SWEET SUMMER

THE FAVORITE SEASON

Summer.  The word alone evokes a wash of memories and 

emotion.  On California's central coast, especially here on the ridge, nature celebrates.

 A couple of days ago a post showed the Lily of the Nile and the Orchid Cactus, getting ready to bloom.

So far the deer have spared the Lily of the Nile,

 and left a couple of the Orchid Cactus blooms.

 The deck is flanked by what is called a paper bark-

we think it is a kind of bottle brush tree.  We simply 

have not seen many of them, but this time of year

it explodes in a kind of creamy fuzz.

SUMMER REPRESENTS A COSMIC EVENT, WE ARE CLOSER TO THE SUN AND HAVE MORE HOURS OF DAYLIGHT. WHILE YOU PONDER THE EXQUISITE WONDER OF THAT, HERE IS ANOTHER BIT OF FASCINATION. LINK HERE AND SEE A STAR, DEVOURED BY A BLACK HOLE.

Now, that is something different than what you did a school kid on summer break.  I used to spot shapes in the clouds.

In fact, I still like to.

Happy Summer.

See you down the trail.

GREAT WORKING CONDITIONS--MORE ON "THAT" PHOTO & AN UPDATE FROM BOB

A REBUILD AND LEARNING

Visitors to Cambria's Moonstone Beach have noticed a team of young men and young women hard at work and creating new photo ops.

The ballet of balancing beams has added industry to the

extraordinary oceanscape.

The famous Moonstone Beach Boardwalk is in for a bit of repair.

 Erosion has taken it's toll and so youth from the California Conservation Corps

have again been put into action.

Under the watchful guidance of the California State Park Rangers

 members of the CCC do vital work to public infrastructure. 

The Corps hires young men and women 18 to 23 to do natural resource work and emergency repair.

Direction and guidance comes from senior staff and the California State Parks.

Modeled after the 1930's era CCC, the Corps does important work, while training

young Californians in specific skills, project work and management and environmental and natural resource preservation.

Cambria's Moonstone Beach Boardwalk is an example of the important investment the CCC has made in the beauty of California.
While a motto for the CCC is "hard work, low pay, bad conditions...and more,"
one has to question how can it be, working along the big blue?
MORE ABOUT THE FAMOUS PHOTO

Photo by Rich Lam  Getty Images

NOW, THERE IS MORE "BACK STORY."

ESQUIRE HAS JOINED THE PURSUIT OF THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO. SEE WHAT THEY'VE LEARNED AND ADDITIONAL VIDEO BY LINKING HERE



UPDATE FROM BOB
Here is the latest from Bob as he continues preparation for
a bone marrow transplant procedure.

Two intensive days of evaluations and testing are now behind us. Rad 
> Oncs say there will likely be only one radiation treatment (200 cGy). 
> Minor short term side effects.That's a good thing. Diane and I are now 
> lodged at the Gift of Life Transplant House in Rochester, MN. It's 
> very comfortable and incredibly clean. The reason for cleanliness is 
> obvious.  We are 
> getting bits and pieces of what lies ahead. Diane and I look forward 
> to this week's a one-on-one with my transplant coordinator.
>
> Foster

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) NEW

NEW VIEWS

I want you to see and enjoy the bloom on the Lily of the Nile before

the marauding and savage deer get to it. 
(See the Post THEY ARE NOT SO DEAR June 9th)
We rarely get to enjoy bloom because it rapidly becomes a snack.

 The neighboring Orchid Cactus is also exploding with blooms. A couple of 
early shots here, again before the deer.

And speaking of new-a bunch of leaf lettuce picked from our back planter just a minute or two before the photo.  The beginning of a Saturday Salad.

NEW INFO ABOUT THAT SENSATIONAL PHOTO

Photo by Rich Lam Getty Images
This photo became a sensation around the world.  It was captured the night of the post hockey game riot in Vancouver.  At first glance it appeared to be a moment of passion amidst violence.  Here is a new view of this image.
LINK HERE FOR THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURE. WHAT IT REALLY DEPICTS AND HOW IT CAME TO LIGHT.


This proves, once again, you need the full story.
Have a good weekend.
See you down the trail.

THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY

 THE DUTY

a self therapy

"The most beautiful thing we can experience

is the mysterious. It is the source of all

art and science."

Albert Einstein

       Suffering now, from an overload of information, politics, boorish behavior  and

the numbing of seemingly mindless consumption. Worrying too. Why did an old friend walk off a parking garage? How will dear friends with health issues fare?  Tired now of those who divide, who assert theirs is the only truth. Life's stumbles.

"Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The world turns and the world changes,

But one thing does not change.

In all my years, one thing does not change...

The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil."

T.S. Eliot

    

        Relief, like a tonic, comes with a retreat into reading of great minds, great thoughts

and great words.

"There is no duty we underrate so much as

the duty to be happy."

Robert Lewis Stevenson

"People of superior refinement and

of active disposition

identify happiness with honour..."

Aristotle 

The best we can do is to go with it.

"Make the most of each day."

Karl W. Cochrun
MAKING THE MOST OF
BY CELEBRATING A DEAR FRIEND

It was the same drill.  The Friday Lunch Flash Mob assembled at what used to be our almost private reserve.

