Despite chilly temperatures and overcast skies, this year’s parade was as beautiful as ever. A celebration of music and cultures, Carnaval is one of the most joyful annual events in the bay area. It’s also one of the most colorful. Scantily costumed women are among my favorite subjects, but with smiles as infectious as the…
Author: thedude
Kaboom!
It was so cold in the city last night that we thought we might not make it to the fireworks, but once they began, we completely forgot about our frozen extremities. KFOG Kaboom might be the coolest 18 minutes of the year. You really have to see this in person to appreciate the scale of…
San Francisco Death March
Entertaining guests from out of town is exhausting. Ann and Lynne had made a detailed list of must-see Bay Area “attractions” – some of which I had been successfully avoiding for nearly 25 years. Places like Fisherman’s Wharf, The Haight, Lombard Street, the Painted Ladies, Chinatown, Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco cable cars and Alcatraz are…
Hot Fun Actions
I use a PhotoShop Action to prepare images for my blog. My “Blogerize” action scales images for the site in steps while applying a bit of smart sharpening along the way. The action also converts the images to the appropriate color depth and color space. Since I need to do these things for every image…
California Tourist Death March
We spent last weekend with a couple of long-time friends from Wisconsin. Ann and Lynne were determined to cram as much sightseeing as possible into a short visit. We were lucky enough to have friends with a home in Carmel, so we spent a couple days shopping and eating in trendy Carmel. We visited all…
Freeway Collapse
A few folks have asked about this. Unfortunately, I can not get to a position to take better shots. (I REALLY need that press credential.) You can get the whole story – and better pictures – on sfgate. I am amazed at the amount of damage one carefully placed tanker full of gasoline can cause…
Happy Horsie Day
It’s inexplicable to me, but Kelly is happiest when she’s in a place covered with horse poop.
Happy Easter!
Big Hat Day in Clovis, Easter eggs, Easter sushi – huh? Yes, this weekend’s trip to Fresno was better than most.
The Best Wine We’ve Ever Tasted
Last night was our 6th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, I made my soon-to-be-famous skirt steak for dinner with our best friends – Chris and Ben. We opened a 1994 Coppola zinfandel with dinner, which turned out to be outstanding. (Thanks, Dave and Sonja!) But the real treat was the sensational dessert wine Chris was kind…
iBliss
Last weekend we upgraded Kelly’s computer from a Mac Mini to a fabulous 24″ iMac. I knew there’d be a difference, but this new machine is absolutely fabulous. It’s easily my favorite computer of all time. Sleek, sexy, quiet and FAST. I like the machine so much that I decided to set up the Mac…
A Shameful Story
A reader who saw one of my entries about Diego Garcia suggested I take a look at an award-winning story which details the despicable treatment forced upon the 2,000 original inhabitants of Diego Garcia. The fact that there were any inhabitants other than the workers on the copra plantation came as a shock to me….
Spring is Here
While most of the rest of the country is experiencing freezing temperatures are snow, spring brought glorious blue skies and near 70 degree temperatures to the Bay Area this weekend. Splendiferous!! What’s a little earthquake now and then when you can have have weather like this on March 3rd? After Saturday brunch at Sam’s in…
Coming About
I wasn’t too excited about what I saw through the viewfinder when I snapped these images of a sculpture in downtown Tiburon, but after tweaking them just a bit in PhotoShop, I have now decided that I like them all.
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….
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…
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…
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…
A View of the Third Floor at Affymetrix, Emeryville
I’m very impressed with the results produced by the latest version of PhotoVista. I forgot to level the camera for this panorama, and the results are still nearly perfect. There are still a few steps involved to get this kind of quality. Shoot 8 RAW images using a Nikkor 14mm lens with the camera in…
Two Places at Once?
thedude proves it’s possible. I should mention that I used the latest version of PhotoVista to stitch this together. The original 17,860 pixel-wide version is the best “automatic” stitch I’ve ever produced – at least in terms of stitch accuracy. The new version’s automatic lens detection is a real time-saver. This means that for most…
All is Not for McNaught
If not for my Astronomically inclined pal Andrew, I might never have heard of Comet McNaught. Thankfully, he keeps me abreast of such things, and so tonight your intrepid photographer could be seen shivering in the 30-something degree temperatures at the top of Grizzly Peak in Berkeley attempting to photograph the brightest object in the…
Your Basic Fire Opera
Have I mentioned how much I love living in the Bay Area? Where else I could find an event quite like The Crucible’s red hot Romeo and Juliet Fire Ballet? I’ll be honest here – I am not likely to ever attend a “real” opera. This sort of music/theater springs from a level of consciousness…
Fun (But Dangerous) New Neighbors
Today we discovered that we have not one, but TWO wineries within stumbling distance of our loft. Both JC Cellars and Dashe Cellars recently opened tasting rooms less than three blocks away. What a great addition to our neighborhood. This is the kind of urban development we can support! Tasting is free, and the rich,…
My New Windows Wallpaper
If only this fortune could come true… Maybe if I display it prominently on my desktop at work my bosses will be brainwashed into giving me a promotion and a huge raise. I’ll let you know how that goes. 🙂
A Nice Site Gets Nicer
thedude was thrilled to discover tonight that the official San Francisco Carnaval web site has given their home page a tune up, and now features one of thedude’s shots from carnaval 2006. They must really like the shot because they devoted so much screen real estate to it. Not even thedude.com features a photo as…
A Small Gathering
At the last minute, we decided to host a small party this new year’s eve. The party was interesting. The power went out at 11:42 PM and stayed out for almost three hours – the longest power outage we’ve seen in the 11 years we’ve been in the loft! The party became much quieter and…
Holiday Hell Week Begins
The usual suspects in all the usual places. View the rest of the photos here.
Merry Christmas!
Oh that is SO CUTE!! –Tres 2 funny –Grant Very nice card – how long did it take you to put it together? –Dawn (About two hours.) The e-card is your funniest yet! –Todd OH MY GERSH….I just about blew ice water out of my nose!!!!!! You are a nut!!!!! LOL –Wendy One of the…
Portland
I finally made it to Portland this weekend for the very first time! I have been putting this trip off forever it seems, but forces finally converged and I made it. I attended a book launch/award ceremony at Mark Downey’s Lucid Images Gallery, and had an excellent dinner with my dear friends Ali and Neil…
Dude Radio?
First of all, let me state up front that Kelly is my best wife – ever. There is no second place. She totally rocks. This week she granted me 77 hours of bird-less bliss. (Thank you Darling. The kindness of boarding your four sometimes lovable, but often totally annoying critters has not gone unnoticed. It…
Redesign Complete
Now that IE7 will be distributed through Microsoft’s automatic updates, I feel it’s safe to incorporate PNG transparency into my site design. If you see a white box where the header should appear on this page, please upgrade to IE7 or better still, use a different browser! (Opera, perhaps?)