Juwei

My friend and coworker was taken from us this morning by an extremely aggressive cancer. We are all shocked and saddened by the suddenness of his death at the young age of 42. I sat next to and worked with Juwei for four years. He was kind, proud, reliable, and a damn good SysAdmin. He…

Now THIS is Exciting!

I first noticed the fabulous fat typeface used on the Golden Gate Bridge when my daughter Kerry visited last year. I instantly loved it. I took this picture with the thought that I might use the typeface in a future design. Well, it turns out that I don’t need to go through all the trouble…

Hip-Hip Hoo-Ray!

One of our favorite neighbors celebrated the big four-oh this evening with 60 or so of his closest friends and family members. Thanks for the great party, Ray, and thanks to your mother for the wonderful food!

I Was Lucky This time

How often does this happen to you? You shoot 100 photos at an important event and discover that the very best shot of the day is useless for one reason or another. It’s way out of focus or 2 stops overexposed or – as in this case – something totally unexpected has happened. Something like……

Happy Birthday, Frank, Dorothy & thedude

We celebrated three birthdays this week – thedude’s 49th, and Frank and Dorothy’s 70th – at one of our favorite getaways, St. Orres in Gualala, California. We stayed in three different cabins during our trip, including the spectacular new “Black Chantrelle” cabin – Jim’s new favorite. The weather was perfect, and we were the only…

Mount Dundas

One the most distinctive features of the Thule area is Mount Dundas. Once a year all of the residents of Thule climb the 900 foot mountain to participate in a golf game. The object of the game – to get a ball somewhere near the “holes” – marked with a red flag. Lucky golfers were…

Thule Guestbook

Each visitor to Erik’s cabin was offered the privilege of signing his one-of-a-kind guestbook. As you can probably gather from what you see here, I was one of the few Americans ever to visit this place. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the page that I wrote in his guestbook, so I can’t share…

Partying with Eskimos

Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any cooler, two of Erik’s Eskimo friends dropped by for a visit. Erik expected them to show up at around noon, but instead arrived by dogsled somewhere around midnight. Evidently, Eskimos have little need for clocks – especially in the long night of winter. I don’t know…

Inside Erik’s Cabin

Finally we’re inside Erik’s cabin! The fisheye lens makes the place look much larger than it really is – a mere 8 feet by 16 feet. The cabin was just tall enough in the middle for me to stand up. I shot this shortly after we arrived and fired up the stove – the top…

Thule Star Trails

Here’s another shot I’m quite proud of. Again I attached the camera to my tripod, pointed it back towards Thule and opened the shutter. I ran back inside the cabin to stay warm during the 45 minute exposure. In the distance you can just make out the unique profile of Mt. Dundas.

Hotel Thule

You know, it’s a good thing that the site is really intended primarily for me. I’m probably the only one who can make any sense of it. I was looking at it again tonight and I realize that my recent entries are all all over the map – no pun intended. The main reason for…

Thule Inuit

I rarely saw the native population during my 17 months in Greenland. Fortunately, the air base sponsored a (70 mile!) dog sled race with a grand prize of a rifle. This was enough to attract Inuit families from many miles around. There was one other much more personal interaction with the natives of Thule –…

Picnic in Thule

By popular demand, another image from frozen Thule, Greenland. This image was made during a winter in Thule. If I recall, it was shot around noon – in almost complete darkness. I set up my trusty Pentax 35 mm camera on a tripod, and painted light onto the picnic table with a flashlight during the…