It's the best time of year in Balboa, with the summer over, the summer tourists gone but the summer weather continuing. The sign I saw on local bar landmark Mutt Lynchs, shown above, said it best. "The Nightmare Is Over. Welcome Back Locals."

The tourists aren't really a nightmare. After all, they're part of Newport Beach life too. A busy Saturday in summer sees the boardwalk crowded with tourists, but it's a good crowding -- a feel of being in the middle of something happening, something about to happen and hey look over there! People are turning out having fun, often smiling at each other and everyone sharing a group day out at the beach.

Still, when the summer tourists go, it's great. The entire area changes, slows down and calms. You get the boardwalk to yourself. The beach is peaceful; it's easy to be reflective or just relaxed, enjoying it as if it belongs to you alone.

The sunsets are nice, too.

Let's do the happy email I got yesterday:

I went sailing around Newport Harbor recently and was surprised to see sea lions on boats so far inside the harbor. Usually, you'd only see them at the jetty entrance. Turns out, they've been finding the inner harbor a cool place to hang out recently. And a boat owner wasn't so happy about it when he found his boat had sunk under the weight of the marine mammals.

The Orange County Register has the story of how a 24 foot boat went down recently. It's not the same as the boat above -- that's just one of several I spotted. The city says there's little it can do -- boat owners are advised to "sea lion proof" their vessels by putting up netting or scaring the animals off with water hoses. Or wait until October, when they migrate out of the harbor.

In the questions after my talk, I was asked about particular limits I try to set in sharing and explained some of what I've thought about in terms of my kids. Being Social Online & Protecting Your Kids is my past post with more about that. Also in the slides, there's a stereotypical picture of a "grandma" style librarian. I used that on purpose so I could joke that if anyone thinks that's how librarians are now, life has totally changed and they should lose that image.

Postscript: The video of my presentation is now available:

See, I've bought things on both Amazon in the US and Amazon.co.uk in the UK. Made sense since I'm an American who until recently lived in the UK -- I had stuff I needed to buy and send to people regularly in both countries. And it was nice -- same email address worked in both places.

I also sold things on the UK side through the incredibly awesome Marketplace system. All that stuff I didn't or couldn't ship in my recent move from the UK to the US? List it on Amazon, no fuss, no problems and plenty of my well loved items found a new home.

Now I'm in the US. Got a few things I want to dispose of. Tried to sell. Oops, no can do -- I can't have a UK and a US seller account, it seems. So I message for help, and my descent into hell begins.

I've been back in Newport Beach for just about two weeks now, and the city threw me a little welcoming ceremony shown above that was most kind. Ah, shucks. Heh. In seriousness, today was the unveiling of the long-anticipated McFadden Square Centennial Legacy Project. If you want to learn a bit more about Newport Beach, the McFadden Wharf, how it became McFadden Square and the disappointing monument they unveiled today, well, read on!

I've heard it said many times that especially for Southern California, you're defined by what you drive. Perhaps. For my first cars there, I drove things more out of circumstance than choice. But that, of course, did define me. Not much money and picking up whatever I could afford or get handed down to me.