A view from the California Coast

Nancy Korbet's web site, mindbodywardrobe.com

“The way we experience life is directly related to how we see ourselves. Learn how to forgive the flaws and flaunt the fabulous! Discover your personal style and express it with confidence.” –Nancy Korbet

Nancy Korbet was an apparel-marketing professional for over 25 years, she recently founded www.mindbodywardrobe.com to help empower women feel better about themselves and look their best no matter what their body shape, size or age. Nancy has a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Millikin University and lives in Montara with her husband and two fashionably furry friends. But right now she needs to take a break from being a style guru and answer these 10 MontaraLife.com questions:

What inspired you to start your own business?

I started this business while I was still working full time out of a need to do something more meaningful, and it grew from there.

Why mind/body/wardrobe, what’s the link between the three?

The goal of Mind Body Wardrobe is to help women see themselves in a positive light. The mind is the most powerful part of this equation. The mind creates the chatter, “I’m too old, too fat, too wrinkled”, etc. The body is what all the chatter is about. When you get the wardrobe right, you can dissipate the chatter. It doesn’t mean you have to have an extensive collection of clothes, you can do it with a simple, easy wardrobe. The key is to recognize, focus and accentuate your assets. When you get that right, you look in the mirror and see your body in a whole new way, the mind then starts down the positive road of ”Girl… you look Great!”  That is powerful! [Read more →]

Photo ©Yelp.com 2009

My wife and I were excited to see another eatery open on the coast and we got the opportunity to try it out last night. We often meet on our way home from work to eat out when we can’t be bothered to cook at home. The High Tide Restaurant Cafe and Creperie seemed like the sort of place that you could drop in on and get a reasonably price meal without dropping too much coin. The place was busy and full at 6.40pm, obviously the early dinner crowd, we ordered from the menu and took a number, the lady taking orders seemed a little grumpy. The whole place is covered in this wild acid trip painting style, [Read more →]

A real cool cat, safe journey dude.

Stop stealing them!

This time of year is my favorite time to enjoy the beach. Warm(ish), blustery and fresh all at the same time. The surf looks like gigantic wild white horses galloping toward shore as I take my stroll North up the beach, the large swell has the tow-in crowd at Mavericks getting all the pre-competition practice they can. The beach is real steep at the surf line, carved out deep by the relentless pounding waves. This combination of a steep shore and big surf can be lethal (the tragic loss of the Mother and daughter is still fresh in my mind) yet some  parents still foolishly allow their children to play in or near the surf line, choosing to ignore the posted warnings at the foot of the stairs.

As the day wears on the light becomes so beautiful I can’t resist going home to get my camera check out some of the shots in the gallery section. I know these are black and white but I’ll get around to posting the color ones soon.

After the tragic loss by drowning of a Mother and daughter several months ago at Montara State Beach an anonymous person donated two life Rings with 60ft rope tethers to be used in the event of a water rescue at Montara. The two rings were mounted on the back of the dangerous surf warning sign. A couple of months back one of these potential lifesavers went missing, presumed stolen. It was immediately replaced by the donor, now it’s happened again. I hope that who ever is removing these rescue devices is never put in the situation where themselves or a member of their friends or family could have been saved by one of the missing life rings. If anyone sees any safety equipment being stolen please call the sheriff, it could save a life.

©Wildlife Studios

This looks like a great place, I wish them good luck with the studio. Come on all you talented local musicians give these guys some support!

Check out the web site by clicking here.

New studio opens its doors to Coastside musicians : Half Moon Bay Review

Posted using ShareThis

Surfers Beach in miniature. ©KStokes 09

Playing around in Photoshop, I love the ‘Tilt Shift’ lens effect , looks like a tiny model scene. Click the photo to view full size and get the full effect.

Premiere tonight at La Costanera 6-11.00pm movie starts at 7.00pm, no cover. Come and support our local film makers.

Albatross chick dead from plastic consumption-Midway Atoll ©Chris Jordan

Midway
Message from the Gyre

“These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.”

~cj, October 2009

(Reproduced from www.chrisjordan.com)

This guys work is incredible, please click here to check out his web site.

MONTARA makes #6!

