If you’re in South Florida this time of year, take my advice – Don’t go in the water … especially around Singer Island.
You see, it’s time for the annual migration of spinner, reef, hammerhead, lemon, and bull sharks as they follow huge schools of fish along the coast.
The authorities have done the only sensible thing – they’ve closed the beaches. Smart move, as at times as many as a thousand (THOUSAND!) sharks can congregate in any given area.
It’s particularly dangerous during the mornings and late afternoons, because that’s when sharks normally put on their bibs, grab their knives and forks, and munch away during the twice-daily scheduled meals.
Interstate 280 in California, which winds north-south next to the Santa Cruz Mountains on the eastern edge of the San Andreas Fault, honors Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, who founded the California missions.
Whenever we traveled along this so-called “World’s Most Beautiful Freeway,” we'd come upon a sandstone statue on a hill next to the freeway’s northbound lanes, just past the Highway 92 intersection in Hillsborough.
The wife spotted it one day and calls it “The Monk Statue.”
In reality, it’s a 26-foot-high statue of Father Serra kneeling in his robe and pointing westward over the freeway.
Once we knew it was there, we couldn’t help glancing at Father Serra every time we passed the statue.
Stanford University’s 150-foot-wide radio telescope is known throughout the Bay area as “The Dish” and is the most prominent landmark in the area.
It was visible as the wife and I used to head into San Francisco and back to San Jose along a segment of the Interstate 280 Freeway between Cupertino and Daly City, on what’s been called the “World’s Most Beautiful Freeway.”
There it was, scanning the heavens and collecting all kinds of valuable data from distant galaxies.
And there we were, tiny little beings that we are, trying to pay attention to the speeding cars around us and not gawking in awe at the incredible piece of science up on the hill.
On the one hand, we want to know where the U.S. government is lagging in its efforts to protect us from terrorism.
But on the other hand, if terrorists know what our shortcomings are, aren’t they likely to concentrate in those areas?
Our government was given a failing grade in improving response time in case of a biological attack, by a national security commission, and it’s been all over the news this morning.
It’s always bothered me to hear things like this – not because I don’t want to hear bad news, but because I know the bad guys are just waiting to find out where they can focus their efforts.
Also, the news media, in a zealous attempt to report everything and be the first to do so, cite the “public’s right to know.” And that’s okay, if only they’d exercise some judicious restraint.
It’s bad enough that people have targeted us – we don’t have to give them the strategic information they need so they can do THEIR job better.
Remember the World War II slogan ... "Loose Lips Sink Ships"?
Have you ever arrived at your hotel room, freezing your butt off and trying to thaw out from Winter’s blast outside? I have. Have you gotten out of the shower, all warm and toasty, only to jump between the sheets and shiver, shiver, shiver? I have.
Well … Holiday Inn has pondered these situations as well and come up with what they consider an logical and comforting amenity on a trial basis for its guests in three British hotels (two in London, the other in Manchester).
You can call the front desk and request a human bed warmer. Yep, a human bed warmer.
A hotel employee will arrive in your room fully dressed in a fleece sleeper suit, slip under your covers, and bring the temperature up to 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).
Presumably the bed warmer will have showered first. And no, s/he won’t hang around, but will leave before you jump in.
According to a spokeswoman, it’s “a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed.”
I kid you not!
Hmmmm, I wonder about that. I think I’ll pass on this one.
It was sunny and relatively warm yesterday, so the wife and I went walking at San Jose’s Almaden Winery Park, just down the street from where we are staying.
Because we have done this often in recent weeks, I decided to ignore the obvious macro-beauty of the place and look for the “out-of-the-ordinary.” Y’know, left-field stuff.
Stuff like these …
I wonder if C3PO (of Star Wars fame) spray-painted his name on the walkway when he was young and before he learned to spell his name correctly.
Most of the leaves have fallen off the maple trees, but on one nearly bare tree, there was this one leaf that was hanging on for dear life. Stubborn little guy.
For some reason, this dead leaf reminded me of two volcanoes with their bases touching. Or am I stuck in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park land?
And tell me honestly now, doesn’t this piece of wood remind you of a Porterhouse steak? I must be hungry while I’m writing this.
The sun came out yesterday during a break in the rainstorms that have been pelting the San Francisco Bay area, including San Jose.
It might have been semi-sunny, but it was still very cold (especially for us Hawaii residents), and as we pulled onto Blossom Hill Drive in San Jose, we noticed low clouds hugging the base of the mountains to the east.
There is a certain mysterious beauty about mountain tops peeking over lacy clouds and I got to see some yesterday.
Good thing I keep my camera with me at all times, so I could save this lovely sight for later viewing.
Were you ever curious about the witches made famous in “The Wizard of Oz”? Here’s your chance, via a musical production based on the back- and side-stories from their points of view before, during and after Dorothy’s famous visit to Oz.
“Wicked” opens with the appearance of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, following the melting of the Wicked Witch of the West during a confrontation with Dorothy, then moves ‘way back in time to the birth of Elphaba (the West witch).
