Shot on the same hike as seen a few entries ago, the picture on the left shows thedude holding a piece of ice. Why? I guess because ice was so hard to come by in Greenland.

On the right, thedude and friends walked out onto the Greenlandic ice cap and decided to walk “just out to there”. The funny thing was that the ice rose up so slowly that the horizon never changed. No matter how far we walked, we could never actually get “there”. The Greenland icecap eventually reaches a thickness of more than two miles.

After seeing this shot, I always fantasized about shooting a bikini-clad girl on a beach chair with an umbrella out here on the ice cap, but I could never find a beach chair. :-(

You now have no reason not to use the world’s best web browser. Opera is now free. Install it. Learn how to use it. Rejoice.

While you’re at it, be sure to install the latest version of Google Earth. It’s amazingly cool and also free. You’ll need it to get the most out of this web site, as I’ve begun to include Google Placemarks in my travel posts.

It just dawned on my that some of you might not have seen the fabulous party invitation. :)

Thanks to Apple for supplying the terrific iPod ads and to this great blog for a helpful tutorial. BTW, if you like iPods and PhotoShop, give this fun tutorial a spin. You are guaranteed to learn something about PhotoShop in the process! Here are my results. (Download and install the Chicago typeface before you begin.)

Both of these were taken on the day of the big Thule Open Golf Tournament atop Mount Dundas. Along the way on the hike to the mountain, we encountered this cemetery. I wish I knew a little of the history of it. The helicopter was shot from the top of the 900 foot “mountain” as a friend scrambled to set up his view camera. I had one of the most exciting rides on my life in that helicopter – flying full speed 100 feet above canyons of blue ice on the way to the northernmost place I’ve ever visited. I’m hoping to find those slides for a later post.

I ran across these images while scanning Greenland photos and just had to put them on the blog. The contrast is nice. These images of me and my friends lounging in the Indian Ocean may give you some idea why I chose to spend a year in Diego Garcia after my 17 months in Greenland.

UPDATE: Google Earth does not seem to know about Diego Garcia, but I do. The resolution of the satellite imagery in the middle of the Indian Ocean is very poor, but this Google placemark does at least give you a sense of the location of this remote U.S. military base.

One more thing. I found this eerie recording of last year’s 9.3 earthquake. (3.2 megabyte mp3 file.) It was “captured by underwater microphones located in Diego Garcia, more than 1,700 miles from the epicenter.” Listening to it with headphones sent a chill up my spine. Additional info about the recording can be found at the Columbia University web site.

Thanks to recently re-connecting with a couple friends from my Greenland adventure, I’m once again motivated to hunt through my archives for cool arctic images. (Pun intended.)

That’s thedude on the left in the summer of 1986 at J-Site – about 13 miles north of Thule. You can’t tell from the image, but the cliff he’s standing on drops off straight down for a good 500 feet. On the right is a friend cooling off after a long hike – proof that the human body can easily adjust to extremely cold climates. It was no more than 45 degrees in either of these shots.

I sure am glad that I have these pictures. I’m not likely to have an opportunity to see sites quite like these again!

UPDATE: I just located Thule on the incredibly cool Google Earth. (Sorry – Windows only.) If you have Google Earth installed, (it’s free!) you can fly there now by clicking here.

Wow. It’s hard to believe, but true. Fifty big ones.

We celebrated the auspicious event at the Conga Lounge. (Where else?) A few dozen of our best friends and coworkers, a few pizzas, mai tai’s and a delicious German chocolate birthday cake at our favorite tiki bar. Perfect.

I was busy pressing the flesh and handing out drink tickets, so I didn’t get much time to take pictures. Fortunately, my friends Mark Downey and Grant grabbed a few shots. Looks like everyone had a great time. I know I certainly did. :)

Thanks to my awesome wife Kelly and to all of my wonderful friends for making this my best 50th birthday party EVER!

We celebrated Elise’s 39th last night at the Conga Lounge. Elise has been one of thedude’s favorite coworkers for the last five years. Gotta love that smile. Happy birthday, Elise!

We’ll be back at the lounge again tonight for thedude’s *gulp* 50th. Whew!

We took the train to Fresno to help celebrate Wendy’s 45th birthday – the first of four birthday celebrations this week. The party was supposed to have been a surprise, but you know how these things go – she knew all about the it. However, Wendy did not know that her pals Kelly and thedude would arrive – cameras blazing.

You look mah-velous, Darling! Happy birthday!

Oakland’s Art and Soul Festival takes place this weekend. Our city streets are blocked off and stages are setup throughout the downtown area. We ran into our excellent friend Julie, and watched performances by Carbon Leaf and Aimee Mann at the KFOG stage. Both were very good. We decided not to hang around for Blues Traveler and wandered over to the blues stage for a few minutes of the fabulous Sonny Rose. We love Oakland – YAY!

2005 is a big year for 50th birthday parties, and Terra’s will no doubt be remembered as one of thedude’s favorites.

The party’s hosts have a stunning and eclectic home in the hills above Orinda. The home has an enormous multi-level deck with views from Mt. Diablo to Mt. St. Helena. The entire compound is wired for sound. There are dozens of speakers that bring tunes to the farthest reaches of the property as well as to the pool, the bar and the huge hot tub. Kelly dubbed it the “Boogie Nights” hot tub after seeing its multi-colored light show and built-in audio systems. We learned that there were 17 people in the tub the night before we arrived!

There are flat-screen TV’s in every room, and the house is furnished in massive 18th and 19th century American antiques. We’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Thedude met a lovely young girl with the coolest contact lenses he’d ever seen. Some very tall pro basketball player dude showed up. Our host Jim prepared the absolute best beef ever. The marinated and smoked beef tenderloin was absolutely amazing. It melted in our mouths like sushi. Wow.

Thanks to Steve, Terra, Jim, Jeannie and everyone else for or an incredibly fun time. Let’s do it again – soon!!