MURRIETA, Calif. - California's experiencing a lot of moving and shaking lately, and this time, we're not talking earthquakes.

Like the mesmerizing waves of the Pacific Ocean, California residents come and go. This is a constant, reliable fact of life in the Golden State.

Making recent California headlines are what I call the Good, the bad and the ugly.

It's good when people decide to move away from California. It's too crowded here anyway. Beset by mortgage woes, some good, hardworking people make the decision to leave for other states where they reckon they can buy twice the home for half the price - and sometimes they can.

Migration data shows that each year, hundreds of thousands of Californians move away. In 2004, the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area lost about 114,000 residents.

The California Association of Realtors estimates that one or two of every 50 clients who leave California end up moving back.

Some of these so-called "boomerangers" miss family and friends. Others return for different reasons, including poor job expectations and a higher than expected cost of living.

The road back to the West Coast can be bumpy. Returning Californians often are stunned by how quickly home prices have gone up. The median home price in Riverside County was $410,000 in January, an increase of 15.8 percent from the year before, according to DataQuick Information Systems.

Whatever the reasons for leaving, we'll always leave a light on for the good people who want to return.

Then there are people who may want to return to California, but those pesky iron bars in their cells keep them from making the trip.

Last month, former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham left California for an Oklahoma federal prison. The 64-year-old Cunningham, who first gained national stature during the Vietnam War when he recorded five enemy shootdowns as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The one-time "Top Gun" instructor pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion, admitting he took at least $2.4 million in bribes and cheated on his taxes between 2000 and 2004.

Sure, he stole money from U.S. taxpayers, cheated on his taxes, leveraged the lives of our men and women serving on foreign battlefields for profit, and brazenly attempted to cover it all up through forgery, intimidation and lies. And those are just the things to which he's admitted.

But now he's old and sick and really, really sorry. Truly sorry, really.

A Club Fed sentence may serve as a deterrent to other high-ranking officials, but does this one man really deserve to suffer that indignity after all he's been through? Some say eight years isn't nearly enough.

Cunningham represented the 50th Congressional District (primarily north San Diego County). To you and your bad deeds Mr. Cunningham, we say, goodbye to you.

And it doesn't get much uglier than this. The Ugly Person Award goes to Tom Metzger - a promoter of white supremacy who has supported views that make normal human flesh crawl. The television repairman lived quietly in Fallbrook, near San Diego, but boldly spewed his hateful messages through cable TV and, most recently, his Web site.

Last month, Metzger reportedly moved to Indiana, where he inherited his mother's house.

One of Metzger's more notable appearances include a 1988 episode of the "Geraldo Rivera Show," during which he taunted a black activist with racial slurs, causing a fight during which Rivera's nose was broken by a flying chair.

I'm sure I speak on behalf of most Californians when I say, "Good Riddance to you, Mr. Metzger." And good luck with that, Indiana.