Fast forward to Shiz University, where the green-skinned Elphaba and her disabled sister Nessarose are enrolled. Amongst the new students are Glinda (known then as GA-linda), the Munchkin Boq, and the Vinkus prince Fiyero.
At first sharing their loathing for each other, Elphaba and Glinda become the very best of friends. Elphaba’s passion to do the right thing rubs off on Fiyero, who transforms from a scandalous playboy to a passionate naturalist.
Glinda, as a prank, has Boq declare his love for the wheel-chair bound Nessarose in order to get him out of her life so she can concentrate on Fiyero.
Madame Morrible, Shiz U’s head mistress, arranges for Elphaba and Glinda to meet the Wizard in the Emeral City, who, it is revealed, is the driving force behind a movement to ban animals from speaking, and to remove them from prominent societal positions.
Elphaba rebels against this and takes on the role of animal savior, pitting her against everyone else in the Emerald City.
That’s the basic story. What’s interesting is the interplay between song lyrics, stage dialogue and characterizations that parallel the Oz story with which we are so familiar. There are allusions galore to the scenes we’ve seen in the 1939 classic movie. Witches “explains” how the monkeys came to fly, why the Cowardly Lion is that way, why the Tin Man has no heart, and how the Scarecrow came to be.
Elphaba, it seems, is NOT a wicked witch, but the victim of image manipulation. If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. If you frame circumstances a certain way, people will believe it to be the truth. And that’s what happens to Elphaba, whose “greenness” induces xenophobia at its worst.
Kendra Kassebaum delivered a wonderful performance as Glinda, portraying her evolution from shallow, ditsy blonde to a deep, kind-hearted … well, ditsy blonde.
Patty Duke performed well as Madame Morrible, evoking fond memories of her early teenage years when she won an Academy Award for her performance as Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker.” To be sure, her role then wasn’t anything like her Wicked role, but she does a most credible job in the musical.
The star performer, however, had to be Vicki Noon, filling in for Teal Wicks, who had the matinee performance off. Ms. Noon’s powerful performance as Elphaba touches deep into the audience emotion, and I wager there were quite a few moist eyes in the theater during her plaintive solos, and the surprise revelations at the end of the show.
The lyrics are funny, informative and entertaining. The music is uplifting when it has to be, and emotional when the time was right. I have to admit that I became very emotional and teary-eyed several times during the performance, and especially at the conclusion.
Do I sense a movie on the horizon? It's very possible. In fact, a movie is rumored to already be in production and expected to be released this year.
The first time I became aware of Patty Duke was when she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1962. Her role as Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker” made her the youngest (16 years old) person to win an Academy Award in a competitive category.
What I didn’t know until many years later is that she had played the role on Broadway in the stage production of the same name. She was so good that halfway through the production run, her name began appearing above the title.
Her television series, “The Patty Duke Show,” lasted for three years, and her work as an American teenager and her look-alike cousin from Scotland won her an Emmy nomination, the first of several.
I’ve kinda lost track of her over the years, seeing her occasionally on television reruns, movies and specials.
So, imagine my surprise when I opened the Playbill for “Wicked,” which the wife and I went to see in San Francisco yesterday, and saw that she had a major role in the musical – as Madam Morrible, the old lady who caused the tornado that swept Dorothy into the wonderful land of Oz.
I’ll share my thoughts on the musical tomorrow, but I just wanted to pay tribute to a famous actress that people of my generation will fondly remember.
Every one of us has had moments when we have an incredible urge to do something – an action that if we stop to think about, we may have cause to regret later.
Football players do it all the time. In the heat of a game, they’ll be over-exuberant and taunt an opposing player, or celebrate excessively after a touchdown, or kick a challenge flag.
Regardless of whether the rule is ridiculous or not, the fact remains that the rule IS there, so maybe they should stop and think first. I know it’s hard to suppress celebratory actions, but it has to be done.
They’ve got to restrain themselves.
We saw this last August when Roger Stephens of Stone Mountain, Georgia, slapped a little 2-year-old girl he didn’t know four times because her mother couldn’t stop her from crying.
Stephens was found guilty this week of cruelty to children in the second degree, and sentenced to six months in jail and six months home confinement. He also has to wear an ankle monitor and undergo counseling.
If he had only restrained himself and not given in to his impulse and aggravation …
Again in Georgia, jurors who found a man guilty of rape and murder celebrated by sending a chocolate penis to the judge, and chocolate breasts to the baliff, and had other contact with them.
A split U.S. Supreme Court told the federal appeals court to take another look at the case and examine the relationship between the court and jurors, and whether or not the trial was fair.
What possessed the jurors to do this, one can only wonder. But the upshot of their bizarre action puts the conviction in question and possible jeopardy. What were they thinking? Why did they give in to their impulse? Why didn’t they restrain themselves?
Remember the “Count to 10 before acting” adage? Keep that in mind when you have the urge to do something that might have consequences. Exercise some judicious restraint.
