It's a small sadness of mine that he chose sea lions, since I'm quite fond of the sea lion antics in San Francisco.

On some days, all the sea lions come up and sun themselves on the marinas, an inconvenience for owners of yachts and sailboats, but to great amusement for the rest of us.

As the law is, we Californians aren't supposed to approach within 150 feet of sea lions, no matter how cuddly they might appear to be. (Don't try to pet them. They don't trust strange humans and will wreck your week.) But when animal control tries to dislodge sea lions from the gangways, another one swims up for a sunning to take its place.

There are some wooden floats near Pier 39 made specifically for sea lions so that tourists can watch them, but there are still sunny days when the marinas are overrun, and rich folk can't get to their boats.