We made our annual trek to foggy Fresno so that we could take part in the very serious business of overindulging with the Hunter clan. Mass quantities of Christmas cookies and candies were consumed along with numerous bottles of wine and champagne before dinner. Later, we searched for and easily found extreme Christmas lighting displays despite fog as thick as Dorothy’s crab chowder. On Christmas morning, a couple hundred gifts were exchanged, and when the smoke cleared, I emerged the big winner with by far the most gifts received. Hmm… I wonder why that happened? I guess it’s to show appreciation for all of the flattering pictures I have posted on my site over the years. :)

In my opinion, the best gift is something consumable. Thanks Grant and Sandy, Ali and Neil for the perfect gifts! Oh – and the ergonomic mouse pad is way cool too! Amazingly comfortable. My wrist never felt better! ;-) Highly recommended!

(Yes, we’ve begun to open gifts early because we don’t think they’ll all fit in the car for the annual trip to Fabulous Fresno.)

The hallway panorama is in! It looks pretty impressive, if I must say so myself. A major improvement.

The nine foot wide print was made from a 10,000 pixel wide image consisting of four time exposures – approximately 30 seconds each – shot with a Nikon D2X. I used PhotoVista to do the stitching; Pictopia did the printing. Even though the final image contains just 108 pixels per inch, it looks great. Plenty of detail – no pixelization. It’s incredible what you can do with digital technology these days!

While the rest of the country shivers under a blanket of heavy snow, thedude and Kelly attended the season’s first holiday party in 68 degree weather. The venue for this year’s food and wine extravaganza was the beautiful Asian Art Museum. The company provided what seemed like hundreds of tantalizing food options – everything from prime rib to sushi. There were several bars set up throughout the museum so that we never needed to be without a drink while strolling the galleries. We were treated to a spirited performance by the San Francisco Taiko Drummers and even a couple of lion dancers. I will tell you one thing – Affymetrix holiday parties are not to be missed!

If all that wasn’t enough, Affymetrix got a reduced rate on rooms at the Fairmont Hotel. So, we decided to stay at the world-class hotel, where we enjoyed this awesome view of the city and $10 bottled water. (Oops! Kelly, get out of the mini-bar!)

I was the “official” photographer for the event, so I worked hard to get pictures of as many people as I could, but with 600 guests and three hours to work, I missed many more photos than I would have liked to. Oh well, at least I managed to get a few shots of some Very Important People.

Wow. I don’t even have a category for this one! This strange, somewhat creepy recording is part of the “Stanford Audio Recordings Children’s Development Series”. The jacket proclaims, “Now your child can improve all phases of his development by playing records!” There is no date on the red “vinylite” record or on the jacket. I’m going to guess that this is a product of some warped mind(s) from the mid 50’s – way back when thedude was born. Yow!

For best results, give this whacky recording a listen just before bed time.

By the way, this recording was borrowed some years ago from Mike Slavko, better known as M. Dung – host of KFOG’s Sunday Night Idiot Show. Dungboy was the hottest D.J. in San Francisco at the time, and had a huge and rather eclectic record collection. Unfortunately, I lost touch with him years ago…

UPDATE: So, I just did a quick web search and think I found him! Ain’t the Internet grand? Wonder if he’ll want his record back…

Just so that you don’t think folks in California are lacking in the Christmas spirit department, I offer the following images from Thompson Avenue in Alameda.

If you’re into this sort of Christmas insanity, you’ll probably enjoy this totally whacked Christmas video – once. After that it’s just weird. (Windows only – 5 megabytes.)

This morning my neighbors and I toured a huge warehouse on the Oakland estuary. The building is something like 1000 feet long. I have never seen so much cotton in one place.

The Ninth Avenue Terminal will be almost entirely demolished to make way for a massive 3100 unit housing development. I’m probably the only person within a mile or two of the project who seems to be excited about it. Bring it on, I say!