OUR HOME DESTROYED BY FIRE

"We are alive and that's all that matters" is what I have been saying to everyone. Arround midnight on 8/20/2009 (if I recall right) my wife woke up to thinking she had left a burner on.   It was not.  It was what we can only call message from God (since she did not smell smoke and we would never have gotten out if she'd ignored the thought) My wife discovered that our entire back wall was on fire. We literally had less then 20sec or so to get out of the house. Thanks to the help of both the fire department and the best local neighbour ever.. we got myself and my wife out the window.   She was in the hospital for a day and a night with severe smoke inhalation.    I was also admited for minor somke inhilation that night night for 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my face and hands.  We are alive and
that's all that really matters.
However thank God I managed to grab my laptop and my VX-7 Yeasu handheld radio (6m/2m/220/440 TX), my laptop (complete with 3 hard drives, wedding photos, important pics.   As well as another bag which I thought was my main primary digital SLR camera bag but later realized that it was just a radio back with a V1000 UHF, Icom T8A and a high end scanner in it as well as battery chargers. That was good because everything, (I lator found that 6 hard drives out of about a dozen survived the fire and water dammage!) Destroyed was all those important momentos.. pictures and personal information/records.  My of my hard drives.. DVDs backup archives of pictures.. and about 20 grand in pro-camera equipment was basically vaporized.  Nothing except my big knife found under some stuff protected and my wife's wedding ring found melted into her laptop was worth recovering. And I will see no money to pay for any of it.   IF YOU DONT HAVE RENTERS INSURENCE OR PROPERTY INSURENCE GET IT NOW!  Thus I did not and wont get any money to repalce any of my gear, cameras or otherwize.

My mom and family has been fantatstic in helping us recover..from getting us a new apartment in Portland to funishing it for us for the most part.  Our family saved our lives here.  I can't tell someone what this feels like however.   To lose everything since the stuff your grandpa gave you when you were a kid.. and the pictures and negs.. my first cameras..my most important cameras..my passports and my GED.  DESTROYED.  Firesafe boxes are USELESS!  You have a much better shot at putting your vallubles in an amry surplus ammo box in the back of your fridge.  That was the safest place in the house.  It will take months if not years to have our lives back to some sense of normalcy.  The shock of looseing everything is not easy.   However if there is any hope to be found I find it and can follow the hope into the future useing the stepingstones made of minor miricles and generous acts.

THIS WAS MY MOMS HOUSE
And my mom did not do so well with this.. since her insurance (she's the owner and landlord) will not even pay the value of the house. We are terrified of legal situations but we are just very glad and blessed that everyone lived and nobody was seriously injured. I'd say my wife was the most injured one, she suffered severe smoke inhilation and still has trobble breathing as well as laryngitis. This was litterally waking up to a nightmare.

Sorry about spelling I was unable to find spellcheck on this computer.


What is even worse is that the neighbours house also caught fire due to the heat from my deck burning. No it was not the dry grass.. said the fire marshal Dan H. He was absolutely sure of that. They lost everything except there pickup as well and I have not been able to talk to them as my cellphone burned up in the fire with all my numbers. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.. there is a chance according to them that since I smoked it was my butt can.. but we can't be sure. This leaves a deep pit in my stomach and makes me sick. The feeling I would not wish on my worst enemy. There have been several other theories, but what is definitely sure is it was not my ham radio station or camera gear. The dry grass, blowing wind, heat.. and that deck all went into play that night to produce this fire. 

All naighbors on all sides of us smoked.
That about summs up the situation.  Our nighbors next door walked arround with ciggerettes in there mouths on both sides of the house..the back was an ally way. We may never fully know what happened.  Placeing blame however is not tops on my list here.  Accdience do happen and my yard was too dry.   I know I was being careful with my smokes.. but I quit that night and have not smoked since.  Whatever caused this fire..and it may actually have been the air conditioner or a spark from the naighbors right back where it started (where they smoke) is not nearly as important as the prevention I should have taken to avoid this situation or at least make it better.  However.. I refuse to live in self pitty or replaying what I did wrong and right over and over in my head.   It was an accident of some kind and I'm sure it involved smoking.  This was the 3rd ciggette related house fire this year in The Dalles.. a really small town.    And I was being careful.

