SUNBEAMS: Lamorinda (re-)emerging as a wine center(2)

PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT: The water shortage, and the hassle about how to help us. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's declaring California a state of emergency last Friday, and the imminent threat of mandatory water rationing, has intensified the argument: He claims it's not Mother Nature's fault, and wants more dams built.

Republican lawmakers and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein also have called for additional dams to be bought with a multi-billion-dollar bond. Conservation, they say, won't solve the problem.

"We have a water system built for 18 million people. Now we have 38 million people," quoth the governor. But Jim Metropulos, a senior advocate for Sierra Club California, points out that dams would take years to build and face numerous court challenges.

"It's not going to help us now, tomorrow or five years from now," he said. When the well's dry, we know the worth of water, huh? So how in the heck can we wash our necks if it ain't gonna rain no more, no more?

AND WHILE WE'RE IN SACRAMENTO and the recent interminable budget delay out by our senators and representatives, Lily Tomlin's comment comes to mind: "Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them."

LOCAL LAD RISES HIGH: Architect J. Marshall Strabala, son of Orindans Joe and Helen Strabala, grew up here attending Sleepy Hollow Grammar School, Pine Hollow Intermediate and Miramonte High before receiving a BA degree in design at UCLA, and a master's of architecture at Harvard. Now he designs the tallest buildings in the world, including the world's tallest, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the Bruj Danay; and the Nanjing Greenland Financial Center. Both are scheduled for completion this year.

Now he's broken ground for the Shanghai Tower, the 120-story building to be the tallest in China, due to be completed in 2014. All three of these structures are among the world's 10 tallest buildings.

I stared up at one in Kuala-Lumpur, Malaysia's capital. Illustrating our current state of global business, Marshall is an Affiliated Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, as well as the awardee of national and international honors. Even Russia's Pravda has recognized him.

"I have designed many tall buildings, but the China Tower is the integration of 20 years of experience, and I believe the most significant project I have ever worked on," Marshall says modestly.