THE AFTERMATH -- NEW HOME IN PORTLAND

Here we are in our new home. My wife said to me that any scenes of fires on TV can make her upset. Other then that she's been taking things very well considering. In my last article I did not really have the time to think much and I should say I was still more or less in shock.  I'm now using Ubuntu Linex to add this article to my site. There are so many pictures I have to show.. here are just a few success stories.. important moments, and other things I've captured since I got my new Fuji S1500 camera. Only one camera survived the fire.. a 35mm SLR with one lens on it. The story is below.


IMPORTANT
I want to thank the local ham radio community for welcoming me here in Portland.  I have been off the radio for a few weeks and may be so because of stress with bills and just dealing with all that has happened.  I'm sorry if I talked to you on the radio and did not respond later or just been off air.   We have had to do all kinds of hard stuff to setup medical and dental for myself and my wife as well as continue to process what has happened.  We need some down time.. I'll be back on the air soon!  And thank everyone who has welcomed me here. 



HEROs
First of all..our heroic neighbor should be noted most of all.   When others were taking pictures and watching.. he got right in there with me and helped pull my wife out of the fire.   I don't know what to say accept a very humble thank you.  When my wife was still in the house my plan was to pull her out as I figured in the less then 30sec we had to get out and shock of it all that was the only way for us to make sure she was safe.  She was afraid to go out the window since she knew the yard was on fire so I went first to check things out.

First on scene was the above man.. Ed Schenck. A man who truly is in our harts a hero for both being there and being one to do something (rather then just take pictures and videos or stare at it--I don't know which is worse!) as well as being there for me to help pull my wife out of the large somewhat high window.

At first I thought he was a fireman as the contrary to what the paper said.. fire was on scene as I was just climbing out the window. I thought it was one of the ambulance crew who was there standing by me asking if there was anyone else in the house. I was yelling for my wife and trying to show her where the window was since smoke was so intense. In hindsight I feel horrible because had I not been woke up from a dead sleep I'd have pushed her out the window before me and thus she would not have had such a hard time with smoke inhalation.

However.. she does not blame me and claims myself and Ed saved her life as she was not right behind me when I ripped out the screen to get out. I knew we both had to get out.. and figured she was right behind me and would follow. I became very afraid when I realized she was still on the bed coughing inside and began screaming loudly for her and putting my hands in the window to try and lead her to it. She had trouble finding footing as she was unable to see.. the smoke came in so fast it was far faster then we thought it might. By the time I opened the door we had about 30sec to get out. Had I not opened the front door we would have had more time to get out and time to even save gear. I did save of course.. after seeing my laptop and grabbing what I thought was one of my expensive camera bags with a DSLR and my HD video cam in it.. WE GOT TO GO.. NOW no more time for stuff.

The only reason I grabbed my laptop bag was because it was ready to go and right there by the window. But right next to it was both my main camera bags.. also ready to go. About 20,000 dollars in camera gear. Destroyed in seconds by fire and water damage later. What of course is most important is that I realized when we had to go and did not keep throwing things outside.. I just went and knew my wife was right behind me. Ed got there as I was grabbing her hand leading her up into the window. I was not trying to pull her out by one hand as the paper says. This all happened so fast and the paper got it other things wrong when it came to timing and how events happened. I asked ED who I thought was a fireman "will you help me pull my wife out.." had I known he was civilian I would not have asked him to do so. I was about ready to go as I had just found her hand and pull her out myself when Ed was standing right next too me. The ambulance had just pulled up so I thought that he was a fireman and in better shape then I was for doing something like this.. that's why I asked him. I have picked my wife up before.. but getting her out was the most important thing and I am still angry at myself for not being the last one out. That will never happen again.   But she views it differently as she says.. I did all I could and more by trying and had Ed not been there I would have been the one to have to do it. In a situation like this I'm sure I could have, but in hindsight.. I should have thought to check and then push her out. I was not afraid for my life and running from the fire or something. In fact.. I was scolded by the fire-fighters for running back to the window when I knew my wife was safe to attempt to grab my wallet bag (with my ID and money cards etc..) from the window. Later I would find it burned up.. the entire room having been torched. However.. incredibly and thanks very much to Ed.. a stranger to me who volunteered on the spot to help.. my wife and I are alive and well. In hindsight had my wife not survived this.. there is no way I could have lived with myself. Not a chance. I also made sure that our neighbors whose' house caught fire due to heat alone from ours had gotten out ok. Had I not seen them there.. I'd have gone over myself and started to bang on doors, break windows.. or anything I could to get there attention. Something nobody really did for us except Ed. It's hard to tell if we are home.. but they knew we were because we mostly were home all the time since I am disabled and have a hard time getting around now days. We also cannot afford a car.. so there was no way for onlookers to know if we were home or not.

