This was another opportunity to test my new point & shoot camera. I’d say the Canon G10 is capable of producing some pretty fine images! What do you think?

Having had a chance to learn a bit about this amazing process has me very excited about our trip to Burma. My next goal is to produce the highest resolution images of Burma ever shot.

This reminds me – Lebowski Fest is being held in San Francisco this year! Maybe I can finally make it! There is a potential conflict, though, as the Fest takes place during Burningman. Hmm… Bowling and White Russians or dust storms and half-naked chicks. Tough call…

In this shot, you can see Jeff and me screaming down highway 36 at over 100 miles per hour. The speedometer is pegged. Look closely at the rear-view mirror, and you’ll see that our shirts are wide open, and we’re not wearing helmets. I’ll bet we’re both in shorts, too. I remember how difficult it was to keep the camera from blowing out of my hands when I leaned over to take this shot. Crazy? Yes.

My point is that I/we take risks every day. Just riding a bicycle or walking across the street in Oakland could be fatal. If I was really concerned about my health and safety, I might try harder to lose the twenty fifty extra pounds I’m carrying around, or drink less than a bottle of wine per day. So, I’ll continue to drive my little car with a huge smile on my face not worrying too much about safety – especially after the encouraging crash test results!

As one of the 30,000 people who put $99 down on a Smart Car in advance of their U.S. debut, I never thought I’d actually buy one. But then it showed up at the dealership, configured exactly as I had ordered it on line, I figured, what the heck, I’ll go check it out. Well, it just took one look and I was hooked. Not only is it hilariously cute, but it’s a blast to drive – especially with the top down! The car is still rare enough to cause a sensation everywhere it goes. I spend almost as much time describing the car to strangers as I do driving it. What fun!

Thanks, Kelly and Bailey, for modeling so obligingly. Now, can I have my keys back – please? :)

Jott uses an amazingly accurate voice-to-text processor to convert up to a 30 second voice message into a neatly-formatted e-mail. Now, I can easily send an e-mail to one or many people directly from my Crackberry without typing on its teensy keyboard. And of course, Jott is free! There are even tools to allow bloggers to publish entries from a phone. Hmm… Interesting!

Our friends Grant and Sandy are lucky enough to have one of the world’s greatest musicians in their family. Grant’s cousin Jon has a new CD out, and Grant was kind enough to have one signed and then hand-delivered the disk to us before a fantastic dinner at Downtown Restaurant in Berkeley. I’m listening to the disk now, and it’s great. Thanks, guys!

On a totally unrelated topic, I never thought it made sense to buy a photo printer, given that it takes just a few mouse-clicks and very little money to order real photographic prints on line. Well, all that changed this weekend, when I attached an Epson Stylus 1400 Photo Printer to Kelly’s iMac. This printer produces some of the best-looking prints I have ever seen. the six-color inks deliver a wider gamut than is possible using photographic paper, and 5760×1440 ink droplets per inch means sharper images as well. The very first print I made on Epson Ultra-Premium Luster Paper was perfect! The images this printer produces more closely resemble what I see on the LCD display than I imagined possible. The printer is super quiet, and fast enough. It spits out a gorgeous full bleed 8 x 10 in about two minutes. Epson offers a $75 mail-in rebate through September 8th. Highly recommended!

If you’d like to see more of my pictures from the Fire Arts Festival, just click here!

More pictures coming soon.