thedude.com

It’s not that I’m getting tired of looking at these beautiful images - no one loves them more than I do. It’s just that I’ve run out of disk space, so tonight I’m adding a 1.5 terabyte disk to my Linux server. It’ll take a few hours to migrate the data off the old 500 gig drive, so tonight all you get is this crummy panorama that didn’t turn out well enough for me to post under ordinary circumstances. But don’t despair, I’ll make up for it soon.

In the mean time, if you just have to see more images, check out my Picasa photo album. It contains some images that didn’t quite make the cut on thedude.com, and it’s Cooliris enabled. (Cooliris is a MUST-HAVE plugin.) Also, if you are using the Google Screensaver, you can subscribe to my Burma album’s RSS feed here. If you do, you will automatically see my images on your screen as I update them. How cool is that?!

It’s official! Last night over dinner with a group of friends who have all been to Burma several times, we decided that we’re really gonna do it. We’re planning a November trip to Burma! Everyone in the group is very excited - and even a bit jealous of our budding travel plans. Their enthusiasm has a lot to do with why we decided to do it. But the main reason we feel comfortable about the idea is because we have now had dinner twice with our guide-to-be on the trip - William Myatwunna. William totally charmed us with his warm smile and polite good-nature. He is also the best tour guide in all of Burma. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Conde Nast magazine recently picked William’s Good News Travels as one of of the top 128 travel specialists in the world!

Interested in traveling to Burma? I’d suggest you book with William soon. He’s about to become very busy!

The gang enjoys free beer on Friday at the Linden Street Brewery. I’d say you should check it out, but it’s already become too popular.

UPDATE: I just checked the web site, and it seems this will be the last free Friday for a while. Sorry you missed it!

There was a small fire early this morning in our building’s new restaurant. It looks like a bucket of kitchen rags smoldered for hours before creating just enough heat to cause a sprinkler head to blow in the kitchen area of our favorite eatery.

The fire and smoke caused far less damage than the deluge of water from the sprinkler head. The restaurant will be closed for a few days while they replace a water-damaged wall.

I was extremely sleepy at 5:30 this morning when I took these, which probably explains why I didn’t shoot more of them.

I saw Eloisa this afternoon, and she seemed to be in pretty good spirits. We look forward to seeing MoNO open again soon!

This photos-for-food-and-drinks deal we have with our friends at MoNO is working out very nicely for us. Yum!

The Grand Opening at our favorite new restaurant appeared to be a smashing success. Lots of delicious food, wine and a few of our favorite neighbors. Thanks, Todd and Eloisa!

BTW, I went “old school” when I shot these. Just to see what kind of results I could get, I mounted an older Nikkor 50 mm 1.4 lens and focused manually! It was a lot of fun, and when I got the focus right, the results are very pleasing. This old lens looks great at 4.0! The only bad part is that it takes two hands to do this, so I couldn’t easily carry a glass of wine while shooting.

View the rest of the images from the Grand Opening here or here.

I was asked at the very last moment to shoot a few pictures of the new restaurant for an upcoming issue of Bon Appétit. With the deadline literally hours away, I went downstairs to see what I could do. The funny thing is that I was apologizing for the photos all the while I was shooting them, fearing that I’d get lousy results in the less-than-ideal lighting.

Shots like these are simply not possible without the Nikon D3 and the its spectacular 14-24 mm lens.

Still loving the new camera. Any excuse to shoot with it is good enough for me, but especially when it involves good food and fine friends!

The new restaurant opened its doors for dinner last night. The invitation-only event, held primarily for residents of the building, neighbors and close friends, was a smashing success. I can say without reservation that the food and wine at our new restaurant is excellent. It was also a blast to hang out with some of my favorite people - my neighbors! We will definitely be having dinner at MoNo soon. Saturday night, to be precise. See you there!

Oh my. I guess I should feel guilty about yesterday’s food orgy, but I don’t. I’m too busy drooling over the pictures. Here’s a taste of the menu at MoNO.

After we finished photographing (and eating!) the food, we continued the feast at Chris and Ben’s with champagne and succulent leg of lamb.

I can’t help but say a couple things about the D3 combined with the 14-24 mm lens. Together they allow me to do things I would not even try with my D2X. With the D3, I can shoot in much lower light than previously possible. It’s surprisingly easy to get used to being able to shoot at ISO 1600 with virtually no loss of image fidelity. And the lens is incredible! Look at the images above and see if you can find any color-fringing at all. Even in the horribly overexposed regions there is none. Wow. Same goes for barrel distortion. This zoom lens is better wide open than the Nikkor 14 mm prime it replaces at any aperture. I am so happy to have this lens. Now I really want to own the other Nikkor lens in this class.

I had to work at home today so that I could be here to deal with a few building issues. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I finally had the chance to eat lunch at Mono - the highly-anticipated new restaurant in our building. I am thrilled to report that everything about lunch was excellent. The shots above show proud chef Todd Wilson and his classy interpretation of a grilled cheese sandwich. I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of my chicken sandwich before tearing into it. It was delicious.

These are among the first shots taken with my new Nikon D3 and 14-24 mm lens. Two things stand out. The first is the sharpness of this amazing lens. The second not-so-obvious thing is that these images were shot at an ISO setting of 1600. Wow! This camera will change the way I shoot.

Lucky for me, the owners of the restaurant noticed my new camera and offered me the chance to do some photography for their web site in exchange for food and wine. Hm… How long do you think I had to ponder this one?

Wonderful friends, perfect Bay Area weather, fantastic food. An awesome day.

Love to all of you from thedude and Kellster!

View the rest of the photos from our fun-drenched day here.