The high point of our weekend was the Pacific Classic - won by long shot Borrego. No, we did not bet - we would have lost if we had - but we had fun looking at the shiny horsies and drinking 8 dollar beers.
Many thanks to Paul and Joanna for driving us up and down the highway all weekend. Thanks for the hospitality, the comfortable bed and of course, the delicious Bailey’s and white chocolate cheesecake!
The Del Coronado was gorgeous, the weather was perfect, and lunch was grand.
Marilyn’s got nothin’ on Kelly.
We just got back from visiting Paul and Joanna and their five cats and 2 dogs in Temecula. Paul and Joanna have a lovely home in a quiet, clean neighborhood. Both of them have very short commutes and good jobs. (Well, Joanna might argue with that point, but that’s a l-o-n-g story for another day.) Anyway, I gotta tell ya - I’m soooo happy to live in Northern California. Here in Oakland, Kelly and I can walk to dozens of cool destinations - shops, restaurants, bookstores, Jack London Square, etc. In Temecula, we had to drive everywhere. And everywhere, it seemed, was at least an hour or two away. It’s no wonder it’s so important to drive a nice car in Southern California - most people are in theirs a large part of the day.
Our first road trip was to Hollywood, where the girls did the obvious thing. They headed straight to the nearest oxygen bar for a tune up and a neck-rub before hobnobbing with Chucky and Jimi Hendrix in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Fab!
From time to time friends send me fabulous images. This is definitely one of them.
Meet Jack.
The black and white is a nice touch don’t you think? It really sets off the metallic costume from its leafy surroundings.
Most excellent costume and photography by Siobhan Chestnut.
Fabulous!
Thinking today’s weather was guilting me into getting outside for a few minutes, I convinced my favorite model to join me on the roof for 5 minutes. Here are the results.
Jack works to get the Psychic Taxi ready for Burningman.
We know quite a few people who will be attending the big event in Black Rock Desert this year. Our friends are trying awfully hard to get us to go, and we’re flattered, but it just does not look like it’s going to happen. Too much dust and heat for us. Well, too much for thedude anyway. Kelly can adapt to just about any situation - no matter how dire. (She married thedude, right?)
This week I received e-mails from two people I have not seen in nearly twenty years. The first came from my ex-girlfriend Cheryl. That’s her on the left with a somewhat younger and slightly thinner dude. Evidently, she stumbled onto my site while Googling Thule Air Base in Greenland. She sent a link to my blog to another Greenland buddy - Jed (aka Greg Hopkins). That’s him on the right. In 1986, we hosted the “Jim and Jed Show” on the “World’s Most Northerly Stereo FM Station” - Radio 5-OZ-20 in Thule, Greenland. (There actually was an FM station farther north, in Canada I think, but it was not broadcast in stereo.)
Hearing from Cheryl and Jed in the same week has inspired me to drag out my old Greenland photo album and crank up the scanner. Looking though these grainy old black and white images is so incredibly nostalgic! It’s totally cool to have friends from way back then with whom I can share these priceless memories.
We are delighted to be spending some quality time with Hillary. (You may remember her from our water skiing trip in June.) Well, we have her held hostage for a few days in the Bay Area and intend to make the most of it. Last night, we watched the A’s beat the LA Angels. (Go A’s!) Kelly took her horseback riding this morning, and it looks like we’re going to go see War of the Worlds tonight.
Update: We did go see War of the Worlds, and it was a lot of fun. The movie has spectacular special effects, and is definitely large-screen fare. I enjoyed it a lot - more so, I think than Kelly and Hillary, neither of whom have seen the original film. I’m not sure I agree with those who rate this as Speilberg’s finest film, but I definitely recommend War of the Worlds.
What matters is how BIG it is.
There are many great things to say about this new configuration. I still have a vertically oriented monitor for browsing and working on portrait-oriented documents. (That’s just about everything, right?) In addition, I now have a huge, brilliant canvas for displaying and editing images. I briefly considered a three monitor configuration, but realized that if I did you and my wife would finally know for sure that I had flipped my lid. Instead, I now use the 17″ in the bedroom as a TV.
All these new pixels are nice to have, but the best thing about my new Dell 2405 monitor is it’s color. I have never seen whiter whites on an LCD display. I actually had to adjust my monitor gamma down a bit. And the colors are so smooth - not the least bit “grainy” like on some LCD’s. It even puts my relatively new 2001FP to shame. The built-in CF card reader will come in handy too. Nice!
Click on the image above to see an image sized perfectly for the 2405’s native resolution - 1920 x 1200 pixels. Wow!
All of this has me wondering how I’ll adjust my work flow. The vertically-oriented monitor is essential, but the new monitor just looks so much better. Another question I’m wrestling with is whether or not to increase the default size of the images on my blog. Most images are 1200 pixels wide now. But this blog is primarily for me, right? I want my images to look great here at home. I guess you should not be surprised if my default image size creeps up to 1920 pixels wide. Hey - it could be worse. I could have picked up an Apple 30-inch dsplay!
Last night’s dinner at Chris and Ben’s was awesome, as usual. This evening was made extra-special because dinner was sort of a potluck. We had Thai curried duck, Tandoori chicken and good old American potato salad and apple pie for dessert.
Despite the fact that my pictures are excusively of women, I can assure you that there were men present. It just worked out that way. :)
We were especially pleased to see Danny and Jum and their lovely daughters, Taewee and Rassamee. We’ll see you in Madison in October!
(As a side-note I’d like to mention that these shots were all taken with my new Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens. My first impression of this lens is very favorable. I should have more to day about this lens soon.)
Our neighbors/friends Jack and Tres (see below) needed a quick web site so that they could pitch their fun idea for a Burningman theme camp. (All they really wanted to do is obtain permission to arrive early at Black Rock City.) So, they threw a site together quickly using hand-drawn graphics and a simple site builder tool. The resulting site is pretty basic, but it did the trick! To their surprise, Burningman founders liked their “Psychic Taxi” concept so much that they were granted a piece of prime real estate near Center Camp.
Way to go, Jack and Tres!