Over the last couple of years I have been building custom made Cajón Drums for myself and local musicians. Each drum is unique with one-off hand painted designs, click the link below to browse an electronic brochure of some of my work.

April Vargas

A San Mateo County resident for nearly 40 years, April Vargas has lived in the coastal town of Montara since 1983. She is a local business owner and an active member of the Half Moon Bay/Coastside Chamber of Commerce. April has had a passion for community issues since college and has always worked to protect the quality of our lives here in San Mateo County. She and her partner of 22 years, Jeff Olson, purchased their Montara home in 1993. Shortly after, she became locally active and was appointed to a committee created by the County Department of Public Works to update local road standards and address flooding and safety concerns.

In 1995 when the Devil’s Slide section of Hwy 1 was closed for over 5 months due to landslides, [Read more →]

Grey Whale Cove bare butt cheek visitors beware!

State lets parks crack down on nude beachgoers.

I know it’s not been open long, and wrinkles are still being ironed out, but I am curious as to the publics initial opinion on our latest addition to the coastsides restaurant roster. I have heard many different experiences and thought it might be interesting to do a quick straw poll.

I can’t believe it, there has been yet another Devil’s Slide related fatality! At the time of writing the cause or circumstances surrounding the man’s death are still not clear, I’m sure events will unfold in the next few days. I called the abandoned car in to the Sheriff at 9.10am this morning on my way to work, I had seen the car parked in the turn out near Grey Whale Cove Sunday lunchtime and got suspicious when it was still there on Monday morning. So some of the reporting is a little off fact-wise in these links, but here are the HMB Review and SF Gate reports.

The Fourth Street Experience at Montara Lighthouse

Montara has many talented and creative inhabitants. Among them are Mike McCall (right) and Mark Kostrzewa (left) individually talented musicians, collectively known as ‘The 4th Street Experience‘. You can catch these guys performing their live acoustic set all over the coastside. But right now they have 10 Montara Life questions to answer…

How did you guys meet and how long have you played together?

We first met at the local gym, Coastal Lifestyles, back around 2000. At that time, the term “12oz curls” meant something. We started jamming and playing music together about 3 years ago and have been “gigging” together since July of 2007.

What style of music do you guys play?

We classify it as “creative acoustic”, since there is really no other description for music that spans many different styles. How else do you describe a set list that includes latin music, brazilian music, blues, bluegrass and slide guitar? A lot of our songs are original compositions by one of us. We have a great a great classical style player (Mike) and a strong slide guitar player (Mark). It’s an unusual combination of music styles that works great in a live environment. [Read more →]

This long list is the CHP Traffic Incident Log from this morning through lunchtime starting with the Devil’s Slide fatality early in the morning over 70 collisions, and this is just in the Bay Area. Shocking…

Golden Gate Communications Center No Time Type Location Area 2379 2:02PM Traffic Collision – Ambulance Responding SB SR29 JSO IMOLA AV W Napa 2378 2:02PM Traffic Collision – No Details NB US101 JSO CAPITOL EXWY San Jose 2377 2:02PM Traffic Hazard – Debris/Objects SB I280 JSO CITY COLLEGE PARKING LOT San Francisco 2376 2:01PM Traffic Hazard ARKANSAS ST AT MADERA ST Golden Gate Communications Center 2374 2:01PM Traffic Collision – No Details WB I80 JWO CARQUINEZ TOLL PZ Solano 2373 2:00PM Traffic Collision – No Details NB I280 JNO NB I880 San Jose 2369 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Property Damage EB I580 JWO RICHMOND BLVD Oakland 2368 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Ambulance Responding EB I580 JEO TOLL PZ Oakland 2366 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Property Damage NB E WASHINGTON ST ONR TO SB US101 Santa Rosa 2365 1:59PM Traffic Collision – Property [Read more →]

So the predicted storm hits us, it rains hard and the wind blows. All hell breaks loose, sadly a person dies and people are trapped in cars in a nasty head on collision on the slide, this road has claimed so many lives. To add to the misery our power has been out for hours, I’m stuck at home gridlocked in with no power, only a few bars on my trusty iPhone to communicate to the outside world.