Best Day Ever

So thankful for my incredibly blessed life!  I had an amazing day today, surfing super fun waves with a friend in the morning, and connecting with an incredibly beautiful soul in the evening, loving life!!!

Veggie Nori Wraps

One of my favorite raw vegan recipes is a twist on sushi, using a raw nori seaweed sheet and filling it up with a selection of sliced veggies.  You can mix up the ingredients to create a variety of different recipes, all being rolled up into a live wrap with delicious selections of flavors.  I make one version using thick slices of avocado, with nut butters swiped on both sides, this one here with almond butter and pine nut butter.  Then I chop up some black botija olives and sun dried tomatoes to sprinkle on the nut butters, and season with some cayenne pepper and sea salt.  Then I cover the whole spread with shelled hemp seeds, and add sunflower greens and mixed salad greens before then wrapping it all up into the nori sheet.  Another option I love is to replace the nut butters with my living pesto sauce, great variety of flavor for these incredible entrees.  The olives and nut butters are all available at Sunfood Nutrition, and Manitoba Harvest has the best shelled hemp seeds ever.  The other ingredients can be found at most organic grocery stores, such as the raw nori sheets, sun dried tomatoes, cayenne pepper, and sea salt, and the produce, including avocados, sunflower greens, and spring mix, can be found there as well or at your local farm or farmer's market.  Enjoy!

Avocado, almond and pine nut butters, with diced black olives and sun dried tomatoes

Cover with shelled hemp seeds and fresh sunflower greens

Add organic spring mix, wrap it up, and enjoy!

Coldwater Classic

The O'Neill Coldwater Classic event held at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz, California is one of my favorite surfing events ever!  I love the amphitheater setup of The Lane, allowing spectators the opportunity to be right next to the action in the water, giving them a feel of being right out in the lineup with the competitors.  It also gives a better vantage point with which to appreciate the technicalities and subtle nuances of the surfing maneuvers executed by the competitors that are difficult to notice from farther away.  All of this and the fact that The Lane is such a fun and rippable wave, that as a competitor being in the water with only 3 other surfers out is such a special treat.  The surf this year went from small and tricky for the start of the event into double to triple overhead for the Finals, The Lane will always challenge even the best surfers into performing well in a variety of conditions.  I love Santa Cruz!

Sebastian Zietz was ripping! Heat 3 Rd 48 highest heat total 18.74 and highest wave score 9.77, then scored a Perfect 10 point ride in the Round of 24, on fire!

Nat Young won the Oakley Pro Junior this year after winning the WQS Coldwater Classic last year

It wouldn't be a true event in Santa Cruz without a lady taking her duck for a walk

My favorite surfer of all time, 3x World Champion and 1990 Coldwater Classic Champ Tom Curren was a beauty to watch with his usual smooth and flowing style

Local favorite, O'Neill Marketing Director, and 2003 Coldwater Classic Champion Kieran Horn showcased some of the most impressive surfing in the event, scoring a 9.0 and 7.83 in Heat 7 Rd 16 for a 16.83 heat total

Congratulations to Nate Yeomans, the 2009 O'Neill Coldwater Classic Champion, on winning this year's event and qualifying for the 2010 ASP WCT!

Happy Halloween

Another really fun Halloween up north in Santa Cruz with my friends.  Spent the first part of the evening handing out some treats to the kids in the neighborhood, then over to my friend Omar's house for a nice party, and then downtown to check out the unmatched scene of crazy and original costumes that Santa Cruz provides every Halloween.  Great times with great friends!

King Keenan, ready to defend the castle

Zorro with his fiery senorita

Santa Cruz legend trio, Kieran Horn, Omar Etcheverry, and Homer Henard

Pumpkin Patch

Took a trip up north of town to the pumpkin patch off Coast Highway 1 to pick out pumpkins for our jack-o-lanterns.  Great way to get into the Halloween spirit searching around in the pumpkin patch for the hero pumpkin to carve up and make into an epic jack-o-lantern for welcoming trick or treaters and scaring away bad spirits.  We each found a nice pumpkin that fit what we were looking for to make the style of carving we envisioned, and had a lot of fun prepping them up for display on the front steps.  Happy Halloween!

Ocean view pumpkin patch

Selection section

Searched it out and found my pumpkin

My friend Jack

Happy Halloween!!!

Tortoise Time

Spent a few minutes hanging out with the neighborhood legend, a huge prehistoric dinosaur tortoise, while he was chilling in his yard.  As a fellow vegan, I decided to share some of my pineapple guavas with him, knowing he would appreciate some nature candy.  Sea turtles (and owls) are my favorite animals, so visiting with their terrestrial cousin was a fun time.  I appreciate how turtles and tortoises are never in a hurry, they just take their time on an easy cruising pace as they go about their day, eating fruits and veggies and enjoying the day with no pressure, just soaking up the sun's rays and savoring some fresh air, with their house on their back allowing them to post up and hide out wherever they might find themselves.  Good role models for today's society, people should take notes.  Pure inspiration :)

Legend status

The Daily Habit

A couple of months ago I was invited to join the Del Mar Housing Projects Team to appear on an episode of Fuel TV's "The Daily Habit" to feature some of our footage we have collected using the custom camera housings and mounts we have built out at The Projects' Secret Laboratory.  The DMHP crew that went up for the filming at Fuel's Los Angeles studios included myself, Erik Hjermstad, Tyler Reid, and Anthony Walsh.  They sent a limo to pick us up at sunrise, everyone at Fuel was super friendly, we had a great time on the show, and on the way home we stopped at Au Lac Humanese Cuisine, the best living food restaurant in Southern California, and possibly the world, for lunch and a secret elixir from the legend himself Chef Ito!  An all-time day!  To watch the Fuel TV episode click here.  I hope you enjoy the footage!

From L ro R: Limo, myself, Anthony Walsh, Tyler Reid, Erik Hjermstad

Erik and I in the middle of a serious business meeting on the morning commute

DMHP Team living large

Just another day at the office

On the set of "The Daily Habit"  Watch Episode

Master Chef Ito from Au Lac mixing up our elixirs