 One thing is for sure.. my wife is also the hero here. She's the one who could not sleep and for some reason thought to check to see if she'd left something on. She had a feeling that saved our lives. Had that not happened.. smoke may well have killed us in our sleep as nobody seemed to think to knock on walls, break windows.. or do whatever is necessary to make sure nobody is home when a house is obviously completely on fire!  I know I would in a situation like that if it was reverenced.   In our opinion.. the Ed and the fire department were heroes in this as were the hospital staff. I will never forget what Ed did for me in helping my wife get out. A disaster like this is a true test of character.. and we saw that in many ways with many people here. Friends.. family.. neighbors. Most of it good.. some of it not so good and something I don't want to get into here. We are glad to be alive. We lost everything except my laptop and a couple of programmable transceivers (HTs). However we gained allot of faith in family, friends and humanity. I was not under any illusion that I would get any money for my lost stuff. From antiques to my camera gear.. all destroyed and as we only had the most basic insurance.. there was nothing to help us for anything.  That's right, I got no money in insurance to replace any of the lost items in our house. It took me many years to get that gear. The neighbors are planning to rebuild I hear.. and a man bought the lot from my mom (thank God) letting her be free of payments on a mortgage for a house that no longer exists.


The front page.  I finally made it into the paper.   Not the way I wanted to as a photographer.  However.. my day for that will come with the hope I have.

Good friends and good food greeted us when we were in shock over the two weeks we stayed in The Dalles while my mom and aunt Karolyn took care of very important business to move us and furnish our apartment. Thanks to Spencer and Jen Harmon.. we had a nice place to stay, food, and a ride to our most important appointments with local offices. Honestly.. they have been the best friends ever.

Spencer really knows how to barbeque chicken! Although the sight of flames and the smell of fire was not something my wife and I wanted to have.. the chicken was really good.

A moonscape.. that's all that is left. My house was gone before I had a chance to see if many items that may have survived did survive and recover things I knew did. One thing I also advice people is that if your house gets in a disaster.. be sure and be clear with everyone when the demolition is going to be. I lost allot in the fire.. but I possibly lost allot more then I had too. Judging by what I found that did survive even though our mattress in the main radio room burned up nearly completely as did most everything else in the room.. I have questions about what might have survived.. looters.. and really wish I'd have been given a chance to supervise the situation and check things out more in that room before they demolished everything. They were unable to find my firebox safe. Which was rated for med-temp fires. That's what they said. I trust the company to an extent.. since the contents of the safe were not worth anything.. I doubt that they were able to find it and I know they tried. I had dozens of computers, old radios.. backup files.. personal and legal logs.. and that safe which of all things I thought would make it. NOPE. The safest place in your home from fire is probably your fridge. That firebox most likely just melted and even if it had been recovered the contents including my grandads war dairy, my passport.. and other items would have been destroyed inside it from shear heat. .

Where our home used to be.. click on this to see a panoramic shot of the exterior site. The large tree on the left was very lucky.. had this fire been this month or later.. it would have been all dry leaves.. making for a huge roman candle which could have taken out several other homes nearby.

The room we escaped from and where some items survived the fire but were probably just bulldozed and destroyed. Things that worked once dried out amazed me.. my laptops power supply.. my VX-7 6m/2m/220/440 HT charger.. 6 USB external hard disk drives.. and one radio as well as a film camera survived. We escaped from the far right window.

This is a picture of a 6m walkie talkie (49Mhz) you can't get these anymore except if you are very lucky. It was destroyed in the fire but behind it you can see the Wouxun Professional FM Transceiver which survived both being heated and completely filled with water while the battery was still connected. I let it dry out for days not thinking it had a chance in hell. I would find incredibly.. it survived and lived up to it's name. A relatively inexpensive 2m rig.. the rubber insulation for the microphone port was actually taken off so water freely came into the radio. Despite all this.. it still works great on local repeaters and both TX RX there's nothing wrong with it after I got it cleaned up. A mil speck FT50R and a Bendix&King rig in the same area were not so lucky. Those radios made in China are not as cheap as some people think!

The 2m (TX RX 136-174Mhz) KG-689 Transceiver still showing full of water the night after I finally was granted access to the room again by the fire department. As you can see water is visible in the display.