We were asleep for 2 hours before we noticed and as The Dalles Chronical paper here said, we "narrowly escaped with our lives". Had someone died in this fire I'm not sure I could live with myself. I have not been able to talk to the nighbors who lost everything as well but were not injured.  And we are blessed it was not worse.   Very blessed.

Alina (my wife) and I made it out alive and you have to pause and realize, sometimes with a tear in your eye.. how important and amazing that is.  Despite all the stress.. from dealing with so much loss of personal items..the bills that can't be payed.  We survived and had help, I have a light I now can follow again to build back and get a new camera and better lenses and gear.  Even if it takes me a very long time.    Patients right now is worth more to me then all the money I ever have had or ever will have.   I've been lucky.   We had to find me doctors, my wife doctors.. get us established hear..figure out how to deal with the bills..and finally only now am I starting to get out of shock and back into thinking of things in a stable way.   That could take a while for both of us.(added/updated 10-32-2009)

The really good thing is, both the fire department and everyone else including our best friends Spencer and Jennifer Harmon have been very very helpful. The Red Cross helped us with a relief card to get some basic items. However, our money situation is devastated and we may not even be able to afford winter cloths for a while but things have a way of working out thanks to God.   Basically nothing survived the fire but there were some incredible finds.. all my pictures and the main copies of the pics on this website have been destroyed as hard drives melted and got soaked, the few CDs that seemed ok due to where they were are sometimes corrupted.   There's nothing left.   I was only able to recover the memory cards from my 4 digital SLR cameras.  Only 3 cards were recoverd.  The cameras were melted but the flash memory is fine and thus the cards not only are fine but still work great.   The memory cards I was able to recover out of my other digital cameras also survived but a couple of the doors were too melted to recover the card from.  I did not escape the fire with a single camera.  I only realized this when we got to the hospital.  

I simply did not even have the time to grab my wallet/keys/stungun beltpack bag/main and secondardy digital SLR bag even though they were right by the window ready to go!  Had I been awake when my wife alerted me to the fire and not out on sleeping meds (legal and prescribed)--I deffinately would have been able to save my cameras and wallet.   Damn that hurts.   What hurts more then anything is remembering my wife screaming.   I never want to hear that again..and I broke down crying for the first time in many years when I thought I really might lose her.   Terrible stuff.   Even though this fire may not have been my fault.. having my wife go through this nightmare is not something I would wish on anyone.   I have had a hard time dealing with that personally.   I know I must remember it was life or death situation and I had to consentraight on getting my wife out first.  By then..there was no going back.    Luckily, I was able to get my laptop but a problem caused it to crash just after the fire. So I am waiting for my dad who has been an incredible help to order CDs for me so I can recover the system. That was my fault I had to uninstall Linex to make space and I did not do it right.   UPDATE: I was able to re-instal LENEX and its GREAT! Also got the recovery disk.  Things are getting better and better very slowly.  Now as I proof-read and update these articles I should say..we were very lucky and I am humbled that God saved my wife and I as well as everyone else involved in the fire.. whatever caused it.
 

My mom has been extremely supportive and taken this very very well even though this was her house. I can't thank her enough for her help and understanding and to thank my step dad Jeff.  My aunt Kerolyn should be mentioned here as well.. witthout her help we would not have been able to move to Portland.   They have been great and worked tirelessly to try to find Alina and I a place in Washington county so that we can be closer to family and have more stuff to do. For now we are staying at our best friends apartment here in The Dalles.

The ham radio community has been very supportive as well and I want to thank them for that. There are so many people to thank. The fire department was great and did an incredible job stopping the fire from burning down any more homes despite radiant heat. My burns will heal with time and my wife is getting better every day.  We have each other and the love for eachother which has continuued to get us through this and it's aftermath.

I managed to get myself a great little camera with some of the Red Cross money and took some photos. As you can see there is not much left.. the door was here above the deck. I received these burns in literally less then 1/4th a second of contact to the superheated fire when I opened the door to go outside thinking it was safe. Dispute the fact that the doorknob was not hot enough to be alarmed.. a back draft flash-over effect hit me in the face and hands. Alina was in the hospital for one day and one night and had to return after symptoms got bad for a few hours.

My eyes could have been destroyed and I could have fried my lungs if I had inhaled quickly. I was very very lucky. I am just so glad my wife did not get any burns and was standing behind me and the dryer when the back-draft happened. The FIRE ALARMS DID NOT GO OFF until it was way DEADLY too late. Had my loving and amazing wife Alina not stayed awake worried about leaving a burner on for no real reason.. we would almost certainly both be dead. I had to open the window and rip out the screen to get out.


