This flu epidemic is bad. Here are the symptoms of the flu, you get sweaty, you shake, you can’t think straight and then you poop your pants. Wait, no, that was Al Roker at the White House, sorry.

Spike Lee is getting heavy criticism from Black entertainers for criticizing “Django Unchained.” Let’s face it, Spike Lee is to Quentin Tarantino as a director as Mars Blackman is to Michael Jordan as a basketball player.

Now it looks like the Post Office will sue Lance Armstrong for the $30 million in sponsorship money they gave him. That is when you know you’re in trouble when the Post Office is suing you for doing a bad job.

Since you asked:

One of the reason Huell Howser loved California so much is that he was from another state, Tennessee. 

To really fall hard for California, you need to first fall in love with it from a distance. In movies and TV shows, you begin to get a feel for the place even thousands of miles away.

When I was freezing my butt off in January waiting for cartoons to come on on Saturday morning, the cereal commercials showed California kids surfing and skateboarding. 

It helped me to fall in love with California was to spend the first half of the first year in college in a lonely dump of a studio apartment in smoggy East Long Beach. Everything else by comparison seemed like paradise.

Then, one by one, you see that so much of what is awesome in our country is in California. San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, Hearst Castle, Joshua Tree National Park, Big Sur, Redwoods, beautiful beaches, Hollywood, movie studios. 

Just look at my beloved San Diego. Sea World, Lego Land, Wild Animal Park, Hotel Del Coronado and with it one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. And of course, the Zoo. 

One summer day in August I am riding my bike along the coast and a group of top triathletes pass me including Steve Scott; then I see the hang gliders by Torrey Pines golf course right where the Chargers were holding training camp at UCSD as the Blue Angels flew above me where they were practicing for their air show at Miramar, where "Top Gun" was filmed; then I rode past the Del Mar Race Track with a race in session. 

Like Huell, I love food, but I also love a great story. Like the Cold Springs Tavern in the mountains of Santa Barbara used to be a stage coach stop. Or that one of the best places for Mexican food in San Diego, Hernandez Hideaway, used to be a speak easy during  prohibition. And that the electrical and lights of the Hotel Del Coronado were put in by Thomas Edison. "The Wizard of Oz" was written in a house right near the Del. 

Maybe that is why I am so saddened by Huell Howser passing. In Huell I saw my love of California.