The radio turned on after being aired out for over a week and recharged. The charger was in the "wrong bag" I grabbed. So after a normal recharge.. it's Litho batteries came right back to life and after taking apart an old SMA adapter burned in the fire.. I made a 1/4 wave ant for it's male SMA ant. The rubber duck antenna for this radio was one item I saw that was undamaged in the fire and planned to retrieve on my return trip.. but I returned to them having not only demolished but taken away everything before I got a chance to return.

Another view of the working radio. Two other radios turn on.. but there internal microphones are destroyed.. this one lived up to it's "professional" standards.

Another view of the one radio that survived the fire and water.. the Wouxun Professional FM Transceiver in full working order.

Another find.. this camera was in a small cabinet along with my main software. Some disks are corrupted some are not. I was lucky that allot of my PC software survived because it was in this cabinet and thus isolated from most of the heat as was this camera. Smoke alone got to it and covered it in a black film. The UV lens filter saved it's lens from fire damage and upon clean-up it seems this camera will work fine.. I have yet to put a roll of film and light meter battery in it.. but I think it made it. The case was too baddy damaged but protected it from some of the heat.
The Minolta 35mm SLR after cleanup. I used mostly water and rags to scrub the outside of the camera. Inside.. the seal in tact.. the shutter and curtain are in good shape.

This bag was possibly the most amazing find of all. Clearly you can see it was on fire. It was full of hard drives.. about 8 of them or so.

These hard drives SURVIVED THE FIRE! With one exception in this picture.. the 2nd on the left which did not activate when I hooked it up to USB. I think it just did not have as much protection. The WD drive was the most amazing. A Western Digital HDD survived even though it's side clearly was on fire and melted. These hard drives were also completely virtually submerged in water in this bag and were extremely wet. After letting them dry out in a barbeque.. most of them came right up on screen. I have yet to see the scope of pictures that survived.. but I know this..external hard drives are the most easy and survivable form of backup possible.. as 99% ..well over 2000 CD/DVDs were destroyed in this fire including my entire music collection and video library which was extensive on DVD and VHS.
The Western Digital survived even though it had a melted side that was clearly on fire. Nothing in that room stayed cooler then 200 degrees.. I found this less then five feet from a metal antenna tuner that had literally melted.

One box of tightly packed negatives and pictures survived and made it out simply because they were all in one place and in a spot that did not burn. If you separate them while still wet.. pictures will recover and survive. Negatives also made it.. however.. all of the negatives I personally developed were destroyed..along with many other things from my childhood that cannot be replaced. It's extremely painful. Alina lost her few only possessions and cloths..yearbook and her computer which in the intense situation she actually took the time to shut down while I was tearing out the screen to get out the window. Had we not had that airplane window that opens out like that.. I would have had to push out the air-con and keep the other window open.. my wife may not have made it out in time.
A slightly damaged Canon Rebel XTI with battery grip. There are so many things I did not even find. In theory I still have this stuff as it's at a friends house in storage but somebody might steal it. I plan to put these camera's up on ebay someday if I can get them back. Who knows.. they sell everything else on Ebay!! All my cameras 4 digital SLRs.. a bunch of nice film cameras.. antique cameras.. and all lenses and extensions were destroyed. One lens.. a 300mm macro may have made it I don't know since I have no Canon digital SLR to test it on any more. Had I not been on a sleeping pill at the time and woken up out of dead sleep.. I'd probably have had enough time to throw out the main camera bags which were right next to the laptop bag. I will spend a very long time whether I like it or not.. asking myself why I didn't have time to throw those bags out. It all came down to knowing we had to get out and I did not have time to think about stuff. It was just pure luck my laptop was visible and right there.. as was the VX-7R radio.. and I was so out of it from waking up to this nightmare on sleeping pills I grabbed the wrong bag and did not even get to my wallet bag. Smoke was coming in too fast to think about things after I opened the front door not knowing that I'd receive 2nd degree burns. A back-draft burned me instantly from the heat and oxygen getting into the house.. It was like literally being in that movie.

The burns have healed up nice now and miraculously healed quickly and well. Thanks possibly in part to the blessing my wife and I got from the LDS Church when we were at the hospital.
Our Wii System..slightly charred. After some talking my friend Spence was nice enough to get them to order a new one for us. They actually honored that contract and gave us a new Wii and by some miracle I found the Wii Sports disk that was missing from the box brand new and Goodwill in Portland for 15 bucks!

