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Cheshire Cat Photo Blog: Your Top 10 in 2011 (whole year)

Main altar, Missioin Santa Inés, Solvang, California

Happy New Year! January 1 was an unbelievably gorgeous day in my part of California, so I took my wife’s invitation to accompany her to the coast. Thousands of our closest friends had the same idea! 😉 The high temperature was around 65 degrees F as we made our way, hiking around in the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, eating ice cream sundaes in Half Moon Bay, and walking along the beach at Pescadero. It was my kind of day – a blue-jean-and-T-shirt kind of day! Sure, I took the camera!

It is ALSO time for YOUR “Top 10” most-requested Cheshire Cat Photo Blog entries for all of 2011, and time to compare the list with that for the first half of 2011. It would also be interesting to compare the list with those for all of 2010, the first half of 2010, or those for all of 2009, or even earlier!

Here are YOUR Top 10, with my comments:

10. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk • Sunday, February 10th, 2008 The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is a VERY popular destination in my part of California, and products decorated with a photo of the boardwalk have been very popular in the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Store on Zazzle®!

09. Mission San Francisco de Asís (Dolores) and Basilica • Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), named after the patron saint of San Francisco, Saint Francis of Assisi, was founded in 1776 and completed in 1791,  and is the oldest remaining building in San Francisco and the oldest intact Spanish mission in California. This photoblog entry might make you very interested in visiting the Mission in person!

08. 3 guns and a dog • Friday, April 8th, 2011 Democratic Governor Jerry Brown told a room full of police officers in April 2011 that he owns “…three guns and a dog” in response to those who characterized his plan to move convicts from state prisons to county jails as a “Get a dog; buy a gun.” plan. Governor Brown said that it is perfectly natural for people to have those items in their homes, anyway! (… and he’s RIGHT, this time!)

07. Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo • Thursday, December 27th, 2007 The Mission in Carmel was Father Junípero Serra‘s favorite mission, his base of operations, and is his final resting place, at the foot of the altar. In 1961, Mission Carmel was designated a Minor Basilica by Pope John XXIII, and in 1987, Pope John Paul II visited the Mission in his tour of the United States. I hope that you enjoy this photoblog entry!

06. Mission Santa Inés • Sunday, August 16th, 2009 (Photo of altar is above.) I fell in love with La Misión de Santa Inés (Mission of St. Agnes) on my first visit. The rich history of the Mission, its ongoing function as a parish church, and its beautiful interior and garden, all caused me to EXTENSIVELY photograph the Mission, and links to most of the photos are in the photoblog entry!

05. Mission Santa Cruz • Saturday, April 12th, 2008 A half-scale replica of a mission church and an aging adobe building are all that are left of the ill-fated Mission Santa Cruz. The Mission was plagued by a flood, an earthquake, and by looting by white settlers. In May of 2011, the Mission was on the list of 70 California State Parks to be closed because of the state budget crisis.

04. Adobe: Zero-day hole in Flash Player • Monday, September 13th, 2010 Adobe Systems warned of a critical, zero-day vulnerability in Flash Player 10.1.82.76 AND EARLIER VERSIONS for Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and Android. The hole in Flash Player is being exploited in the wild and could allow an attacker to take control of a computer. The critical vulnerability also affected Adobe Reader 9.3.4 and earlier versions for Windows, Mac, and UNIX and Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4 and earlier versions for Windows and Mac. In its security advisory, Adobe said that it is not aware of any attacks exploiting the hole in Adobe Reader or Acrobat (at the time that my blog entry was published).

03. For a few tons more…. • Friday, November 26th, 2010 A “bust” on Thanksgiving Day of 2010 resulted in the arrest of at least nine suspects, the seizure of between 20 and 30 TONS of marijuana, and the discovery of a “sophisticated” tunnel between an eat-in kitchen in Tijuana, Mexico and TWO warehouses in San Diego, California.

02. US Attorney General: CA pot to stay illegal • Saturday, October 16th, 2010 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says that the federal government will enforce federal marijuana laws, even if California voters vote to make California the first state to legalize the drug in the November election. (California voters voted AGAINST legalization in that election.) Meanwhile, marijuana wars continue, and people (mostly on the Mexican side of the border) continue to die.

And the number 1 Cheshire Cat Photo Blog entry of 2011 was:

01. California ammunition law AB 962 found unconstitutional • Wednesday, January 19th, 2011 In January of 2011, Fresno Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hamilton ruled that the AB 962 statute that would have banned mail order ammunition sales and required all purchases of so-called “handgun ammunition” to be registered (and purchasers thumbprinted), was unconstitutionally vague on its face. The Court enjoined enforcement of the statute, so mail order ammunition sales can continue unabated to California, and ammunition sales need not be registered under the law. I wrote about AB 962 becoming law in October of 2009 (“One out of two ain’t good” • Monday, October 12th, 2009). At that time, then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had VETOED another “goofy” California bill, SB 585, which was a resurrected, previously-defeated bill to ban firearm sales at the Cow Palace in Daly City, CA. HOWEVER, Governor Schwarzenegger SIGNED AB 962 into law. The ruling by Superior Court Judge Hamilton is just another (but very significant) battle against the California Legislature’s (overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats) ongoing attempts to strip Californians of their Second Amendment Rights.

Wishing you the very best in 2012….

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from hereBe a “Facebook Fan” of Cheshire Cat Photo here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

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