.

On Thanksgiving, 88% will eat turkey but never visit the country. While most Americans prefer white meat the rest of the world (and yours truly) prefers dark. The average family has more televisions than people but we spend the same amount of time watching them as we did 40 years ago, just not laughing as much. Parents are both working harder and spending more time with their children, especially fathers, who spend 153% more time each week on child care then in 1965. Time with the wife (or husband) has dropped as pure spousal time is down 26% since 1975. On the other hand, time spent with mediators, lawyers and divorce proceeding is off the charts.

For you all brewski lovers, North Dakota ranks first in average beer consumption per person (they had to be first in something) while Utah is last. Large families are vanishing: only 10% of American households have five or more people. In 1970, 21% did. On the average, Americans sit in traffic 38 hours a year, wasting an estimated 26 gallons of gas per person. That’s life in the slow lane. I’m just glad that we’re not being held captive by the oil producing countries and that they money we’re paying for this black crude isn’t being funneled to terrorist groups that want to kill Americans. I was almost going to make a comment here about the Bush administration and the spiraling cost of gasoline but why spoil a good paragraph?

71% of American households have an internet connection, up from 50% in 2001. That still leaves about 31 million homes offline not reading this blog. Americans go to an average of 5 to 8 movies a year, spending 10 times more at theaters than all all major professional sports combined, which includes beach volleyball, roller derby and women’s professional wrestling.

The U.S. has 612,020 fast-food cooks but only 392,850 full-time farmers. Americans spend more in restaurants ($390 billion) than they do in grocery stores ($364 billion.) And finally, your fellow Americans spent $155 billion of alcoholic beverages last year, buying enough for every person to down 7 bottles of liquor, 12 bottles of wine, 230 cans of beer and a bag of pretzels. That may sound like a lot, but one-third of American adults don’t drink as the U.S. ranks 40th in the world in alcoholic consumption per person. For whatever reason, Luxembourg (who even knew they were a country?) is number one, followed by the Czech Republic and Ireland. So now we know why Irish eyes are smiling.

What does this all mean? I’m not really sure, just that I may have pumped out an average blog, which I do on the average of three times a week. That’s my batting average. So get ready for game one tonight of the western conference finals between the Spurs and Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. We’ll catch you for good Friday. Enjoy the herons and remember to play your man straight up. Aloha.

Good morning and welcome to the happiest place on the earth. On Tuesday morning I decided to take a trip to Four Mile Beach. I figured what the heck, even if the clouds weren’t that exotic, there would still be hundreds of gulls for me to Barry bonds with. When I crossed the railroad tracks and headed down the path to the beach I immediately spotted a big cat (photo #1) about 50 yards away. Now, I’ve seen a bobcat before at Four Mile but when it saw me it ran into the brush faster than an Exxon executive leaving an Earth Day picnic. But this fellow didn’t run and hide like a Bush spokesman, instead he rambled along the path with me in hot pursuit. And since I had downed my Wheaties that morning, I was feeling fresh and excited, like Kool and the Gang at the Grammys.

I followed this nocturnal hunter for a couple of hundred yards. He headed down the beach and onto the sand before heading back into the brush. As you can tell by my shots, I was close enough to observe his spots, his distinctive color pattern and count his freckles. Much like myself, bobcats are shy, solitary, generally elusive animals. The name comes from the short, bobbed tail or from the surname Robert. They are members of the cat family along with lions, leopards, pumas, lynxes, jaguars, cheetahs, tigers and white sox.

Throughout this tracking experience this wild animal would stop and stare at me. I thought, it’s just a bobcat, not a mountain lion, he’s not going to attack me. As we headed up the slope of the cliff above the ocean he stopped and turned. I was shooting away like Ansel Adams on meth. I had him perfectly framed in my view finder and was already thinking up the subject title for the blog. All of a sudden, he starts to move in my direction. I’m thinking, uh, oh, did I miss this episode of “When Animals Attack? I’m not a outdoorsman, I’m a blogger, dammit. All of a sudden, I’m getting Marlon Perkins flashbacks. Fortunately, this wildcat stopped in his tracks as he may have been intimidated by my Docker shorts and Hillary Duff sweatshirt.

After seeing my life flash before my eyes I scooted out of there faster than a lawyer on a duck hunt with Dick Cheney and made my way back to the beach. It was low tide and the harbor seals were basking and robbins on the sea shelfs by the sea shore. The last shot is actually from an earlier visit but I thought I’d throw it in to celebrate the fact that I’m not writing this from a hospital bed. As you can see from the photos whenever I come in contact with harbor seals, they never take their eyes off me. It reminded me of my hand modeling days. But here’s the kicker. One of my Arizona-based field scouts emailed an article about a rabid bobcat attacking two hikers yesterday in the Santa Rita mountains. Wow. I don’t know about you, but I always find that series of deep puncture wounds always spoils my day. But maybe that’s just me.

The bottom line is that while I was shooting away like Chuck Connors in “The Rifleman” all those shots of the cat were actually out of focus. My camera instead was zooming in on the the flowers and brush in front of Miss Kitty. I was excited as a schoolgirl when I came home and downloaded these shots. I already had National Geographic on the speed dial. I was disappointed, kind of like when I saw my SAT scores. But in the words of Chelsea Clinton and Fleetwood Mac, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, it’ll be here, better than before, yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.” Or in the words of yours truly, don’t put off today what you can put off tomorrow.

So have a tremendous sports weekend, enjoy the final matzo brei filled days of Passover and we’ll catch you for sunrise Monday. As for me, I’ll be hunting the big cats. Either that or watching enough NBA playoff basketball to make your eyes bleed. Catch you down low. Aloha.