A few items survived.. my pocket watch stopped at the time it was destroyed. The glass cracked and the mechanize wreaked. Kays did not give me the replacement even though I was supposed to get it because they were supposed to give me the new one with a chain. I should have argued that point.. but they did not let me get a new one and of course I could not afford to buy one now. That was pretty rude given the circumstances and the fact that they had agreed to give me the other one in exchange because it did not come with a chain. Whatever.
The warranty only lasts as long as I payed for it on credit. The spider books survived! I've had the book on the left which incredibly was sheltered from both fire and water for the most part since 1985. That's about 25 years now. I was really lucky to get that back.

A few items shown as I learn to use my new camera. My station log and other stuff we bagged up on my first and only return to the sight before it was demolished.
The MP3 player I was listening too that night actually melted! I shutter to think what would have happened had my wife been able to sleep that night. God was giving her a sign. I had been pledged with disaster dreams for months and not knew why. Since this happened.. they have stopped. I was amazed by how hot things got. I had the headphones hooked up to this mp3 player when my wife woke me up. Its ere almost like looking at the stuff they found in a tomb. About 15 years ago.. a house fire happened next door.. and a lady died in it. So that area is not new to fires. My house was built in 1946. And sadly destroyed in 2009. It makes my stomach turn and makes me sick to think of all this.. but I want people to know our story and to learn something from it. Smokers be ware of danger. Smoking is the number one cause of house fires.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE and backup disks.. some of it works.. some of it is corrupted even though the disks are in good shape.
My Canon EOS 10D with minor damage. Things just melted.. burned..I found my wife's wedding ring melted into her laptop as she takes it off every night before going to bed.  This camera was bought used for about $400.  It's useless now.
Memory cards were about the only thing that surly did survive and they ALL did. CF and SD cards can be submerged and subjected to all sorts of stuff before they are damaged. Static electricity is there biggest danger. The transformer exploded for our housing area when my wife and I were just out of the fire. I assume that's because the breaker box melted and shorted the main lines which are not fused (before the meter).
My hand went through several phases.. 2nd degree burns mean pain and loosing skin.. but it got better fast and burn cream helped. I recovered well and was very lucky to not have inhaled this fire because it was about 5x hotter then a camp fire or normal open flame. This was superheated air and a superheated fireball that hit me. Like putting your finger through a candle.. exposure to open flames wont' hurt you usually for the short time it took this damage to happen (about 1/4 a sec.) however.. in house fires temperatures of the fire can get hot enough to melt steal and do instant damage. The door knob was not hot and we saw no fire out the kitchen window.. my first thought was the only door to the house not blocked by fire. Had we waited longer.. or not had that other window that was upgraded.. we would not have made it through this.

I just bought this camera a few months ago.. the guy said "..your spending $200 bucks on an HD 1080p video camera.. you should get the protection plan.. what if you drop it.." I was headed for a ham fest and had I done that I would have not had the money to buy some of the stuff I now don't have so I wish I had gotten the $50 protection plan!!!! I don't drop cameras but this damage was unavoidable.
The Canon EOS XTI.. I removed all the memory cards and those camera's last pictures are on them. It hurts so much to look at what we lost.. I switched operating systems to Linux Ubuntu 9.0 and leave now my windows partition to itself. Thanks to my mom I will have recovery disks for windows but since playing with Linux.. I like it allot. It's faster.. it does allot of things I thought it would not.. and it's got many advantages I can't count them all. However.. you need to know more then the average about computers before you can even try it which makes it hard and I'm not really sure how secure it really is.. all I know is what Ive read. These cameras were a total loss. As I say.. maybe some collector somewhere will want them on Ebay if I can get them back from my friends house.  We lost everything we owned in that fire, and got NO MONEY or any payback in insurance for what we lost. It was wrong and crazy.  Our neighbors got all the money and everything replaced.


A 2m radio that was left hanging on the antenna tuner that burned and a Yeasu ft50r that my friend Keith (K7RKH) gave me. It was a total loss to say the least.. and the other rig basically melted. There's not much left after a house fire and just about everything burns or melts.
The aluminum tuner this was hanging on actually melted down on each side so this radio got HOT! It was an inexpensive radio.. the most expensive losses were my cameras and Oscilloscopes as well as huge collection of electronic parts and tools.. only a few vacuum tubes were recovered. Nothing else remains and the rest I was planning to get was demolished before I had the chance. I will be upset at that for longer then I want to be.