Vacation season and visitors to the castle up the hill have lengthened the lines-but today was even more special

By the time it was it over, our number had extended to 22. We kept adding picnic tables to accommodate.  The special occasion? A birthday of a woman who we figured is probably the lynch pin of the group.  I'm avoiding names to avoid invading any one's sense of privacy. She was one of the first people Lana and I met when we moved to the Central Coast.  She introduced us to many, as she has done with most of the others.
So, without causing you embarrassment-Happy Birthday dear friend and thank you.
And so this day we find an emphasis on HAPPY!
Friends are a key in the beauty of the wonderful mystery.
And the joy of friendship is indeed wonderful therapy.

See you down the trail.

CYBER vs. REAL-BEWARE

WHEN DOES ONE CROSS A LINE

THE AGE OF INFO WARS

***A RECENT SLATE FRONT PAGE***

Second "Lesbian" Blogger Turns Out To Be a Man Editor of Lez Get Real outs himself as a retired military man from Ohio. READ FULL STORY

Cyber Vandals Breach Senate Website Same group that hacked PBS claiming Tupac is alive takes on the government. READ FULL STORY This front page from SLATE struck me as a reminder of the precarious nature of our communication and information systems. Even the CIA's web site has been hacked. Credibility and security are at risk.  They will continue to be so, it seems, for as long as we build our social structure around cyber communication. There are no safeguards.  As we do with blogs, I followed a link from the  SLATE piece to a well articulated set of thoughts from Brian Spears. THIS POST-A NOTE TO MY FELLOW WHITE MALES MAKES SOME OUTSTANDING POINTS. LINK HERE What Brian wrote prompted me to write a response.   "Fiction is just that.  Journalism is an approximation of truth  build on a foundation of facts. The blogsophere is  full of both and hybrids. Credibility remains the currency of journalism.  Notice or self expression may well be the fuel of bloggers.  These are mostly divergent cultures, but they aggregate n this cyber gumbo that we inhabit. Years ago I posed a question to a network executive for  whom I was developing a project:  at what point do the ethics of the cyber world begin to alter our sense of justice in the "real world?"  Random mayhem in gaming, serial  killing, explicit violence, explicit sexuality and false persona in the cyber world are permitted.  At what point does a social tolerance of such a recreational behavior begin to sew genuine social consequences?  It was an odd question to post to a network executive who went on to preside over what we call "reality" television. The post points the effect.  Anthony Wiener is living through another repercussion.  One may feel a cloak of protection or privacy while feeding the blogosphere with any manner of fantasy, lunacy or "creativity."  It is not illegal to do so, yet. Whether it is right or wrong is for someone else to reason.  It does however have consequence and indeed could be more serious or even lethal than a lone writer, wrapped in their own reality may have the intelligence or common sense to realize."  The old adage is true-Buyer beware, especially in this age of  information wars. We would add to that the modern admonition-   Read with care. "You should read only what is truly good or what is frankly bad." Gertrude Stein-quoted by Hemingway in A MOVEABLE FEAST There are efforts underway on the security front. LINK HERE TO READ OF A NOVEL APPROACH TO NET SECURITY BEING DEVELOPED BY A GROUP OF NEW YORK STUDENTS. DAY BOOK ARCHIVE SHOTS See you down the trail.

THE CUBA FILE-- THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

HEMINGWAY'S FIRST MATE

        The young man is the old man.  He is Gregorio Fuentes, Ernest Hemingway's first mate, bar tender, confidant and life long friend. Some think he was the model for the old man in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.

       "The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the

back of his neck," 

Hemingway described his central figure.

"The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had 

the deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none 

of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless 

desert.

``Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same 

color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated."

Gregorio was 101 when we met.  It was 3 years before he died in his home in Cojimar, a fishing village east of Havana.

     He lived modestly, but comfortably.  He was hailed as a man who had mastered the sea and who "was a symbol of Cuban fishing and of human brotherhood, thanks to all of his 
years of friendship with Hemingway,'' Reuters quoted Jose Miguel Diaz Escrich, who runs 
Havana's Hemingway International Nautical Club. 

     A school of Hemingway scholars discount the idea that Fuentes was the model for the 

old fisherman in the 1952 Nobel Prize winning novel. He was only 55 the year the book was published. There are those who say, however, that Hemingway used Fuentes' hands as the inspiration for his character.

      Fuentes became Captain of the Pilar, in 1939 when Hemingway began his life in Cuba living in the Hotel Ambos Mundos. They fished the Gulf Stream together.  During World War II Hemingway outfitted the Pilar with special gear so he and Fuentes could hunt German U-boats in the Caribbean.

When not patrolling the Caribbean, Hemingway covered the war. He accompanied Martha Gellhorn, a photo journalist and his love at the time, to China.  He returned to the Pilar and Cuba but later went to Europe to work as a war correspondent.  

After the war the writer and his captain spent extensive time in the Caribbean waters where Hemingway was said to have a special sense or enhanced vision that enabled him to spot deep Marlin which he battled from this chair.

The pier in Cojimar where the Pilar was docked was all but abandoned. 

The La Terazza was a favorite Hemingway hang out.  It was still a vibrant tavern and favorite of the locals. Many of them had Hemingway stories.

Cojimar has memorialized the famous American, not far from where he and the Captain launched their many adventures.

Gregorio Fuentes had a unique knowledge and relationship with one of the 20th Century's most influential writers.  He outlived his old friend and fishing mate by many decades.
He was there, in the moments, when Ernest Hemingway drew from life, from practical experiences to create literary images that live on, as Gregorio did for 104 years.
An old man of the sea.
See you down the trail.