Sand

The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

People who live along the shimmering coastline of Southern California have found many creative ways over the years to discourage the public from using the parts of the beach they would prefer to consider their own. They have put up gates that block public access and have taken down signs that say "public welcome. " The latest gambit, by residents in Newport Beach, involves planting lawns and hedges, installing sprinkler systems and fire pits, and plopping down furniture and ornaments that spill over from their property onto the public beach.

Mexico plans to spend 1 billion pesos ($91.6 million) to replace sand on the Caribbean beaches of Cancun, Cozumel and the Riviera Maya that has been eroded away by storms, threatening to turn off tourists.

On the tip of Balboa Peninsula, where multimillion-dollar homes sit snug against the sand and the legendary waves draw crowds of bodysurfers, an unlikely battle is taking shape. At the center are the lawns, lounge chairs, hedges and playground equipment - even a rusty metal shark sculpture - that for years have sprawled out from oceanfront homes onto the public sand. It's all illegal, says the state of California, which has ordered homeowners along some of Orange County's most coveted coastline to rip out the landscaping, sprinklers and all the other upgrades that have crept steadily seaward.

Most people associate the beach with swimming or surfing, but the water isn't the only exercise-friendly element. Many developed beach areas, such as Santa Monica and Venice, also feature bars, rings, swings and balance beams -- free equipment that can make a workout engaging and fun. Plus, the sand offers a shifting surface that forces the stabilizing muscles of the core to fire. Feet sink in, making muscles work harder and creating a bigger calorie burn. Jennifer Cohen ( www.jennifercohen.

What started as a pile of rubble became a patterned driveway that's not only beautiful but also permeable, meaning winter rains will percolate into the ground instead of spilling into the street. Steve Gerischer, owner of Larkspur Garden Design in Los Angeles, salvaged old brick and broken concrete from job sites to create a floral-inspired tapestry over his 14-by-40-foot driveway in Glassell Park. The driveway had been covered with gravel, but over the years it had mostly become dirt.

The sun is high and it's a slow day for selling and there's not much for a camel trader to do except scatter hay and greens and listen to the big beasts munch. Sounds like shoes walking through gravel. Essam Ammar lifts a cellphone from his tunic. "Hi, Ahmed. No, I won't lower the price." Eyes roll. Ammar pulls the phone from his ear and looks at it; Ahmed's words crackle in the air. Click. It's not even noon. The day seems in retreat. "I've been doing this for 29 years," says Ammar, who wears a white-lace cap and an even snowier pinstriped vest, a risky choice amid blowing dust and rubbish fires.

L.A. County supervisors learned Tuesday what happens when you try to fix a problem that doesn't really exist. It all began last week when the supervisors approved what they thought was a routine updating of various county beach codes, including a four-decade-old ban on playing football and Frisbee on public sand. But that section of the law was obscure. Beach officials had not issued a single citation in at least 40 years. The update, part of an effort by county lawyers to clean up and modernize volumes of laws, called for loosening the ban on ball play during the fall, winter and spring months when fewer crowds are at the beach.

The shores of Seal Beach will be transformed into a fantasy land of sandcastles Saturday when the United Way of Orange County holds its annual sand sculpting competition. Last year, more than 20,000 people flocked to Seal Beach to watch teams compete to build the best sandcastle. The contest kicks off the United Way's fund-raising season. "The event is not a fund-raiser.

'Spartacus: Blood and Sand' Where: Starz and Encore When: 10 tonight Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

SACRAMENTO — Under pressure from state lawmakers and environmentalists, Gov. Jerry Brown's administration has agreed to write regulations for one controversial oil extraction method and reexamine rules for another that led to a worker's death last year. The administration is seeking money in the next state budget to regulate the booming oil industry and assuage public concern over hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking. " Officials plan to develop rules that would ensure the integrity of oil wells and establish reporting requirements for operators that inject chemical-laced water and sand deep into the ground to tap oil, according to a California Department of Conservation document released this week.

Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have put their Malibu beach house back on the market, chopping $3.5 million from last year to price it at $11.2 million. The Balinese-inspired home faces sand dunes and the ocean. The 4,300-square-foot house, built in 1978 and renovated in 2005, is entered through a gated courtyard. Features include a screening room, a bar, a gym, an office and a detached guest house. The master suite has floor-to-ceiling windows and a beachfront balcony for a total of four bedrooms and 41/2 bathrooms.

You are going to watch this video of Sand Flea, a robot developed by Boston Dynamics, and for a few seconds you are going to be bored. After all, Sand Flea isn't much to look at - just an 11 pound robot with large plastic wheels that don't look hi-tech or expensive, and all the robot does at first is move noisily over what appears to be a parking lot - much like a remote-control car. But then Sand Flea comes to a wall, and instead of...

PHOENIX -- Jerry Sands was optioned to minor-league camp Tuesday morning, taking him out of contention to win a bench spot on the opening-day roster. Sands, 24, entered spring training as the favorite to claim the one available reserve role. A former organizational minor league player of the year, Sands hit .253 with four home runs and 26 runs batted in in 61 games last season. He was particularly effective in September, hitting .342 in 20 games. His September form raised hopes that he could replace Andre Ethier in the outfield or James Loney at first base on days the Dodgers faced a left-handed pitcher.

Forgetting that he simply needs to play every day to continue his development, there's another reason why the Dodgers should not start the season with Jerry Sands on their roster. He's just not ready. Most had Sands penciled in as a reserve outfielder this season with the Dodgers in serious need of a power bat off the bench. Only he's not hitting this spring and looks uncertain at the plate. Maybe they've messed with his swing one time too many. He went 0-for-2 Wednesday in the Dodgers' 3-0 loss to the Padres, and is now hitting .154 for the spring.

It is still pretty early, of course, the Dodgers yet to arrive to the midpoint of their spring training season. Still, you have to wonder if that pencil that wrote Jerry Sands onto the Dodgers' opening-day roster best have had the lightest of leads. Sands went hitless in two at-bats in the Dodgers' 5-2 loss to the Rockies at Camelback Ranch on Tuesday, and is now 2-for-14 (.143) this spring. Not exactly alarming in mid-March, but with Manager Don Mattingly saying Sunday he would not start the season platooning Andre Ethier and James Loney, you have to wonder if Sands is going to get at-bats that the young hitter still needs.

People who live along the shimmering coastline of Southern California have found many creative ways over the years to discourage the public from using the parts of the beach they would prefer to consider their own. They have put up gates that block public access and have taken down signs that say "public welcome. " The latest gambit, by residents in Newport Beach, involves planting lawns and hedges, installing sprinkler systems and fire pits, and plopping down furniture and ornaments that spill over from their property onto the public beach.

An 11-year-old boy burrowing in a deep sand hole in Manhattan Beach ended up buried for five minutes before he could be rescued, authorities said Tuesday. The boy, visiting the beach at 8th Street with family members Sunday afternoon, was on his hands and knees about six feet down in a hole he was digging diagonally toward another hole his cousin was digging, said Battalion Chief Dave Shenbaum of the Manhattan Beach Fire Department. The boy was trying to connect the two holes into a tunnel when he was buried by an avalanche of sand.

This is for those who don't mind traveling to Earth's edge to get somewhere extraordinary. Broome is in the Kimberley, a hunk of Western Australia the size of California but whose population is only 41,000 hide-skinned, Akubra-sporting (you know, the iconic hat) individuals. It also has some of the country's whitest sand, warmest waters, reddest cliffs and most outlandish geological formations. And those hide-skinned people are almost bizarrely kind. Without fail, if you pull over to look at a map, take a photo or argue with your navigator, they stop their car to ask, "Youse alroight?"

Reporting from Phoenix — Jerry Sands was awakened at 4:30 a.m. on Thursday by a phone call. The automated call was from the Johnston County School District in North Carolina, where the second-year outfielder worked as a substitute teacher in the off-season. He was informed there was a shift available. "I have to call them and tell them I'm not in town," Sands said. "I have to get it out of the way so they quit calling me. There's a couple hours difference. " Until about two weeks ago, as he had in previous winters, Sands taught English and math a couple of times a week in the district's middle and high schools.