My so called "submerge-able" GPS.  Batteries inside were probably what totaled it. Rust and heat may be the main reason why it does not work. Having a GPS for me is very important. I mark way points at bus stops, places I need to go.. and places I want to go. It is one of my most used tools especially for someone who has to get around on the bus and transit.. I need a new one..I just don't know when I will be able to afford even the cheapest model.

It's hard to believe that Spencer found a working microcomputer tape right here in this moonscape that was once my home. So much was lost.. it even hurts to think of the spiders and stuff that died because of this. The plants we had.. the life we had. This is not how I wanted to move to Portland.


Alina and I and my VX-7 surviving radio.. it's even got HF AM so I can listen to shortwave stations. I have been meaning to write an article on apartment antennas. One trick really works well.. even if you don't have a land line phone connected.. try plugging in a phone cord and wrapping it around your shortwave radio. You just might find that you have "cable" for your shortwave radio without all the fuss of making loop antennas and long wires to hide.


The YEASU VX7R. An all around amazing radio with endless features and abilities. I grabbed it simply because we could not find the phone and I figured that I may have to call this in directly. I can talk on police frequencies if there is a life and death emergency and that's exactly what I was planning on doing.. the house burred for at least an hour or two before anyone dialed 911. It was late at night.. but still.. people don't notice. When I first got out the window only then did the ambulance pull up.
My hand healing greatly.. it's now nearly totally healed but a bit sore if I put it in the sun. No more creams needed.

Leaving The Dalles.. I tried to say goodbye to everyone on the simplex freq. and local UHF repeater but it was down (443.35).. so I could not get a hold of anyone to say goodbye and left in a hurry with only what we could fit in a 4 door small car. Our microwave and TV..as well as many other items and my recovered items are still with friends and we don't know if or when we will be able to get them back. That's ok.. things happened so fast we are both still in shock to some degree. It will take time for things to heal. Thank God my wife's voice is coming back finally. I was so worried about her. I only cried once when we were in the hospital when I got scared that my wife might not make it.. she was coughing so bad it was so hard for me to hear. However.. we are doing allot better and moving on with our lives. On 9/11/2009 I have been 5 years clean and sober. Thank God we have our lives, thank God for our friends.. and the heros who helped us. God bless everyone who helped us, prayed for us.. and gave us things. A special thanks goes to the Red cross as well for there help financially and in getting refills for my meds. It's very difficult to move for me because I have to find new doctors and that takes time. A special thanks goes to my mom, step dad and aunt Karolyn for there quick action in helping us when they did not have too. Going out of there way.. and Spence and Jen for there hospitality and driving us to all our important appointments and places to go. We have many people to thank for this.. and there has been many heros in this. We wish we could have talked to thew news paper and told our story but they did what they did. It was not entirely accurate.. that's the press for you. And a big thanks goes to Ed for helping me get my wife out of course.. there are allot of heros out there, some people who don't even know they are until the time comes. Events like this are a true test of characteristic as well as many lessons.. our harts go out to other people who have lost there loved one's and possessions in fire and disasters that continue to plague the area. I only wish we had lots of money to spread around.. if we won the lotto I think we'd just give most of it away to friends, heros, and family.

I WILL continue to update this site and add pictures of spiders. I don't know when I will get my pro-rig back.. but in the mean time I will use my skills scavenging and building my own lenses/working with compact cameras to make the most of my 10mp S1500 and the 3.2mp HP733 digital camera I bought for 15bucks at Goodwill. It's got some old school features you can't find anymore on compacts and it takes good pictures. This is just the beginning of my photographic life, I don't give in, give up.. or let self pity or guilt bring me down. Both are just as useless. We got lucky to have what we do and the help we got and to survive. That is what matters the most.. time and good planning will take care of the rest. I've got more pictures and new macro pictures that will be posted when possible. Thanks be to everyone involved for any help given.

"Patients is worth more now then all the money I will ever have in my entire life.."
Gabe W Beasley --8/2009

It's the season for love!

It is the season for love! Just after we got our marriage certificate we stopped and I had to pose for a picture. Get through the article I wrote (for once I rant and rave like people do in blogs:) and see a better shot of the marriage certificate. Love is universial.



SPIDERS IN LOVE!
It is my mission to try to destroy some of the rumors and misconceptions about spiders that people have. If seeing is beliving, these spiders are literally kissing! No photoshop and no question. This is the way a great number of species reproduce. There's no violence, or gore and I dare even say joy.