This was one of my main radios right next to me that fateful night in bed while I was sleeping.. Less then 8inches from my head.  The one I did Ham radio net check-ins to the emergency radio nets here in The Dalles on. Plastic burned, melted, and what was not burned was full of water. My Mp3 player was made of aluminium and melted. Many items I just can't find.. they were simply vaporized. Nothing is really worth saving unless somebody wants to buy stuff like this on Ebay. You never know.
Hard drives.. I had nearly a dozen of them full of pictures (master files) and they were all either burned or soaked with water and mud.  6 of these drives ACTUALLY SURVIVIED THIS!!!!  Incredible.  (update-10-23-2009)
Canon EOS10D pulled out of the $250 weather-resistant camera bag.
It looks old and broken.  All she needs is a bit of lens cleaner and a light coating of Armoral--back to new!  My Cannon Eos10D digital SLR. As you can see.. cameras did not survive much. I wonder how much I can get on ebay for this one now.. it's only slight superfiscial dammage:)

Other cameras.
My Nikon D40 and a $250 lens filled with watter and partially melted.
Our WII entertainment system. Incredibly, Nintendo has offered to replace it. We'll see, but thanks to phone calls made by my friend Spencer.. we might just get a new one from them. Our insurance however.. will pay for nothing when it comes to my camera gear and other stuff.  We got a new WII!  Thanks to Spencers call and the fact that we got a protection plan with it when we bought it.  I know.. it's an extra $50 or something.  IT's WORTH IT!  I used to never buy those things.. now if there's anyway to do so I will!  Most important.. CHECK OUT WHAT KIND OF INSURENCE YOU HAVE..how much..what does it cover..document what you own and keep those records at a friends house of safety deposit box.   (Photos of all your gear..jewels.etc)

Family heirlooms, pictures, school yearbooks, old radios.. and antiques all destroyed. We escaped from the window on the right with the window hanging off of it. My wife is going to be ok now.  I finally know that.. this is so important because I love her so much I can't put it into words and I can't even immagine life without her.  (Update-10-23-2009)

Another front view.. this is an unbelievable nightmare and we want to thank everyone who has helped us through this both emotionally and financially. I will be checking my email:
alinangabe@yahoo.com when ever I can.  
FAMILY AND FRIENDS:  I'm really sorry if you just found out about this. I still have not called alot of people because I lost all the phone numbers I had in my cellphone. One of my best friends Jeff Damn does not even know yet and I still have family to call.   Just about everyone knows now.. we are doing well living in Portland.   I will be getting back into ham radio here soon but we have had allot of stressful stuff happen and things we have to take care of so down-time and time to process all this is important.   That's why I've not been talking much on ham radio.  I appologize to everyone for that.. I just don't want to sound bad and sometimes don't feel like talking.  Everyone needs time to cope after something like this.   I did get the QSO card from Kristin.. K7KWT..thanks for the great chat. And the e-mail from Steve..thank you for thinking of sending us a card.  It will take me a while before I feel like getting on the radio much.  It all depends on how I feel.   Once I know the bills are in order, my hard to get meds are in order, and we are working twards our goles to rebuild and recover.. I will feel like I'm getting my life back and be more social.  Both of us have had to cope with this and we are sorry if we forgot to call people or email.   It's just a mater of time.

Life feels like stepping onto miricle after miricle and kind act after kind act both from God and from are family and friends twards the light of our dreams no matter how distant it may seem.  One light at a time.  One dream at a time.
--G.Beasley 10-23-2009

KF7DFP my callsign! I got my ticket!

