GOING IT ALONE AND ANOTHER WAY

    Photo by John Stanley

      Have you found there are times when life just positions you in a way that you are alone in something? It may be temporary or for a specific purpose but for a duration, there it is, you are out there alone.

      Being out of step, out of the norm or not in the "flow" is that way. I'm about to walk in that world, by way of nerdom, or is it nerddom? What I think is a practical solution to a little problem casts me in that role.

      I've got a snazzy pair of tennis shoes, they are blue and until recently were laced with bright yellow strings. They're excellent platforms for this aging player. The shoes are part of a signature line of Novak Djokovic, a pro whom I admire. One of the strings broke! I saw it coming and tried to prepare but finding a bright yellow shoestring proved futile. So when the moment arrived and necessity dictated, I removed a white string from an old pair of tennis shoes I wear working around the house.      

       There are white stripes on the blue shoes so it's not entirely objectionable, however I will enter the court at my next match with a left foot brandishing a yellow laced shoe and the right with the non matching white.

     And since life is complicated I replaced the purloined white string from the "work" shoes with the only thing I had available, a black lace. You see how rapidly I'm devolving into geek hood. One broken string thrusts me into wearing two non matching pair of tennis shoes. Alone in this predicament certainly, but I've reached an age when I don't think I'll be embarrassed about the matter. "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"  
     And this stroll in mismatched oddness will provide a chance to measure folks on their power of observation and how they may respond.

living stones

    

   A couple of Lana's favorite succulents, Living Stones, are  showing proof of life. 

      

dumber than a box of rocks

circus trumpus

    The unfit, unqualified, predator president is working overtime to prove that he is also an idiot.  

      Case in point. America auto makers sold a record number of cars and earned record profits for the last two years. Auto workers benefited, consumers loved the product and it has been an American success story. So what does mr tweet propose? He wants to revisit the whole matter of gas mileage and government guidance. If he is successful he will force the entire industry to adjust. What will happen? Cars prices will rise. If fuel efficiency standards are trimmed American car owners will pay more at the pump because they'll use more gas. There will be a cascading affect on air quality standards. Can he really be this stupid? 85% of the public supports improved fuel efficiency. So why fool with CAFE standards, as the guidelines are known. To paraphrase the vulgarian himself. Really Dumb.  Really, really dumb.
      But there is California, ready to go it alone. This state won the right to establish its own fleet standards (CAFE) for fuel efficiency. The affect has been that most car makers build according to the California standards. California promises to fight for its waiver right to set higher fuel standards, standards most Americans want.  

even the foxistas get it

       The star of trumpland, the American nightmare, is on the skids. It's bad when Fox News viewers give him an approval rating of only 41%. At the same time in his administration President Obama had a 63% approval rating.

        Fox News finds only 7% of their crowd say repeal and replacement of Obama Care should be a priority. Only 41% approve of his immigration policies. 

       Maybe somewhere Arnold Schwarzenegger is holding a prayer service for trump the frumpy's precipitous ratings dive. Arnold, ask folks to pray for America, for that matter for the world. 

a thing of beauty

Photo courtesy of Indian Wells Tennis Garden

          Much of the sports world is focused on the beginning of the big dance, the NCAA Mens Basketball Championship. I'm certainly a fan as well, but I'm a tennis enthusiast too and the BNP Paribas Open is underway at the beautiful Indian Wells Tennis Garden near Palm Springs. I saw this frame of one of the practice courts and thought it captured the beauty of tennis in the desert.  We've enjoyed our visits to Indian Wells but this year we'll be flipping between basketball and tennis on the big screen. Good luck with your brackets.

          And good luck Hoosier fans. Sorry Tom Crean didn't work out. He seemed able to recruit well but something just didn't gel. Teams that should have been better or gone further didn't materialize. I know IU Athletic Director Fred Glass and he's a bright and capable man. He and President McRobbie, who is also a good guy, face an important challenge now. And they do so in a hyper aware and active state, where by the way arch rival Purdue and little Butler are enjoying the big dance. Pressure!

      See you down the trail.

PICTURE PERFECT & WAITING FOR THE NEXT DANCE

GLORIOUS SPRING

   Spring blooms spray the hills rolling to the Pacific behind Cayucos California.

   Echium bathes in spring sun.

   Color explodes.

    A wind chime serenades.

   Walkers trek to iconic Morro Rock.

    Walking on water?

   A box set. Hemingway and Joy ready for a snooze.

CONFESSIONS OF A BASKETBALL JUNKIE

     It's tough now. The Big Dance is over, the confetti has been swept away. It ended well, one of the most competitive and hard fought games in the history of the men's championships, but that makes it tougher, the withdrawal harder. 

      When Villanova's Kris Jenkins left fly a three point buzzer beater, basketball fans were in ecstasy. North Carolina and Villanova had spent 39 minutes and 58 seconds of extraordinary athletic and emotional effort. After a month of tourney play when 66 other teams had failed to get to the summit, that a game could come down to a final shot with two seconds left is an exhilaration stupendous.