Many spiders do also have a strange caring side. One species I recently read about actually
becomes the ultimate mother by committing suicide so that her young can eat her body. Now that's gross--but only one species I know of does it. Several species of male spiders commit suicide for the female every time on purpose to mate and in fact will not even start mating until they have forced there body into the females fangs! There is an estimated 35,000 species of spiders and only a small number of them practice any kind of regular cannibalism. We like to demonize what we fear for good reason. But if we are to survive in the long term we must admit our own history to ourselves before we demonize all low and disgusting actions of animals. I was absolutely shocked when I found out how cattle are treated. And how we treat ourselves.
Africa, the mid east, wars.. drugs.. rich getting richer and poor dieing of diease. People acting and not acting have caused more graphic and terrible violence then any spider species ever will or could. If spiders were to disapper completely, I give humanity only about a decade or so. That means just that, we need spiders so much that if all species where to disapper one report I read said that we would litterally be "knee deep in insects". Like the honey bee, the spider gets a less glammous but no less important posion in our world and in every one of our lives. We could not exist without them. Even with all of our technology, spiders are too much of an intergal part of the echo system for us to exist without them. Period. So we should have some respect for them, and give that poor spider in the bathtub a break by letting it run into a jar and then take it out side.


Picture break!
The local Barber shop here in The Dalles not too far from where I live. This is one of a few buisnesses that has been here for many decades. Yeah, yeah, I know I can't save the world and that's not what my website is about. So finding a picture hit some nerves here. I can go ranting and raving blogging like the rest. Maybe for the good or not. Mainly I want people to teach there children to respect all life. Spiders included. So spread the word about my website, and about respecting life. An old poem of unkown origins goes like this, "if you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive".


We treat cattle in an unbelievably horrible way. They never see the light of day--everything is artificial--even sex--and is so disgusting I can hardly eat beef let alone tell you on a G-rated website how bad it really is. The treatment of cattle and other animals is worse then any spider species could create. And when I learned about it on an educational channel, I found myself wondering how all this came to be. Who the #$#@ thinks this @#$% up! I don't think anybody in there right mind could think something this messed up as how we mass-produce beef unless they were psycoticly violent. If we are ever to leave this planet and possibly find other life forms intelligent as we know it or not, we are going to live with quite a burden. If everyone knew about how beef cattle were treated, the beef industry would go bankrupt. If everyone knew how much oil was destroying our world and how we are going to run out of it.. things would change very quickly. If everyone really KNEW. Saw it with there own eyes in person. Be able to see the behavior of those things which are truly alien to the human condition that we do anyway behind the scenes and hush hush. We are also going to need to make serious changes if we are to really live up to the qualities of being human. Like the way we treat animals. We need not judge it nor fear the actions of other species for we did not create nor did we invent it. All animals when afraid or harmed will bite and will feel pain. Anyone who disagrees must surely be moraly bankrupt. To smash a spider because its' there, because you judge by so-called human values or un-based fear is a very unfair act. We ourselves as a species have a lot of evolution to do before we are able to understand how to live with other species and live without deeply fearing them irrationally.

An example is simple of how we think: Leave it to us to capitalize on the Black widow and other species that are both dangerous to humans and have the most gruesome names and reputations. Despite her reputation as being a widow, she does not have much choice in the matter. If she lets the male free, or he simply goes free, he will die in a matter of hours. Male black widows are born without feeding organs, thus they live for one reason, to mate with the female and provide her with a meal. Yeah, sometimes being a guy can really suck in the animal world. Hell, even in humans, women tend to outlive men by about 10 years. A great many species harmlessly lock jaws in a display that resembles kissing to show submission and mate. Even if disturbed I saw them come back together in what I can only call spider passion! There's no agression, and little or no danger of a male becoming a meal in many species. Spiders and indeed most animals, can be very human. And vice versa.




And now we have come full circle with this. I'm kissing my soon to be wife after finding spiders kissing. The truth is, animals do an amazing number of things that people do. And therefor we should not think ourselves so far different then them. Yes, that is a marriage certificate, the wedding is set for April 4th 2009. I'm excited and ready. I love her very much and trust her with my heart, something I was not sure I could do again. It's incredible how far we have come in a year and I thank her and God deeply for everything she has done for me.

A Jumping Spider Catches food in mid air

Jumpercatch: 5min approx. A jumping spider captures a lacewing in mid air. Both real and slow motion times are shown. Check it out!

