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July 30, 2005

We Love Our Neighbors

Really - we do.

Tres, Jim, Kelly and Jack suck down a few mai tais at Conga Lounge.

(Shot with the Canon G3 - still the best point-and-shoot digital camera that we know of.)

Posted by thedude at 8:41 PM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2005

SysAdmin Appreciation Day!

Woo-hoo! it's System Administrator Appreciation Day, and my bosses remembered with a cake from Cold Stone Creamery. How sweet!

Thanks, Don and Karl. It's great working with this group. :)

Posted by thedude at 2:33 PM | Comments (4)

A Frozen Martian Lake

Proof that not all amazing photography comes from this planet. I had to visit the web site to be convinced that this image was genuine.

Posted by thedude at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2005

Waikiki Panorama

Another gorgeous panorama by my good friend Grant. I'm posting this at a rather high resolution so that you can see just what a nice image this is. The shots were taken with a Canon 20D and stitched with PhotoVista.

Posted by thedude at 8:11 PM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2005

...So Long as They're Properly Cooked

Friends of thedude will already know that he's not terribly fond of small animals or children. Nevertheless, he found the mettle to immerse himself in a child-filled world for a couple of frightening hours - in a catholic church no less. Very scary stuff! It wasn't easy, but the pictures of Shane and Tanya's son's baptism came out nice.

Posted by thedude at 4:21 PM | Comments (2)

July 24, 2005

Flyer Gets a Facelift

Inspired by the incredibly useful Before and After magazine, I decided to re-design a flyer for a friend. The old flyer seemed rather bland to me. It didn't say enough about Chef Julie's awesome cooking skills, and it placed her image at the bottom of the page, like an afterthought.

The new flyer adds a bit of color, includes a photo of actual food prepared by Chef Julie and places her in a more prominent position on the page. I like the new flyer design quite a bit more than the old one. I'm happy to report that Julie's pleased with the results, too. :) What do you think?

Stay tuned for the latest flyer with Chef Julie's new class schedule, and, hopefully, a new brochure!

Posted by thedude at 10:31 AM | Comments (3)

July 23, 2005

More Visualizations with PhotoShop

There has been some talk lately of painting the exterior of our building. I'm very excited about the prospect - so excited that I climbed up on the construction site across the street and shot some images of the building specifically for visualization purposes.

My 12 millimeter lens was not quite wide enough to capture the entire building AND a section of the adjacent building for context, so the image you see above is actually TWO images which have been carefully combined into one. I used PhotoShop and it's distort tool to fit the pieces together. Once that was done, I addded some fluffy German clouds, and masked off five different sections of the building so that different colors can be applied.

Posted by thedude at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2005

The Blinds are Up!

After three failed attempts to get them up, we finally did it. It wasn't easy. We had to glue and screw a piece of wood to the crumbly concrete above the 12 foot window, then attach the mounting hardware to it.

Thanks very much to our friend Dave for the expert help! We could not have done it without you. (Believe me, we tried.)

Posted by thedude at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2005

Worldwide Headlines

This is cool! 417 front pages from the newspapers of 45 countries, updated daily - in glorius PDF. (requires Flash.)

Posted by thedude at 5:46 PM | Comments (2)

July 19, 2005

Virtually Amazing

Andrew's stunning Virtual Playa continues to evolve. His incredible Flight Sim scenery already includes half of this year's Burningman installations, as well as most of the major installations from past events. Burningman founders have finally taken notice and are working with Andrew on a major multimedia installation for Burningman 2005. More news soon!

Posted by thedude at 7:39 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

The Ultimate Visualization Tool

Kelly and I decided to pick a few shots from our Europe trip and have them printed for the living room wall. So, I used PhotoShop and it's amazing new Vanishing Point tool to throw together a mock-up of the wall for visualization purposes. This helped us choose the images and play with placement as well as determine the exact size they'd need to be printed.

The results are precisely what we expected. :)

Posted by thedude at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)

July 12, 2005

My Commute in 44 Seconds

I felt motivated this morning, so I mounted the camera in the back of the Jeep and captured this time-lapse video (10 meg QuickTime file) of my six mile commute to Affymetrix. I noticed on the drive home that the commute FROM work would probably be more interesting. I'll try to shoot that tomorrow. :-)

Let's see... that's 1 frame per second x 15 frames per second playback speed, so time is accelerated 15 times. My 70 miles an hour is actually 70 x 15 = 1050 miles per hour. Not bad!

Posted by thedude at 5:50 PM | Comments (5)

Meetings Got You Bored To Tears?

I'll never attend another meeting without my customized copy of Buzzword Bingo. Card number three should produce a wining combination in about ten minutes at my office.

Are you worried about your own prose? You may want to intall Bullfighter. It'll help keep the business school mumbo-jumbo to a minimum. Note that they have fairly stringent system requirements. From their web site:

REQUIREMENTS: Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP operating system, with 
Microsoft Office 2000 or 2002/XP installed on a PC, plugged into 
the wall. This version of Bullfighter does not work with MacOS,
Palm, Unix, Xenix, Linux, Spandex, Kleenex or anything else you 
were going to ask about.

If, on the other hand you feel the need to ADD useless fluff to your writing, you can always blow a little White Smoke. (Yes, this appears to be a real product.)

Posted by thedude at 11:46 AM | Comments (1)

July 11, 2005

Quiet Computer Case on Steriods

I hate to admit it, but really do want this thing. It's sooo geeky - so beautiful! I've been lusting after it half the day. What makes it so appealing - aside from its thick, throbbing manliness - is that it's a completely silent PC case. The case contains exactly zero fans and works with today's high-end processors. Seventy seven pounds of aluminum heat sink with casters rated to support four tons. Whoa - how cool is that? hehe.

