Step One in My Recovery

To deactivate your account: Click the account menu at the top right of any Facebook page. Select Settings. Click Security in the left column. Choose Deactivate your account then follow the steps to confirm.

Lost in Translation

Vonage voicemail to email transcription works really well. Most of the time. “Sean Sullivan calling from Kelly Hunter. I’ve been involved in the community for last pictures look really young people of cheeks, it’s Johnson. Please call David school and I’m running for Oakland city Council. Issues may well know we sent you some cereal….

Aliens Ate My Desktop

The cool thing about this shot is that my headphone cable really did find this shape on its own. I glanced down and there was this alien staring up at me. All I did was add the Stim-U-Dent mouth.

It’s a Gas

I spotted this outside of our office yesterday, and thought it’d make a “cool” shot.

Best “Thanks For Shopping” Letter Ever

Kelly received this after buying a bridle for Bandit this afternoon. Thank you from Action Rider Tack! Today your order was lovingly removed from our shelves by Julie, our Product Specialist, and placed into our velvet-lined wheelbarrow. Our 5-member equine team, headed by Royale Rouge, inspected your items to make sure they were in the…

30 Inch Monitor, 100 Year Old Photographs

One of the unfortunate aspects of owning a 30″ monitor is that, aside from thedude.com, there are very few web sites that post images at a resolution any wear near full-screen size. And, if you’re like me, you bought that 30″ monitor because you like images, right? There’s nothing quite like a super sharp image…

Bilateral Upper Lid Blepharoplasty

I know – pretty scary. But this image shows why I’m going in for surgery today. Excess fat in my eyelids pushes my eyelashes down into my field of view making everything a bit blurry. I’ve been trimming my eyelashes with a scissors for the last few years. Aside from being dangerous and difficult to…

I’m So Hooked on This Site!

My neighbor sent me a link to this page, and now I’ve spent close to 90 minutes looking at this site. Please check it out. Be prepared to spend some time. Scroll, baby, scroll. Follow the related links that appear at the bottom of each page. Go off on some wild tangent. Enjoy!

Xenophon Kids

More pictures from this inspirational event here.

A New Feature on thedude.com

Embedded streaming video! Get the Flash Player to see this movie.   I found an inexpensive MOV to FLV converter which produces pretty decent results. The files are much smaller that the source Quicktime files, and still have much of the quality – even at large sizes. This means I can now stream video like…

Gravatar – Globally Recognized Avatar

It would be very cool if all of you got your very own Gravatar. Then, when you leave a comment on thedude.com or any other site that supports Gravatars, we’ll all get to see your smiling face! Or your cat’s face or your bird’s butt or anything else that says something about who you are….

Meet My New Business Partner

When I shot this, I accidentally had the lens open to f1.4. The resulting haziness and shallow depth of focus looks pretty cool. I’m going to have to use this effect again!

No – This *Really* Sucks

Our car was stolen out of our garage today. We’re trying to convince ourselves that it doesn’t matter. It’s just a car – we’ll get another one. Of course, it’s not that easy. We really liked this car a lot. It’s been reliable and fun for 7 years, and we kept it in immaculate condition….

My Scanning Workflow

This stack represents about 2/3 of the slides that I have gone through in the last several days. In addition to this was a box containing another thousand or so loose slides. Fortunately, the majority of the slides went straight into the garbage. What remains are slides I definitely want to scan and some that…

Incredible Synchronicity!

My new friend Jeri is dating my other friend Andrew. Jeri recently took a position at Bayer, whose offices are about 10 blocks from the offices of Affymetrix in Emeryville, where I work. One day Jeri passed by one of the lunch rooms on the sprawling campus and saw this shot of her boyfriend laminated…

Last Sunset of 2007

If I had know it was going to be this colorful, I would have set up my tripod in advance. That might have prevented the motion blur in the shot on the right. Oh well – the shot isn’t perfect, and well, neither was 2007. Let’s all work to make 2008 a lot better, okay?…

Oakland Homicides – Not All Bad News

I pass this little monument every morning on the way to the office. It’s sad to watch the crosses multiply as the year rolls on. But the news is not all bad. The last time I heard it mentioned in the news, homicides In Oakland were down 1/3 from last year. Lets’ hope this trend…

Does the Pope Wear a Funny Hat?

Well, yes, but not every day. This red cappello romano is just so dang cool! Evidently, the pope’s choice of headwear is a big deal!

A Beautiful Dream

Last night I had one of the most beautiful dreams of my life. You have to have known my friend Jeff to fully appreciate it, but I felt I needed to write it down anyway and share it with those of you who did. — Kelly and I were vacationing in a beautiful place with…

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…