VIDGEOS and EDITING
I shot this video actually back in 2005. In it's RAW form it captured something rarely seen and even more rarely captured on video in any way, a jumping spider catching pray in mid air. The Video lasts about 5min. This was totally impromptu, I had no idea she would really catch something. Simply hopeful, I filmed her for about 15mins and ended up getting a shot I never expected. Especially using the gear I was, a Kodak DX7630 with a homemade close-up lens. This video was shot right out side my door on my outside light. I edited it now that I have a good video editing program (something other then Microsoft Movie Maker.. and yeah you gotta pay for it if you want it when it comes to video edit software). With that program I did some quick experiments this time, not only did I cut out most of the boring parts of the video but I did a second take on the capture which shows the spider capturing the lacewing in mid air at 1/10th real-speed. The ability to show you both real speed and "slow-mo", is one of many reasons I chose to finally get a video edit program. I usually keep the topic on photography and the topics of my pictures but here I will make a note, after going through HELL with Microsoft Movie maker in BOTH Windows XP and Windows Vista I looked on line to see if I was not the only one. I found several sites with endless comments way too graphic in language to quote here. It seems, windows movie maker comes with Windows Vista and with Windows XP but is a completely failure program. In other words, its so full of holes that I was unable to even edit the smallest of videos and spent most of my time restarting. One would thing, Bill Gates has the largest personal fortune in the world, something like 25 billion dollars. Enough to make every man woman and child in America a Millionaire without even a downgrade in lifestyle. Yet he won't even ship programs that work! And I tried to find fixes for Microsoft Movie maker, which used to work. Back about 4 years ago. Now days it's been left in Windows Vista but it simply crashes. All reports say it's completely useless. If Microsoft wont' fix the problem with there most basic software, and old Bill just keeps getting richer and richer.. it makes me wonder if he uses his own software. Or does windows movie maker work if I were to buy the full 64bit version for my dual core computer "Windows Vista Professional" or Whatever the f&$%...maybe.. I bet it works in there. Yeah. Sorry, I don't have an extra $500, or is it $1000+?? The fact that Bill Gates got away with selling something that costs 25cents to make for $250+ is bad enough, the fact that the product does not even work for the consumer or the poor and thus semi-pro user is even worse. I wonder if he reads any of the hate mail he gets on line. I really do. There was literally 100s of pages of it on Movie maker alone on one site. But he's the richest man in the world. So he does not care. He does not strike me as being a very humble or generous man. 25 Billion. That's his "personal fortune" last I heard. On paper it's a whole lot more. Considering that 1000 million is 1 billion, that's a difficult number to put into perspective. How Bill Gates can live with himself and act like he does is something I don't and won't ever understand. Imagine having the power to change the world, and not using it. It’s sad. As I said, I usually don’t comment on politics or anything like that on this site, but in this case I just had to say something. If you want a basic and stable Video edit software package around $50-100, Roxio My DVD Video Lab 10 is not a bad choice.
--G.Beasley

Dancing Talking Spider!

The star of this show is the incredible Araneus diadematus

I know what you might be thinking, I used a video edit program to match up the spider's movement to my voice. However, had I have done that.. do you really think that I would have chosen to say what I said. This is RAW footage as you can see from the overexposure. I had no time to set my video mode correctly for this one. Timed exactly and caught on video by accident while I was taking stills with a Kodak camera. I used the video function to show the spider and purely by accident realized that every time I spoke she shook her web and moved her legs! This of course was a response. Spiders do not have ears as we know them, however the slightest of vibrations on there webs or leg hairs can cause them to quickly respond and investigate as it may mean for her.. a meal. When she taps the web, she's using a kind of "sonar" in the web. Females listen for the right sequence of taps on there web made by a male of the correct species. This way they don't get eaten. Before a spider goes for a kill, she will check out as much as possible what she's going for. So in effect, she's sending a "sonar ping" through her web. These taps bounce back differently if anything is in the web. Spiders have an extra ordinary ability to remember things. This same species even shocked the scientific community when they systematically learned how to build webs in 0g orbit and a completely new web-building strategy was needed. They adapted quickly in the Space shuttle and built perfect webs after some trail and error.



She dances to nearly every word I say with her lighting reflexes. This was originally a large video that showed me capturing a spider in my aunts house. I used a new video edit program to add the text and convert it to an internet-compatible file. NO other modifications where made. Not every spider even of this species will do this so on demand. Spiders do have there own personalities there is no question. Usually you can only do this a couple of times before a spider gets wise and afraid climbing or dropping out of the web. This one however, seemed to like to dance to my voice!

