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July 31, 2006
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
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!
Posted by thedude at 10:16 PM | Comments (3)
July 23, 2006
Keeping Cool in Calistoga
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!
Posted by thedude at 3:16 PM | Comments (1)
July 22, 2006
Ali
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.
Posted by thedude at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2006
Happy Birthday Sonja!
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!
Posted by thedude at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2006
Fantastic Fire Arts Festival
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.
Posted by thedude at 10:29 AM | Comments (2)
July 15, 2006
The Golden State and Blog Categories
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.
Posted by thedude at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2006
Kids Say the Darndest Things
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.
Posted by thedude at 8:18 PM | Comments (1)
July 11, 2006
DAMMIT!
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.
Posted by thedude at 9:14 AM | Comments (5)
July 10, 2006
Random Goodness
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.
Posted by thedude at 5:19 PM | Comments (0)
July 9, 2006
2006-07-09 21:56:48, Burlington, Wisconsin
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?
Posted by thedude at 8:33 PM | Comments (4)
Chilluns!
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. :)
Posted by thedude at 4:08 PM | Comments (0)
De Torchum Never Stops
Looks like I have enough images for a couple more days of abuse. Heh! I'm loving it! :)
Posted by thedude at 7:32 AM | Comments (1)
July 8, 2006
More Party Pix!
Here are a few more fab shots from the CLAM reunion in no particular order.
That last shot of your humble photographer was made by Dave Seitz. Thanks, Dave!
By the way, I saw a couple of videos at the party that I'd love to make available to all of the CLAMS. Jeff, Todd - you know what I'm talking about. Contact me, and we'll get them into a format accessible to the group.
Posted by thedude at 7:21 AM | Comments (1)
July 7, 2006
These Are a Few of My Favorite CLAMS
I am sooo glad we took the time to set up the lights in Dave's garage. My only regret is that I did not spend more time in "the studio". This is partly due to the 92 degree heat and high humidity, but also because I was just plain lazy. I wish I had shot many more of these - I absolutely love the results. Oh - and I hope you are all viewing these in Opera, full screen on a Dell 2405. :)
These "studio" shots are fun to work with. The Soft Boxes provide nice, smooth illumination. The white background makes it a cinch to get accurate color. A single click with PhotoShop's White Balance Tool and BAM - perfect color. And since my subjects were already flawless, the only work I had to do was remove dozens of insects from the white background. :)
Posted by thedude at 7:08 AM | Comments (2)
July 6, 2006
Milwaukee River Cruise
Our most excellent friend Mark recommended a Milwaukee River cruise during my visit to Wisconsin, so we boarded the Edelweiss II at precisely 5:30 on Friday night. The weather was perfect and the cheap margaritas flowed freely while we cruised up and down the scenic river. The riverfront seems to be a happenin' place these days. I saw lots of lofts I could definitely live in. Of course, I did wonder to myself what it'd be like around here in February...
Posted by thedude at 7:58 AM | Comments (3)
July 5, 2006
Hotel David
thedude's first and last stop on any trip to Wisconsin is always the fabulous Hotel David. Proprietor Steve David makes sure the cozy Corley Suite is ready for thedude whenever he's in town. In addition to offering the most comfortable bed in town, Steve pours generously from his well-stocked wine cellar - always finding the perfect match for his exquisitely prepared meals. Hotel David is relaxing and loaded with charm and good taste. Five stars.
By the way, the image on the right is a composite of four shots stitched with Panorama Tools. I posted it at 3,000 pixels wide so you can get an idea of the incredible detail the original image contains.
Posted by thedude at 8:11 AM | Comments (3)
O'Hare International Airport
One of the first things you may encounter when traveling through Chicago's O'hare International Airport is the wacky walkway under the tarmac between the terminals and baggage claim. I'm usually too busy to stop and photograph this spot, but this time I was able to spare a few seconds to shoot two quick images with my D2X on a monopod. I used Panorama Tools to create this quick-and-dirty stitch.
Posted by thedude at 8:07 AM | Comments (0)
July 4, 2006
A CLAM-tastic Reunion
This weekend's CLAM reunion was fabulous. So fabulous, in fact that I was having way too much fun to shoot the hundreds of images I'd imagined I'd shoot. I shot a mere 161 images, and our host Dave managed to get a few more. I'm sure there's enough here for a MyPublisher book, but some partygoers may not have been photographed at all - with or without clothing. (Another story.)
I'll be posting pictures from our CLAM reunion and from the rest of my trip to Wisconsin randomly over the next few days.
Thanks to Dave and Bonnie for making the whole thing happen, and for converting their garage into a makeshift photo studio. I totally enjoyed talking and reminiscing with all of you. I hope I don't have to wait another 6 years before we're all in the same place at the same time again!
Posted by thedude at 12:13 PM | Comments (1)
July 3, 2006
Reunited!
Yes, miracles DO happen, and here's proof. Kelly found her beloved Nova!!
So, you're probably wondering how this could possibly happen. What follows is the story of the incredible series of events that led to Nova's return home.
First, we printed a few flyers and stapled them to telephone poles in our neighborhood. Kelly has been aware of the Mickaboo Bird Rescue web site for years, so she posted our flyer there as well as on a Bay Area Birds site. It turns out that postings to these sites are replicated on the lost and found section on Craig's list.
This led to a phone call from a woman in nearby Alameda who said that she had found a cockatiel matching the description. Of course we rushed to her home, but unfortunately the bird she had found was not Nova. The trip was not a total waste because it generated a new lead. We learned that our Alameda friend had met a man who had seen another bird in Oakland that might fit the description. Our Alameda contact gave Kelly the name of the guy who we hoped had seen our Nova. Kelly called him, and found that he had in fact seen a bird matching Nova's description. Unfortunately, he had neither a name or a phone number of the person who might have our bird, but he did have an address. Enter Mapquest.
Kelly printed a map to the house about 2.3 miles (as the cockatiel flies) from our loft. Neither of us imagined that our little bird with trimmed wings could possibly have flown this far, but Kelly was certainly going to check into it. She drove to the house and found no one home. However, she did notice a name on an envelope in the mailbox. Enter Google.
A Google search on the rather unique name immediately produced an email address and work phone number.
Kelly fired off an e-mail and learned from her new friend that she was sure she had our bird. She was definitely more convinced of this than we were. Kelly tried not too allow herself to become too hopeful - especially when she learned that the woman's mother had been smitten by the bird and had already moved her 50 miles away. Nevertheless, exactly one week after Nova fell out the window, Kelly learned the story of how Nova was found underneath a tomato plant by a pit bull mix about a day after she left our loft. It took Kelly about one second to recognize her old friend.
We are still stunned by our incredible good luck and the kindness of a few complete strangers. Our heartfelt thanks to Jeri and her dog who helped bring our wandering bird back home. We are deeply indebted to you, and to your mother who even bought a cage for our princess during her brief stay. Thank you so very, very much!
Posted by thedude at 4:34 PM | Comments (5)
