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February 19, 2007

Portland Again

One day we will move away from the Bay Area. Like so many others, we'll take advantage of the ridiculously overpriced property values in the Bay Area and cash in. One potential destination is Portland, Oregon.

There are lots of things to like about Portland. First of all we have several dear friends in Portland. Our friends Neil and Ali Solari really made us feel welcome. Eager to show off Portland and its surroundings, designated driver Ali cheerfully escorted us to a few of their favorite spots as well as some none of us had visited before. Our dinner Friday night at Pok Pok was very good. The excellent company and the Sing Ha made the long wait tolerable. Breakfast at Berti Lou's the next morning was fabulous, despite another long wait.

The Portland area also offers some great wine tasting, as we discovered on Saturday's winery tours. thedude loved the tasty labels on the the Argyle wines, and Kelly was fond of the Lange Chardonnay, but the high point of the day was the scenic Torii Mor winery. The overpriced wines were deliciously paired with bittersweet chocolate balls. Yum! (thedude recommends the port.)

On Sunday we visited our friends Mark and Jiji. We had another excellent breakfast (and another long wait outside) at the Cricket Cafe. The wait gave me a chance to snap a few shots of some of my favorite subjects.

Later, after a huge mug of sweet pumpkin Chai tea at Tea Chai Té and a quick tour of neighborhoods in east Portland, we decided to try to get a seat at Mark's favorite sushi restaurant, but - you guessed it - there was a long line and we didn't have the time or the patience to wait.

Instead, we ate at the first place I ever ate in Portland - Taqueria Nueve - which is my favorite Portland restaurant at the moment, and not just because of the fine margaritas. Everything I've eaten here has been very good to excellent.

By the way, while looking for links for this entry, I ran across this fun Portland food and drink review site. A guy who calls himself "Food Dude" offers in-depth reviews of loads of Portland eateries. Check it out.

Posted by thedude at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2007

Funny, Funny Site

Thanks to personal hero Mark Morford for introducing me to this hilarious site.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Posted by thedude at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

February 11, 2007

200 Second Street

One of my favorite new developments in the neighborhood is this one. What I really like is that the developer of the lofts at 200 Second Street had the stones to use colors other than the four or five "standard" exterior colors for new developments in the Bay Area. That along with some nice architectural touches make this one of our favorite new buildings in the 'hood.

P.S. The developer liked my night shots of the building so much that he's asked me to shoot all of the images for an upcoming marketing brochure. Stay tuned for more!

UPDATE: The results of today's shoot can be seen here.

Posted by thedude at 8:45 AM | Comments (0)

February 6, 2007

To The "Grape One", With Love

You know that I try to keep my blog upbeat. I rarely post anything even remotely negative. I strive to make everyone look great and happy. This is why most of you thinks that it's one big party over here. Well, let me assure you that even the most upbeat members of thedude.com staff are not immune to profound sadness.

I've been trying to find the proper tribute to our talented and hilarious friend, and I've decided to honor Greg's passing the way I know he'd want us to - over a meal with a bottle of our finest wine. Yes, that's exactly what we'll do.

So we raise a toast to you, Greg. To your talent, your smile - this is the way we'll always remember you.

With love from Jim and Kelly.

Read how others will remember Greg here.

Posted by thedude at 12:20 PM | Comments (3)

February 4, 2007

Queen Mary II Arrives in San Francisco

We had everything worked out. We'd start with margaritas and a spicy bloody Mary at Sam's in Tiburon. After a brunch of crab cakes Benedict and a fresh-shucked oyster and bacon omelet, we'd drive to the Golden Gate Bridge and park at the north end to avoid the huge crowds coming to see the big boat sail under the pretty bridge.

On the way, a terrific idea came to me. I thought I'd position myself on the Golden Gate Bridge directly above the path of the huge ship, with my camera's intervalometer set to take a shot every 10 seconds. Then I'd mount the camera to my monopod, hang the whole thing off the side of the bridge and shoot straight down. Here's the good part - I planned to stitch the resulting images together to create a perfect panorama of the Queen Mary II from directly above. Wow! Would that be cool or what? Of course, my plan turned out to be too good to be true.

First of all, once on the bridge, a rumor circulated that the bridge would be closed directly above the ship. (This was evidently true.) Second, my monopod did not extend far enough to get a clear shot straight down. Finally, my calculations never considered the huge shadow cast by the bridge. So - we moved on to Plan B.

We hiked the full length of the bridge and searched for a spot in the headlands on the west side of the bridge where I though the light would be best. We walked along the coast for a while, and eventually realized that we would not get the view I imagined until we were near Baker Beach. Since this was just too far away, we settled on the location Kelly had suggested from the very beginning - the south side of the bridge above Fort Point. I'm pretty sure this was one of the best spots because some dude with an 8x10 view camera set up his big rig directly below and in front of us - territory off-limits to normal people with smaller cameras. (I'd assume the guy was an employee of the cruise line or something.) Too bad it was a 4 mile round trip from our car to this spot. The long walk proved to be worth it though, because the weather and the view were splendid. And the ship? Well, it was really, really huge.

Anyway, the Queen Mary II - on a fully-booked 80 day around-the-world tour will be in the bay area for 24 hours, where it's well-heeled passengers are expected to spend 1.2 million bucks shopping. (The cost for this round-the-world excursion ranges from $36,000 to $180,000 per person.) I don't suppose many of them will make it to my beloved Oakland. Pity.

Posted by thedude at 9:10 PM | Comments (3)