President Obama came to town today.  I expected him to fly in to the VIP corner of the airport as past Presidents, Emperors (of Japan) and Popes have done.  This corner is just outside the gate that I routinely enter and exit.  This sometimes leads to inconvenient lock downs, but those have been few since 1992, when Bush Senior and Clinton were battling it out with their ninety plus vehicle convoys.  Today was different, there was no President.  He flew into Scott AFB in IL and helicoptered to the the high school that he was speaking at.  PBS has been running a series of articles about the economy this week on their News Hour with Jim Lehrer.  Serendipity that they choose Saint Louis, as the site for their series, considering the President’s visit today, on the hundredth day of his presidency.

The preceding picture with today’s post shows a couple of sea kayaks in Monterey Bay.  A week ago Sunday the waves were pretty calm, even though there was a wind.  The ocean is like that.  Sometimes waves crash mercilessly in a still breeze, while sometimes the wind out paces the water.  That is bird poop that has painted the rocks white.  Today’s header shows a line of sailboats, almost as dots on the horizon, silhouetted against the highlands of Santa Cruz.  The following picture shows some kelp floating in Monterey Bay.  Think of it as another flower picture.  It reminds me of the old TV show Sea Hunt, starring Lloyd Bridges, father to Jeff and Beau.  In fact, many of its underwater scenes were shot in Monterey Bay.  Including the all too frequent scene where the bad guy gets hung up in the kelp, while trying to escape.  There are still many skin divers diving in the bay.  Many of the public restrooms have signs proclaiming their prohibition of changing in or out of a wet suit.

I went to work today and was greeted by surgical masks and all too many other swine flu jokes, like “if you lay down with pigs you wake up with flu”.  Anne went biking in the Park tonight and got 16 miles.  She thinks she saw a Lesser Yellow Legs wading in one of the ponds.  Instead of biking, I mowed the front yard for the first time this year.  Oh boy!