Buy my books

As we downsize our household for the big move to a place by the beach, we're trying to reduce our large inventory of books written by some guy named Steve Brewer.

My wife Kelly has set up a "store" at Amazon.com where you can order my books (including some that are hard to find), inscribed any way you like. Better we ship these books to happy readers than pay to move them to Santa Cruz.

To check out our "store," click here.

Autographed books make wonderful gifts. ;-)

Buy my house

As many of you know by now, we've put our home in Redding, CA, on the market. The real estate folks put together a neat slide show, and you can see it here if you're interested.

Our younger son graduates from high school on June 4, and our nest will be empty. Kel and I are planning to move to Santa Cruz, CA, and live by the beach. We both work at home these days and can live anywhere, so we decided to do the coastal thing, at least for a year or two.

Our house, with its palm trees and swimming pool and mountain views, has been the California Dream for the past seven years, a great place to raise the boys. But now it's time for a different dream. Just the two of us. A smaller place. A down-sized lifestyle. And no guest room.

Civic pride

Here in Redding, CA, we live on a hilltop off Buenaventura Boulevard, a byway as beautiful as its name.

Buenaventura winds through a canyon, alongside a creek and a nature trail. Near its end, where the road terminates at Highway 273, a new commercial zone of stores and offices has really dressed up what had been a pretty ugly intersection.

So you, the driver, travel through this lovely canyon and through this lovely creekside commercial strip and you have a view of snow-capped Mount Lassen dead-ahead. Incredible. Scenery like this is one reason we live here.

Except. When you get to the busy intersection, you can't see the mountains or the trees. All you can see are rusty train cars that the railroad has chosen to park right in front of you.

The cars have sat there for years. If they were parked fifty yards away, you'd never notice them. They'd disappear into the industrial scenery of the railroad shops. Instead, they're parked directly in the line of sight from Buenaventura, blocking the view of the mountains.

Can't the city ask the railroad to move these eyesores? Or doesn't anybody care?