November 6, 2007 - Palms Away

Palm trees seem to grow well in Santa Barbara. Our climate isn't exactly Tropical Island, but these straight and narrow trees cover our psychic and geographic landscape like morning fog in June (or November, as the case may be). The dedicated staff of edhat.com has embraced this popular local tree in our work. Early on in our dedicated career, we took it upon ourselves to count the trees along the waterfront where they are packed in tighter than a crowd of George Clooney fans at the Film Festival. In fact when Mayor Marty Blum won the "Guess The Number of Palm Trees on Cabrillo Blvd Contest", it put Edhat on the map - driving subscriptions through the roof, and creating a virtual ripple in cyberspace that was felt as far away as Goleta.

But, as you know, there have been a lot of changes in the Santa Barbara media landscape in the last year. Before all this News-Press nonsense rocked our world,

The new palm trees on lower State

the mere mention (or even rumor) of an Edhat palm tree count would propel the local citizenry into a frond waving frenzy.

But yesterday, the response was not so good. Only 35 subscribers dared (or cared) to guess the number of palm trees along State Street. By comparison, 875 people clicked on the link in the daily email referring to a woman who dropped out of SBCC and posed for Playboy. In this post meltdown world, we know what counts. And, unfortunately this counting isn't the type being done by the dedicated staff with tally counters.

So, Ed has decided that from now on the dedicated will do all of our counting in the nude.

The palm trees by Modoc still show signs of the Painted Cave fire in 1990.

He was kidding. We think.

For those of you who care - there are 609 palm trees on State Street from Cabrillo to Modoc. There are palms of all sizes and shapes, including the new ones on lower State with the reddish bark. There are a lot of other types of trees as well.

And for those of you who don't know - the woman who posed for Playboy is Clint Eastwood's daughter.

And, what no one knows … the winner of the day's contest was Queen Whackamole, who guessed 638 trees.

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