Come to Malibu today and you may find us all a bit bleary-eyed, a little slow and more than a little wind-blown. From dusk through dawn and even right now, this second, full-on morning, there's an ongoing assault of really big wind.

Has it slowed a little since three a.m., when every motion-sensor light in the Cove was ablaze, when tree limbs thwacked at rooftops, when wooden fences bent and creaked and cracked? A little, yes, it has. That three a.m. wind, timed to the heebie jeebie hour of darkness, blew so hard and blew so fast, the whole house shook. It seemed like maybe the earth shook too, which, for a Californian, is not a peaceful feeling.

So here's the smudgy dawn today, wind still so strong I had to lean against the fence to get the shot. I like the way the tints all kind of shift, more smears of color than a real landscape. Maybe even prettier upside down.