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Our best friends Chris and Ben have a very cool cabin just a few yards outside the Grand Teton National Park. This shot was taken from the deck shortly after sunrise on Friday morning. We stared at this view for three days and barely noticed the structures in the foreground - our eyes were fixed on the mountains. The photo simply can not do justice to the scale of this place.

The cabin actually consists of three structures. One has a kitchen, outfitted with totally chic turquoise appliances, and a small bedroom. The center structure is a beautiful large bedroom and bathroom, and the third is the spot where Chris’ dad, Nathaniel Burt spent summers writing. Chris describes the cabin as “rustic”, but we found it “fabulous”.

I have much more to share from our trip to Wyoming, but it’s getting late. Come back soon for more!

OK, I’m beginning to think that we might be a tiny bit spoiled…

Yesterday we attended an amazing birthday party for our friend Leslie. We were a bit hesitant to venture out into the 110 degree heat we knew we’d encounter in Calistoga, but we’re glad we went. Leslie is a family friend of the owners of the spectacular Diamond Creek Vineyards - producers of some of California’s finest (and most expensive) Cabernet Sauvignon. The postcard-perfect property has a lake, Koi ponds, a beautiful swimming pool, even a waterfall - all set in the middle of 80 acres of Cabernet grapes, and our small group had free reign over all of it. Wow!

Happy birthday, Leslie! Thanks for the invitation to your very hot party!

For the last three years I have had the rare pleasure of working with a person for whom I have a great deal of love and respect. Ali has been an absolute joy to work with. She is brilliant, beautiful and hilarious. I have never known anyone quite like her. Knowing that I’d see her at work is a big part of what motivated me to drag myself into the office every day. She brought something so very special to my workplace and as our friendship has grown, to our lives outside the office as well.

It won’t be the same without her.

Good luck, Ali and Neil as you begin an exciting new chapter in your lives. But don’t get too comfortable up there in Portland - your old friends Jim and Kelly will be knocking on your door before you know it. We’ll bring the cosmo’s.

More pictures of Ali’s farewell party here.

What a perfect evening.

We celebrated Our dear friend Sonja’s birthday at Mountain Winery with Chris Isaak, who, just like Sonja, seems to get better with age. Chris treated his devoted and mostly female fans to awesome impressions of Elvis, Roy Orbison - even Robin Zander. Chris Isaak is a thoroughly professional entertainer who can cast a spell over an audience with his unbelieveble vocal range. If you have not already done so, thedude recommends you catch one of his live performances as soon as possible!

Wherein Utilikilt-clad white male fire-worshippers from around the Bay Area converge on the Crucible in Oakland for their 6th annual Fire Arts Festival and play in public with very dangerous but mesmerizing big boy toys. Whoa.

The things we saw there definitely fall into the “Don’t try this at home” category. This ain’t your Mother’s county fair. At least I don’t remember seeing the Department of Spontaneous Combustion at the Wisconsin County Fair. Doubt I could have missed the eyebrow-singeing 60 foot fireballs. And that over there? Well that’s just a jet engine spewing noise and flame high into the night sky. It’s right next to the steam engine with the whistle loud enough to be heard for miles. Hey Kelly, look at this! Click this mouse and send huge computer choreographed balls of fire skyward. What fun! The only thing that could make this better is an ice cold beer. Oh - they sell beer? Wow, this is a perfect event.

It really is difficult to describe an event like this, and equally difficult to photograph.

More than once I heard myself asking, “How do they get away with this?” I guess we owe the enlightened city of Oakland a huge thanks for allowing this one-of-a-kind and truly spectacular event to take place within city limits.

I’ve noticed lately that some of the pages on this site are becoming rather unwieldy. Some of my Category pages are enormous. My Photography link, for example, launches a page almost 8 megabytes in size! This is a problem, even on my 6 megabit-per-second connection.

Since there’s no practical way for me to reduce the size of my page thumbnails, (I like ‘em BIG anyway) I’m going to have to reorganize my Category links by date or by creating subcategories. Hmm. This could be a time-consuming process, but I won’t know until I get started. Maybe tomorrow.

While driving home from dinner tonight at Luka’s Tap Room, I discovered that there’s a punk club one block from our loft. So, naturally, I grabbed my camera and went after some images.

Tonight’s alcohol-free event looks like so much fun I might have to go back after dark to shoot the dingy club in all its goth glory, because despite the tone of the meticulously screened poster, these charming and very polite kids just don’t seem threatening enough by the light of day.

The frustrating thing about this is that I have no recollection of having done it. My guess is that I stopped at the red light, checked both directions, and then proceeded through the intersection - possibly thinking that I was turning from a one-way street on to a one-way street - a perfectly legal maneuver.

Most red-light runners in California do so flagrantly, and at high speeds. I do not run red lights! This little mistake is going to cost me a minimum of $271.

Dammit.

A few of the other fun things that happened on this Wisconsin trip:

Jimmy D. showed off his very impressive THREE monitor setup. Three 21″ LCD’s oriented vertically. Wow. Elvis Origami - layers of crispy won tons, bananas, peanut butter, honey, chocolate syrup - Kelly’s favorite dessert at B.J. Wentker’s in Burlington. Huns and Dr. Beeker and Lexy at Lonnie’s. Kerry and husband Matt at their charming home on River Road. Five party girls celebrating birthdays on a Milwaukee River cruise. All good.

Thanks Dave, for a breathtaking look at Wisconsin weather this beautiful evening in Oakland. Awesome.

I have never seen lightening quite like this. It appears to come from (go to?) a patch of clear blue sky. Dave, please tell us more about this very cool shot! Looks like 10 seconds at f4.0, so you used a tripod, and probably tried many times. Anything else to share?

A renowned family man, thedude is proud to share with you a few pictures of some of the younger people in his life. Nephews, daughters, sons and daughters of friends. See if you can tell which is which. C’mon, this is too easy!

Oh, by the way, Kerry is due this week. :)

Looks like I have enough images for a couple more days of abuse. Heh! I’m loving it!