MY HAM RADIO STATION

UPDATE-- 9/15/09 Saddly all the gear you see here with the exception of one HT was completely destroyed in the house fire in article above.   Fire destroys everything.  Everything burns or melts.. it amazes me what did.  The metal ant. tuner on the left melted on each side.   The HF rigs, o-scopes, and everything else were destroyed as you can see from above photos.   At present I have my VX-7R and I'm lucky for that.. very lucky..giving me 6m/2m/220/440 coverage and general coverage recive.  My ICOM T8A also survived because it was in one of two bags I grabbed.. We only had about 20sec waking up from a dead sleep to figure out what to grab.. my camera gear was right there..but I had to chose to get us out first of course and only saved my laptop and my VX-7 because I did not know if anyone had called 911 first.   MY ID was later found in my burned up wallet.   All my camera gear was ready to go.. had I not been woken up like that.. I'd have been able to throw it out the window very easy..with my wallet and important stuff all in a bag as well.   I have been disaster-preparied since going through a typhoon and earthquackes before.    Yet in a hosue fire..you have so little time waking up to it that often nothing is saved and nothing survives.  Incredibly one HT works having been found under the table shown here.   All other equpment was destroyed.   Mike, WB7QXU was very helpful in giving me time to pay back the 110 dollars I owe him for an antania that I may not be able to get back.   Virtually nothing survived, so my advice to people is PREVENTION. Check your butt cans.. keep your yard from being a fire hazard and get insurence on your vallubes.   Fire boxes and fire safes may cost money but from my experence and the advice of Dan.. our local fire chefe..they are useless.   Only very expencive high end safe's offer the kind of protection from fires like the one that claimed our home.   The safest place in that house was the fridge.. my important documents should have been in the back of the fridge in a sealed ammo box or something and they may well have been unscaved.. especially those army surplus boxes that are watertight.   Just some advice.   You don't know what you have or really appricate it until it's gone and you realize how difficult or impossible it is to replace it.    We are on a very low income and much of this gear was donated to me from friends.   I have chronic pancretitus and am on pain management therefor I've had to be on dissability since I got it five years ago.  I like to work and absolutely miss it.    However.. my painful condition flares up way too often for me to get a job.. not to mention the fact that I'm on pain meds that make it nearly impossible to get hired.   It's a difficult trap.. I appricate anyone who understands and does not view me as some kind of jerk living on wellfare.   I used to work hard and long hours every day.   When you get a dibilitating painful disease there's not much else you can turn too.   Often I'm unable to walk even a couple of blocks without sitting down and am currently working with my doctors trying to get a powerchair.   I want to thank Mike and anyone else who has shown compassion.. as well as Jeff WA7MLH for his understanding because he left allot of his stuff at my place.  

I humbly ask if anybody out there has any ham radio gear or photographic gear they would like to donate to me to please e-mail me.   I wish to thank family and friends for the donations of basics like furniture and other items.   It's amazing how much you lose in a disaster like this.    If you have any surplus gear for a new ham trying to get re-started or photographic gear and wish to help the e-mail address is olngwb@yahoo.com

--end of update post fire

After waiting almost exactly 20 years another life-long dream has been realized when I passed the test and earned my Technician class Amateur license on the 6th of May 2009. My license then came in the mail less then 2 weeks later! My first contact's name was Hue, KF7LN on one of his local repeaters. Repeaters are used by amateurs to communicate with each other and by businesses (on other frequencies) to do the same across longer distances and or with lower power radios. Finally, I am now a fully licensed ham radio operator with all VHF/UHF privileges, 10m (28.3-28.5 phone (voice) and CW (Morse code) privileges on 10, 15, 40 and 80meter bands. I have been very humbled by the local ham community here in The Dalles and how nice they have been. Because I'm on such a low budget, I've been given a number of items I could never have fit into my budget like a brand new dual band antenna for my roof from WB7QXU to most importantly a large number of radio and radio-related gear from Jeff, my long term mentor in electronics who also provided transportation to the Seaside ham fest where I passed my exam. I did study and learned the Morse code, although I only made it to about 5wpm at my best. That would have been enough to pass if it was still required. Now I have a serious interest in learning it more and getting fast enough to chat around the world with this international language on HF.




My station just before I installed the Icom 2720 dual band mobile radio that K7RKH gave me! People in the Ham community have been very supportive and even give gear to other hams. It's like having a whole bunch of instant friends you can almost certainly trust. Bad things about people like people who steal radios and such go arround really fast in radio.. so they don't last long! Unilke the highly restricted CB schene (11m). I've been on the CB and other license free bands for a long time, but they are nothing compared to ham radio and the quality of people you meet in ham radio. I could write a book about ham radio here, but it's not my intention to do anymore then show people how easy it can be to become both an asset to your community in an emergency and have a great and exiting hobby at the same time. The one thing I should stress more then anything else, is the difference between ham radio and CB or other walk talkie bands like FRS. Because you have to pass an exam about radio and electronics which takes some serious dedication the people who are just on there to here themselves talk or talk trashy almost never get on and if they do, they don't last long as ham radio operators have a strict code of polite operation. Ham radio can be a door to having friends, building awesome stuff, accomplishing goals, and using communications equipment connecting with hams all over the world as well as doing many other things on your own such as operating radio beacons for science.

