I took my gang to Oceanside Pier yesterday. Just me and my Peeps.. my Posse.. ok.. ok.. my kids.

It was a perfect SoCal day. Crystal blue sky... Good visiblilty into the ocean.. some thunderheads setting up shop on the mountains.

My boy, aged 4-and-a-half, wore long pants, a long-sleeved, flannel shirt, bandana around his neck, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat. Perhaps a bit over-dressed. He was pretty stoked.

Our plan was to walk out to the end of the pier, have lunch, and go back home. A nice simple day where neither I nor the kids were stretched to the breaking point. That was my plan.

There are never enough Beach days... I live 6 miles from the Pacific Ocean where the water is currently 70-74 degrees. Yet, we still only make it to the beach every other week.

Why??

Well, I have two kids.. 4-years-old and 20-months-old. When I was single, I was in the water every day where the water was actually cold. Now, I feel like a slug for my laziness.

Perhaps it's not laziness. Being a Stay-at-home Dad can be draining but that's not what I came to write about.

Today we went to Tamarak Beach.. ok.. not Tamarak proper.. but a bit south.. in front of the big chimney. What a great beach. The chimney seems to keep crowds down. I guess tourists don't know that what is behind you at the beach is.. well.. behind you.

Years and years ago, when most of North America was covered by a shallow sea and I had just started out as a messenger in Denver, I received a strange assignment. I was to head immediately to the NEWS4 studios at 10th and Lincoln and contact a certain reporter. There I was fitted with a small video camera and told to go ride around for a bit, messenger style. The footage would be used for a piece on messengers for the evening news.

Well, I'm always one to give the People what they want. I rode around, all right. I sped into the tightest spaces between vehicles, against traffic. I hitched rides on trucks. I zig-zagged improbably at high speed through traffic jams and wayward pedestrians. I packed every ridiculous, heinous messenger move imaginable into that five-minute ride, short of actually smashing someone's windshield with my u-lock. This was the Cam Effect in action: put a video camera on or near a mild-mannered industrialized cyclist and watch him/her turn into a bit of a street banshee. The Cam Effect, I say. Nobody wants to bore the People when the camera's on.