IT'S WILD and NOT SO

SHOW TIME

   There's been an unusual amount of commotion along the Cambria to San Simeon shoreline this year.

Photo by Mike Griffin

   The warmer ocean has brought an extraordinary number of humpback whales closer to shore.

    It is a great enjoyment to hear the oohs and ahhs and wonderment of tourists who maybe seeing their first whale up close.

   The Central Coast has been a beautiful western stage this summer.

BEARS

     I am an unabashed fan and enthusiast of Yosemite National Park, wishing that everyone could visit and feel the experience.

     The park prepares excellent video reports and this piece on bears, featuring some almost unbelievable historic footage is too good not to share with readers of this blog.

Enjoy.

A SLO TREASURE

  We recently discovered the Leaning Pine Arboretum on the Cal Poly campus in San Luis Obispo.  What a jewel it is!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

    See you down the trail.

MOUNTAIN LIGHTNING-THE UNEXPECTED-PEACEFUL BLUE

    This is no mere pedestrian shot of a rain barrel almost full, no indeed! What we see is evidence of great cosmic oddness and even history.

     A woman who has lived most of her 91 years on the Central California coast says she's never seen anything like it.

     "We've had rain in July but nothing like this. And I never in my life have seen lighting and thunder like that."

     A mid 70 man, a Californian, says he's never seen an electrical storm like it. He stayed up to watch it. In fact, that's been the talk up and down the coast. For many it was a first time ever event.

      We're referring to the storm that moved up from the south and dazzled the Central Coast and scared most of animals in the county. I grew up in Indiana and have witnessed many lighting storms, thunder that shakes a house and sometimes the tornados that are spawned by violent storms. What we saw and heard was in that league.

      Arcs filling the sky over the Santa Lucia range and then rumbling over the slopes and through the valleys. Our cats, Hemingway and Joy were traumatized and could not find a secure enough hiding spot. Poor Hemingway would have burrowed into the wall if he could have. Friends said their border collie actually "picked up" the approaching storm minutes before the first flashes or thunderclaps.

      Fortunately the thunderstorm was accompanied by rain-an odd commodity that is hugely deficit in this fourth year of a drought. We keep getting optimistic predictions for the rain the El Nino may bring this winter, but over an inch of rain in July, in Cambria California?!  Oddness. But we love it and the locals were on the verge of breaking into flip flop splash dash dances up and down the canyons and through the East and then West village and along the ocean bluff board walk. Rain! In July!

       

PACIFIC BLUE

   A dry July is more tolerable when the Pacific blue is nearby providing entertainment.  Our friend Diane Norton caught great moments in San Simeon cove as a couple of visitors came calling.

Photo by Diane Norton

San Simeon Cove

Photo by Diane Norton

Photo by Diane Norton

   Meanwhile just down the coast in Cambria a fellow is looking for a smaller specie.

  What a difference a sunny day can make. It was last September, gray and misty when some of the behemoths were in the same San Simeon Cove. It is a great joy to live on the "commuter route" of these sea going mammals.

    See you down the trail.

KNOWING AND OPTIMISM & THE ALMOST EATEN BY A WHALE VIDEO

REASONS FOR OPTIMISM

    Tools, advances and new research are coming rapidly now in the area of brain science.  Discoveries in the last couple of years are astounding but because they are technical and complex they have not been widely reported nor understood by the public.

      PBS presenter and host Charlie Rose with Nobel Winning neuroscientist Dr. Erik Kandel have presented 14 programs over the last two years that can provide a breathtaking and mind charging survey of this extraordinary new science of understanding. 

       Here are a couple of ways to learn more or gain access to the series.

 LearnOutLoud 

(this links to the full series and program descriptions)

Charlie Rose watch

(the final program in the series-looking at the new federal Brain Initiative)

     This is fascinating and informative television with special relevance to an aging boomer population.

A JULY SEA SIDE WALK
PACIFIC LULLABY

Napping seals without memory foam.

SOME KIND OF NEAR MISS

   Posting a video here that was shot just down the coast. It captures a moment where a couple of snorkelers come precariously close to being whale food.  They are swimming with a school of small fish when something happens they'll never forget.

     Whew!!!

     See you down the trail.

LETTING THE CHIPS FALL...

IN THE ARENA OF THE MIND

     "It may be different elsewhere. But a democratic society-in it the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may."

      John Kennedy said that a little less than a month before he was killed.  He was speaking at Amherst College October 26, 1963.

       "In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation."

       I wonder how many writers today concern themselves with such lofty concerns. Maybe they do in little pieces and then over time, taken in mass, it adds up.
        It's  harder to get your voice heard through the mass of signals that fill the public square. Digital media, social networks, cable, broadcast, the whole universe of film and print are choked with content, much of it simply trying to out pace the others.  In some cases outrage and anger get attention. Those may be genuine, but are they the visions of truth JFK spoke of?

       The more I watch Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom the more convinced I am he is serving his vision of truth. Here's why I think so.  
       The modern media, in all of it's iterations, does more to shape our sense of reality, expectations and vision of government than most people make themselves aware of. As consumers of the din we rarely give ourselves the time to ponder the impact of what we consume.  We think more about what we eat, than consider what we put into our heads though we spend hours a day consuming information flow.

        Sorkin's work cuts to the quick.  Some criticize the "preachiness" of it.  I don't see it that way.  I think he is offering a valuable insight into the media machine that shapes our attitudes and affects our sense of destiny. Yes, it is entertainment, but it also holds a mirror to a powerful element of modern life and Sorkin, as President Kennedy opined, lets the chips fall where they may.

DAY FILE

A FUN "SCHOOL"

     Each year, since our move, we make a point to attend

Coastal Discovery Day up at San Simeon.  The Discovery Center, joined by a host of other nature, environmental, park and educational groups hold a kind of carnival overlooking the Pacific.  It's for kids with lots of hands on activities, but each year we learn something and pick up a few interesting shots.  This year I learned about the hearing chambers and ear drums (bulla) of whales, elephant seals and dolphins.  Amazing technology at work in those sonar sensitive relatives.

  The Falcon expert had a couple of beautiful friends.

    An injured wing has grounded this Pelican, now in the custody of a rehabilitation specialist.  He eats 3 pounds of sardines or smelt each day.  He'd eat more if he were burning calories by flying.

    Here are a couple specimens of Elephant Seal skulls.

     In the frame below is the skull of a Dolphin.  The bottom piece, in the shadow, is the kind of sensor bone that transmits sounds from long, medium or short distances, using a different portion of the bone to do so.  The differing signals are then processed in a sophisticated brain.

      Skulls of native wild life.

  While it was sunny and bright up at the cove, south toward
Cambria, another micro climate existed, in the fog.

See you down the trail.