An example of the "drop technique" used by many species of spiders. Often used by our hero here, A. diadematus. This is another shot of the same species of spider. This time she's playing dead after having dropped out of her web. A quick defense. It is not a good idea to handle spiders like this however. First off she will roll around in your hand in a ball like that but she may be injured if your not very careful. And last but not least, this is the time when a spider is most likely to bite in self defense. They are not considered dangerous to humans by anyone’s standards, but one should always be careful as you never know about allergies and you should also consider that the spider is a living thing which belongs safe in her web. Outside of it.. she has to build a new one. Catch one too small, and she may not have the energy to rebuild a new one.


Also called the "cross spider" and garden spider. These are among the safest spiders. Although I recomend NEVER handleing spiders, if you were to get bit by this one, the most you would get would be about 1/10th of a bee sting. They are not very agressive and play an important role in insect population control.




Since web builders have such bad eyesight, they almost completely really upon vibrations to tell what kind of pray is in there web and what's going on. If they detect something dangerous, they will not approach, or may even cut it loose. I've seen them pluck objects like dead leaves from there webs without even a test bite. They know what's going on. So in this case, the feel of her web memorized, she's confused by it's vibration when I talk. So she wonders what's going on. Both as a warning to other spiders and to investigate where the vibrations are.. she sends out her "pings" every time I talk. Unable to isolate what direction they are coming from she becomes confused and on guard. I could have kept doing this for a while, but sooner or later she would have tired of it.
--G.Beasley

SPIDERS in WINTER an unexpected find

First it got really cold here as you can see from my recent articles. Then, over a couple of days, when the snow had all finally melted, out came a few spiders as fast as the sun. This Wolf spider was one of about 5 I spotted in my front yard. Wolf spiders are well known for carrying both there eggs and there young. I was astonished to see how quickly they appered. Clearly, despite a recorded 8-20 degrees farenhight that lasted for over 2 weeks many wondering (non web building) spiders hold on and build sufficiant places to overwinter.These pics were taken just a few days ago. When a warm spell after the snow melted that had been arround for nearly a month came through. When the temp gets past about 65 degrees farenhight, the spiders and insects start comming out. No matter what time of year it is or if winter is over yet or not. I was amazed to realize that these species clearly overwinter and can survive serious temperature extremes while being burried under feet of snow for weeks or more.

This is a nearly fully grown jumping spider (Genus Salticus) about 1 cm long or so. She seems well fed and appered very fast on one particularly hot day in the sun. I captured this shot at about F32 with a directed light flash and my Cannon 10D digital SLR. Having a directed flash for lighting is a very important key to getting nice insect and spider shots.

If you don't have the money for a macro flash (most of them run about $400+) a very inexpecnive alternative can be setup. If your DSLR has all the contacts, any old extenernal flash will do. One that can be held in your hand is a real benifit. A flashgun or even a small flash ment for older cameras. If you can direct the light at the right angles, your shots will show far more detail then if shot stright on such as with a typical clip above camera flash unit. With some cameras, clever use of aliminum foil can direct light where you want it but it's not easy. It's best to buy a macro-flash unit like those used by CSI detectives. However, with a bit of electronics knowledge one can build a flashgun out of a couple of old flashes that will do as good or even better a job. My favorte is a low power flash unit that I can velcro right to my lens any way I want to direct the light. I only very recently began useing it. One of it's best features is that it only uses 1 AA rechargable battery and is very small and easy to use yet procduces plenty of light up through F40+

I won't give away all my secrets, but lighting is deffinately the key to getting good spider and insect shots or macro shots in general. Light comming from right on a subject makes for a "flat" image. And does not show detail. It's incredible how my new flash equpiment works with my Cannon 10D to produce exciteing new possibilities for this summer. I have a whole new series of insect and spider shots to shoot with directed lighting. Most of my past images were not done with very much light direction. The few that did were really awesome. Sometimes things like the top of this sync works natually to throw light on the subject. This spider survived most of the winter in my house. Others clearly can survive and thrive if the sun comes out any time of year. They also are keenly aware of it, as just a few days change from freezing cold to spring temperatures in early Janurary can bring them out for a short time.

This species I hardly ever see during the winter, but this was one of the first shots I took useing directed light. It's dated 2009 but it was actually taken in mid 2006. At that time I had no professional camera gear. I only had a Kodak DX7630. It was good on the mega pixcels, but for macro I had to build everything. Lenses, and a flash director-reflector which I used to capture this shot. Showing how clear details come up when you have the lighting right. I try to shoot from angles that will brightly show either one or two sides or completely bathe the subject in light from all directions if possible with two flash units.