Category: Manny Kagan

Cheers,

A Dog’s Love

I came across an article titled, “What Makes Dogs So Special and Successful? Love.” It was written by Karin Brulliard; it was an interview with the psychologist Clive Wynne, author of the book “Dog Is Love”, and first was published in The Washington Post on September 3, 2018.

Mr. Wynne writes, “Dogs have an exaggerated, ebullient, perhaps even excessive capacity to form affectionate relationships.” Since it was scientific research, instead of love dogs were measured for exceptional gregariousness and hyper sociability. Turns out that “Dogs fall in love much more easily than people do, and they also seem to be able to move on much more easily than people can”.

Both the article and the book have a lot of fascinating information. However, it takes two to tango. To experience a dog’s love, one needs to be a dog lover, which is why I published the book, “42 Encounters with Dog Lovers”. The three images are extras, which I photographed after the book was out.

Enjoy and Share.

Footsteps On The Sand

If you are interested in the history of San Francisco, Gary Kamiya, the author of the bestselling book “Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco” is your guide.

Twice a month, in the San Francisco Chronicle, you can read his column “Portals of the Past”. On June 26^th in the story, “How an intercultural couple in early San Francisco gained acceptance”, he writes about the events which happened on October 29, 1850. On that day, 16-year-old Ann Frances Moses, a daughter of a Mormon immigrant, married 20-year old Eustaquio Valencia, a member of one of the growing town’s prominent Californio families.

The question might come to your mind, “Why would we care about a family who lived over 170 years ago?” Well, for a very simple reason. The couple was part of what San Francisco is all about, its people. They came here from all over the world and, as we are here now, blended in like sand on the beach. While we are living, we leave footsteps on the sand, and then the ocean washes it away, leaving just sand.

Enjoy and Share!

Point of View

Since my wife Elfa and I started our company Pacific Bay Financial over 35 years ago, we have mostly agreed on every decision. Nevertheless, Elfa sometimes challenges my points of view, especially when I change my mind within a short period of time.

My response to this is simple. A decision about anything is only the direction of the thought. After gathering more information the direction may change with a change of one’s point of view. Let me use the taking of photo images as an example. I can stand in one spot and take 360 different images; and just by turning my body slightly and seeing (and capturing) different angles, in addition to many outside factors, like the time of day and availability and quality of light, the images can look quite different.

I hope that the three images I took in The Sea Ranch from different points of view, demonstrate my point.

Enjoy and Share!

Interested? Have a referral? Please contact Manny Kagan at Manny@Pacbay.net /415-225-7920 today!

Cheers,

Just Keep Driving

We finally met our granddaughter in Los Angeles last week, who is 9 and a half months young.

Since Elfa and I along with our daughter Tamar and her husband David are fully vaccinated, we could take a trip there and visit with them. We’ve driven to LA many times and usually take Highway 280, which connects to the 101, and at a certain point 152 takes us to Highway 5. However, this time I missed the exit and was considering turning back at the next one. My wife Elfa said, “just keep driving, 101 will also get us to our destination”. So I did, until suddenly GPS told me to take exit 46, which I followed, and this is how we discovered “Blackwells Corner”, which is part of California’s history. We stopped to get gas and to visit a local convenience store, where we found another part of history. Turns out, that this was the last shop where on September 30, 1955, movie actor James Dean bought some items before he was killed in a car crash a short time after.

Blackwells Corner is located in the Antelope Valley of Kern County, with Bakersfield as the county seat. This is one of the fastest growing areas in the country, which I would never know about, if I would not listen to my wife’s advice, “Just keep driving.” I encourage you to take this route, have lunch at the restaurant, buy pistachios and take pictures with the 50’s memorabilia, as I did.

Enjoy and Share!

Interested? Have a referral? Please contact Manny Kagan at Manny@Pacbay.net /415-225-7920 today!

Cheers,

Back To The Civilized Nature

The title of this essay sounds like an oxymoron. Nevertheless, visiting The Sea Ranch is exactly that. This is the place where humans managed to integrate into nature without destroying it. Due to Covid-19, we were unable to visit here for more than a year. Years ago, we owned a second home in The Sea Ranch, but now we just return when we can and rent different houses located on the meadow side (there are also homes on the forest side).

This last time, our short vacation was from Thursday until Monday. The Sea Ranch is one of our favorite places in the world to visit to relax, to breathe fresh air, to walk along the ocean, on one of the 50 miles of trails, to read, to write and of course to photograph. While there, I also started working on my next photobook, “42 Encounters with Love”. Meanwhile, you can find my other books at EncountersPublishing.com.

For these three images to share with you, I decided to show how humans and nature blend together here.

Enjoy and Share!