FREQUENCY
HF is generally for long distance communications. From about 600kc BELOW the AM broadcast band to about 30Mhz very long distance Communications becomes possible on a regular basis at certain times in certain bands. A "band" is just a frequency map. Your AM "band" radio tunes from 0.500Mhz to about 1.7Mhz while FM tunes much wider and at a higher frequencies about 88 to 108Mhz. AM and FM just refers to the mode of transmission, not the frequency. An FM broadcast could happen in the "AM" band but it's bandwidth would be too wide and not very practical for that frequency. AM and FM modes are just two of a half dozen modes commonly used to modulate radios. CW or Morse code, is still one of the most common means of communication over long distances as it is very reliable. When Jeff WA7MLH and I wanted to find a band that Aircraft operate on several HF and VHF bands. There is an in-between band called 6m (50Mhz) which offers the best of both worlds! And then there is 2m and 2m SSB for long distance comes and 2m, (144Mhz)FM, 220 and 440Mhz for more local communications with occasional skip happening during certain times. Put simply, ham radio does take some serious study to earn the license, however.. once you get your license it can be a door to all kinds of people, places, and things that you may not otherwise be able to achieve. Becoming a ham radio operator is not like joining a chat-room on line or texting your friends on a cellphone. It's a way to make friends and learn a great deal, as well as participate in radio communications in general. Ham radio licensees participate in relief efforts and help with communities and other things during emergencies and even aid in search and rescue sometimes. It's just allot of fun to talk to someone on a radio you repaired, refurbished, or an antenna you built yourself. Or maybe if you have a big budget (unlike myself) you can get on a radio you built entirely yourself! For me, it's a way of meeting people and personal achievement. I've always been into electronics in some way, and with ham privileges I can do allot more and have far more fun. For information about amateur radio be sure to check out the ARRL website. Just Google ARRL or Amateur radio to find it. There are plenty of books, study guides, and the test questions, tests session times and places and details can be found on line.



I don't have a 2m rig that can generate PL tones other then HTs. (Handy talkies) so these two make up two main local repeaters. The Quenching and Realistic HTX-404 which is connected to my homemade 3 element yagi. The PL tone is required for most US repeaters now. Which means my old 1980 era 2m base/mobile rig shown above the HF rig (the top large radio) cannot talk into the repeaters. So I made do by getting myself an external microphone and hooking up the little 4 watt HT to a large dual band antenna. I made all my own SMA to BNC or PL-259 connectors myself being on a low budget I also had to eliminate the battery on this HT so I could run it on AC. It required an odd voltage of about 8 volts. 9 would have been too high, so I finally found that an old video camera power supply of mine worked very well and plugged it in. The Quenching now is my main repeater talking radio while the large rigs are for simplex (radio to radio) and can put out 25watts. The HF rig can put out 100W in all bands on all modes but she's getting old and I'm worried about the band selector. I go between 40 and 10m since I have not yet got a good 80m ant. setup. The wire will have to be more then 66 feet on each side! That means I need my entire yard and more for the antenna.



This is my HF antenna tuner for working DX on 10meters SSB/AM and CW on the other HF bands as well. I don't have any antenna switches yet so I have to switch cables allot, homemade dipoles makeup my HF antennas. I have one outside for 40m that is only about 5 feet off the ground. Despite it being less then 33 feet long on each end (a total of about 65 feet of wire--you do need some room for these kinds of antennas) it tunes well to 40meters with my homebrew ant. tuner. It's a simple system. I gutted this old linear amp so that just the capacitors and variable coil are there. Two PL259 connectors in the back lead in and out. It's done all with coax for maximum efficiency. A simple circuit but it took a while to put together and get right. Antenna tuners and a good SWR meter is very important to any HF station.


As is a power supply. I got this nice little number with a heat sink in the back (the device just behind the red box which is a makeshift 10min timer--hams must ID every 10 mines during conversations--) this was before I put it into a box. I had problems with RF noise and it was in danger of being damaged by something falling on its sensitive circuit boards which could cause immediate catastrophic damage. Since these things sell for about $300 new, and not much less used.. this is something to protect. A 12VDC valuable power supply that can handle 40amps. That's enough to run a couple of 200W radios. Since it's switching and smart, it has overload protection which is VERY important. I've blown too many power supplies and fuses I could not replace quickly because of a simple short which could happen at any time in your station. If your power supply does not have overload protection, fuses are an absolute must. Even still, fuse should exist on both ends of the power supply from each radio to the supply and from the supply to the wall outlet.