Unfortunately, my current motherboard is not listed on their very short list of compatible boards. Hmmm... I could always upgrade... I wonder what the wife would say. :)

Posted by thedude at 6:46 PM | Comments (3)

July 10, 2005

I Am So Lucky!

I'm sure that I have been blessed with the best friends in the whole world. I can't think of a better way to measure success, can you? Because I can not, tonight I am a very happy man. I'm thrilled to have spent the evening with Tom and Julie - two of the best chefs in the world. Wow. What an awesome dinner. Lamb chops, salmon AND pork fillet. And, let's not forget that delicious fennel salad or the two delightful desserts! The only thing that could have made tonight a better night is if my lovely wife had been there with us. (Yes, I miss you already, Dear.)

So, welcome to my first all-food blog entry. Yes - it was that good.

By the way - see that? Over there - on the right. That's the way to cook salmon.

Posted by thedude at 12:07 AM | Comments (2)

July 9, 2005

I Like 360 Degree Panoramas, Too

Australian Peter Murphy regularly posts awesome 360 degree QTVR's on his Panoramic VR Weblog. I find these panoramas to be so immersive! The next best thing to being there. Mr. Murphy has given a lot of thought to 3D panorama techniques, and you can see this in his wonderful results.

Of course, if you like this sort of thing as much as I do, you really should check out Panoramas.dk - in my opinion the ultimate full-screen QTVR site. Gorgeous panoramas like this one, will make you glad you bought that giant LCD display. :)

Posted by thedude at 7:27 PM | Comments (0)

City Lights Panorama

You know I love panoramic photography. Here's a fine example shot my by friend Grant after San Francisco's Fourth of July celebration from Treasure Island. Thanks Grant - nice shot!

Posted by thedude at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)

July 7, 2005

Want to Print Something Really Huge?

Rasterbate it! I recommend the standalone Rasterbater, as it offers much greater functionality and speed than the web-based version. Be sure to check out the fine images in the Rasterbation Gallery. I can't wait to get started!

Posted by thedude at 6:43 PM | Comments (3)

July 6, 2005

Oakland to Napa by Air

I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with two friends on their way to Napa this morning. Mark, Chris and I took off from Oakland at 11:30 this morning and flew a lazy, twisty route to an airstrip close to Jerry's property for a midday rendezvous.

We enjoyed perfect weather, which gave me the chance to snap a few aerial shots of the Bay Area. I took some shots of our loft and the Oakland Estuary from 1400 feet. I got my best look so far at the new Bay Bridge construction. (I can see it'll be a while before it's finished.) As we flew north and west, we were all amazed at the range of colors in the ocean, rivers and inlets. Depending on the angle of the sun, the water ranged from a muddy green to a brilliant turquoise. Beautiful.

A short hour later, we arrived at Angwin Airstrip where we were met by Kelly and Ben. From there, we drove to Jerry's - who spoiled us with a delicious lunch and a cool swim in his amazing spring-fed pool.

Thanks so much, Mark for offering me a seat on your plane. Jerry - lunch was delicious. We look forward to seeing all of you again!

Posted by thedude at 10:08 PM | Comments (1)

July 5, 2005

thedude.com - Certified 57% GOOD

Posted by thedude at 5:58 PM | Comments (2)

July 4, 2005

Eat Them Up - Yum!

We missed our local fireworks display this Fourth of July, but that's OK, because we had dinner at Chris and Ben's, and just in case you don't already know this, Ben's cooking is as good as it gets. Tonight's meal featured the biggest dang shrimp I've ever seen - a fresh-water variety all the way from Thailand. (Chris and Ben had to try three different markets before they found them.) A few of these monsters on the grill along with a salad, corn-on-the-cob and numerous bottles of vino made for a most enjoyable evening. Why, I had so much fun that I actually forgot to take any pictures of the rest of the gang. Oh well, there should be plenty of those after Wednesday's flight to Napa. Stay tuned for more! :-)

Posted by thedude at 11:28 PM | Comments (2)

July 3, 2005

Sams Anchor Cafe, Tiburon

We trekked out to Tiburon this afternoon for a tasty brunch at Sam's Anchor Cafe. It was one of those perfect California days - warm sun and cool breeze. We scored a scenic table on the marina and agreed unanimously that the food was fabulous. The calamari was some of the best I've ever tasted. The beef and crab Caesar salad was mighty tasty, and the top-shelf margaritas were delicious and very strong. Whew! My head still hurts.

Posted by thedude at 8:27 PM | Comments (1)

July 2, 2005

Our First "Pyrospectacular"

We just couldn't wait until the fourth to see fireworks, so we went to the A's game tonight, primarily because there were fireworks after the game, but also to see if the A's could extend their 8 game winning streak. How exciting! Unfortunately, Oakland lost to The White Sox, but the fireworks really were, well, spectacular!

Posted by thedude at 11:15 PM | Comments (1)

Such a Waste

My server spends at least 90% of it's cycles scanning for spam and e-mail viruses. That's right. My estimate is that less than 10% of the computer's resources are spent delivering legitimate e-mail or serving up the web site you're reading now. Or this site. Or this one. Or any of these.

Everyone who runs a server on the Internet knows this sad fact, but it strikes me as an unbelievable waste of computing resources, power, money and worst of all - my precious time! I rank spammers and virus writers among the lowliest life forms to ever inhabit our planet. Fuck 'em!

Thanks for listening - I feel a tiny bit better now...

Posted by thedude at 12:31 PM | Comments (3)