Last weekend camping in the Lakes Basin Region in the North Sierras I cam across this fungi that was sweating a watery liquid (no, I did not sample it …) and found a camouflaged insect with giant antenna hunting beside it. All happening silently beside a superb, deserted lake.

[Click thru if you don't see the [...]

About 5 years ago I decided to stop watching local news because of the paucity of news that is actually covered. Lately I’ve been skipping local print news outlets as well. So though I knew about the rampant numbers of wildfires in California, I knew very little. I’ll sheepishly admit I did not even realize [...]

I just learned today. I’m usually pretty keen into places and their history, but in a conversation with Robert Scoble today I realized I didn’t know. He did.
Here’s a picture from Mountain View to give you a guess

First correct answer gets a Dogster or Catster shirt of your choice!

I took and edited this footage of The Raconteurs complete performance of the Bob Dylan Hurricane-esque song Carolina Drama that’s on their new album, Consolers of the Lonely.
Carolina Drama, Raconteurs, May 4th, 2008. JazzFest, New Orleans, LA

Half the pleasure of the song is figuring out the words, and thus figuring out the drama. But [...]

At the New Orleans JazzFest this year just one of the many standout acts we happened to catch (vs. all those we didn’t) was an adorable 17 year old firecracker of a violin player named Amanda Shaw. I took some video of her and her band, The Cute Guys, simply ripping up the Fais Do [...]

When you were a kid did you ever see one of these illustrated maps of the United States … and want to walk into it. I daydreamed I could. The giggling marlins and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico seemed as exotic as aliens yet as welcoming as old friend. I had never been south [...]

Tonight Nicole Lee posted a photo that got right under my cerebellum. I can only display images at 480px in my blog, so view the larger sizes (1024×683, 3784×2524) to get the original infection.
Here is the original (condensed to 480px)

Here are a series of 480px crops I took from the original.

How can we know this picture wasn’t captured off-planet?
Phillip Torrone and friend

The following is from my my travel blog, June 29, 1999, after spending a month traveling in Myanmar.
My saddest news to report is that for all the hype Aung Sun Soo Kyi gets, and all the flack that is reported about the government, I didn’t get the feeling that anyone could dare topple the current [...]

Went to my 10th Burning Man in 12 years last week.
Here’s a glimpse of what I saw. Full set here.

All photos from my camera, hosted by flickr.