Monday morning finds Steve sitting in a cafe in Santa Cruz, sipping a latte, talking to sponsors on the cell phone while updating the site from the laptop… odd that I've never felt so much like a yuppie as I do right now- homeless and jobless state not-withstanding. Life is funny like that sometimes. Beebee is off hunting for beads and heaven-knows-what with her mother.

Steve is also fighting off the beginnings of a cold/sinus thing. Probably because he spent 3 hours standing up to his thighs in 50&#deg; F water while learning how to surf-fish at Manresa State Beach with his Dad and his new rod/reel (Thanks, Dad!). Didn't catch any fish, but the weather was perfect, albeit windy, and both Steve and his father considered the trip to be a success and are already looking forward to going again.

Lunch finally rolled around and we got to enjoy a few hours with lovely Katie-lynn (Jocelyn's maid of honor). Ate at Shogun Sushi, yummy.

In the evening, Joyce (Jocelyn's mom) took us out to see Ray Brown's "Great Big Band" at the Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz. Wow! We sat 4 rows from the front of 20 people on a little tiny stage playing big music. The band was great. We had a blast. (Thanks, Joyce!) click here for more pictures from Kuumbwa.

After the show, Jocelyn took Steve out to her favorite late-night restaurant, Manuel's, for another dinner.

Labels: california, food

Spent the day with the Broyles clan at Mom and Dad's new home in Carmel. Great day of relaxing and playing with our three-and-a-half year-old niece, Isabelle and 19-month nephew, Austin. Spending the day with them is a great way to remember how wonderful kids are, and how very, very little we want to have any of our own any time soon!

After dinner, Isabelle and Austin helped Uncle Steve open some more birthday presents.

Later, we saw the new Bond movie with Steve's brother and sister and their spouses. Overall the movie was great but Beebee was disappointed that there weren't enough cool gadgets and Steve was disappointed out that the bond-girl (Denise Richards) couldn't act her way out of a box. We both thought it was about time that Bond got tough again. All of us were a little bummed that the theater's sound-system was on the blink. Oh-well.

Labels: california

We finally got around to posting some pictures from SEMA 99 online. There weren't many trucks there worth taking pictures of (except for their humor-value- see the shots of the pimp-daddy landcruiser) and we didn't take any shots of what was probably the coolest 4x4 there- a custom red Jeep Cherokee that was built for real-world use instead of a chromed-out fireball-painted show-queen. There are a few good snaps of some rebuilt classics, though. You can see the pictures that we do have here.

---

Labels: landcruiser, nevada