       But now it's over. No more Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays of back to back games. That unique harmonic rush of arenas full of thousands cheering, balls and shoes on hardwood, rims rattling, the CBS sports theme, announcers and analysts who become like friends and neighbors no longer fill the sound scape.

      Growing up in Indiana, home of Hoosiers, and the Hoosiers, Bulldogs, Boilermakers, Cardinals and Fighting Irish this guy fell in love with the game.  We started playing in the second and third grade. High School basketball is a thing of legend the world knows because of the above mentioned Hoosiers. But college basketball is my addiction and that jones is fevered during March. It is indeed a madness, but April brings the hard comedown.  

       I get mildly interested in the NBA playoffs but it is somehow different, less passionate and without the same buzz. My daughters remind me some of their happy family memories include the almost festive air of the home during basketball season, the aroma of chili, or pizza or chicken wings, or burgers in the air with that hypnotic audio mix of a game on the tv and dad and mom in varying states of enthusiasm or despair. Now we must wait another year as we rehab and withdraw. 

      But there are sports classic channels and youtube. And course there is tennis, which conveniently fills the calendar. I love tennis. I no longer play basketball, but I play tennis and I love to watch it. The Opens and the Slams are great, but it is oh so quiet and there are no last second shots!

    See you down the trail.

KONG OR NEANDERTHAL and CAT'S EYES

DO YOU SEE THE SKULL?
Diversions while you watch your NCAA Brackets implode.

    How fertile is your imagination?  Look at the far point of the bluff. Does a gorilla brow and flattened nose come into view?

   A chunk of boulder seems to reside in an eye socket at the top of a long jaw.

   The "skull" is on the bluff near Lampton cliff, Cambria.

 Here's one more shot where "Kong" seems very apparent. 

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
Hemingway and Joy

   Ever try a close up of a cat?  Good luck with that!

   And good luck with your brackets.  I wonder how many
people had Duke going to the final 4?

THE WEEKENDER VIDEO

BIRDS ON A WIRE

   See you down the trail.

COULDN'T BELIEVE OUR EYES, TRANSCENDENCE, PRECIOUS WATER AND WHAT ARE THEY?

A TRANSCENDENT MOMENT

     Something extraordinary happened in an awful moment on Easter Sunday.

     Louisville player Kevin Ware who had jumped to block a shot, came down horribly wrong, splintering his leg in a compound fracture that is as bad as any sports injury most of us have ever seen.

     Players collapsed on the floor, nearby fans were sickened and the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was silenced, stunned and of a single mind, worried about the young athlete writhing in pain.

     His coach, Rick Pitino, is quoted as saying he fought nausea, others have said so as well.

     Clark Kellogg, who is great guy and a caring compassionate man was barely able to compose himself as he performed his CBS Sports broadcast role.  His partner Jim Nantz, another class act, also battled back tears, as did the fiercely competitive Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski.  

      For almost ten minutes cultural icons like Pitino, Krzyzewski, Kellogg and Nantz, wiped tears and worked on. The broadcasters evinced great concern for Ware and for his team mates who were in shock.  Even as Pitino and Coach K looked shaken, ashen and blinked tears, they were concerned for their charges and their well being.  We look at Division 1 athletes as men, as competitive stallions, but they are young men, some just out of high school.

      You could see people pray, the broadcasters said they were praying, later even the colorful Charles Barkley said he too was praying for Ware.

      In a moment, a highly charged and superb athletic ritual is dashed.  A young man lay seriously injured, on a playing floor, not a battle field.  The uniform he wore was that of a basketball player, not a soldier, cop or firefighter.  A terrible and ugly reality crashed into a cultural celebration.

Fans, players, coaches, commentators, in this framed world of hyper play, responded to their shock and dismay with an almost automatic response of care, concern and prayer.

      Young Kevin Ware, his bone protruding from his skin, who dreams of playing professional ball, in excruciating pain, uncertain of his future, continued to tell his panic stricken team mates, "Don't worry about me.  Just win the game.  Win the game."

      The thousands in the stadium and the millions of us watching television, have never seen anything like that before.  In the midst of a game, a horrible event prompts an almost universal concern and thousands or millions of prayers.  Something extraordinary, in an awful moment, on an Easter Sunday.

      

CLAY PLAY
wherein a new ceramic project from Lana provides an
interesting photo opportunity.

SAN SIMEON CREEK

    Our rainy season has been almost 50% deficient this year.

We are experiencing a couple of days of light rain and hoping the system slows to deliver more.  

    The photos were shot last week on San Simeon Creek, one of the two primary water sources for municipal wells. In a good year, the creek runs with a swifter current and the gravel bars are not visible, until late in the summer.  

     Talk of lifting a building moratorium to permit a "few" new construction permits a year seems ill advised in a drought year and at a time when some climatologists say we are in a drought cycle.  I understand the frustration of property owners who have been waiting years to build, but still, water is a precious resource and this year it is even more precious.

    See you down the trail.