"On the right track" I took this just before we left for Portland and got married. I got my marriage license and then told my wife "there's no reason why I can't get my ham license finally now as well". And so I did. Studying for about 6months or so. I recommend long study to insure you pass. I watched people fail, you don't want to fail. What's the use of going to the somewhat rare tests done by volunteers if you are not ready to pass!? Study long and hard, know the question pool and you will score in the 90s+ I missed one question, and to this day I don't know which one it was. Funny thing is, I failed my driver's license exam by 1 question. I could have missed as many as 6. It may well have just been me being nervous having waited 20 years for this and marking the wrong spot as I recall remembering each question because I studied the entire pool on my computer with my wife's help.


"On the right track" I took this just before we left for Portland and got married. I got my marriage license and then told my wife "there's no reason why I can't get my ham license finally now as well". And so I did. Studying for about 6months or so. I recommend long study to insure you pass. I watched people fail, you don't want to fail. What's the use of going to the somewhat rare tests done by volunteers if you are not ready to pass!? Study long and hard, know the question pool and you will score in the 90s+ I missed one question, and to this day I don't know which one it was. Funny thing is, I failed my driver's license exam by 1 question. I could have missed as many as 6. It may well have just been me being nervous having waited 20 years for this and marking the wrong spot as I recall remembering each question because I studied the entire pool on my computer with my wife's help.


Yaesu and Icom make some of the best radio gear. Period. This $12,000+ rig is complete with a spectrum analyzer and a mapping computer system that covers every common and even not so commonly useful frequency imaginable. Airplanes are sometimes outfitted with radios made by Icom in other countries that have been modified to operate on the HF aircraft bands. If you want to listen, San Francisco tower is on USB 5550-5554.8 or so.


Yaesu and Icom make very good radios. I was so broke, I bought one radio for about $150 and I got really lucky. A used Icom T8A. There was a line of guys planning to buy it so I was lucky to pass my test quick and then hit the hamfest early. Free stuff comes later, getting there early is realy important for the best used gear. The T8A came as a tri-band 6m/2m/440 but I took it apart and modified it so that it also operates on the 222Mhz amature band, I just have to switch antanias. It was a really good deal and a great find. I could not have asked for a better time to pass my
From antania's to batteries people sell commercial and homebrew gear. Unfortunately I was so engaged by the fest and gear --just looking-- that I forgot about my camera! Something I don't do very often.


ALL THIS STUFF I can feel this way only at two kinds of places, a ham radio fest.. or a large camera store with used gear or a camera gear fest something I have not yet gonto yet but hope too! I took a few shots to get some ideas for homebew antnias. Guys make money making antanias. I have made some really good dipoles as my 11m dipole (now converted to 10m) with my ant. tuner)

In the end, this was the most important thing I took away from Seaside. My ham radio licence. I am going to frame it just as soon as I have the money to buy some new frames. As you can see, photography is never far away.. and is not far off from my mind. Just before we left for the ham fest I got some of the best spider pictures of this year with my Nikon and a homemade macro setup.

This is a crab spider, and it's a male. This one was in a great spot. I shot him with my Nikon D40 and a 200mm zoom lens with a home made dioper. I took these the day before my exam day outside just waiting. I found two of these males in different spots and got a number of shots I thought were worth posting.

I did not shoot this with a macro lighting system either. Unilke many of my direct lighted shots, this spider was shot with a high power above camera flash. I got high brightness for F30 operation by holding my finger over the flashe's light sensor.


I used the same setup here, all of the black crab spiders I've found arround here have been males, leading me to think that there is a serious color difference

Crab spider on leaf.. it's great to get them in natural shots! I got lucky this day, early morning or late afternoon is usualy a good time.

The SPIT BUG --uncovered

I was hunting for spiders with my Canon 10D SLR and my macro flash extension tube setup. I came upon a couple of really cool sights. First I saw spit bugs, lots of them... and then found one that was actually in the process of making it's spit cocoon! I did not have to wipe this guy off. I actually found it like this making for a really cool shot since I did not want to risk harming the fragile insect by scraping away it's spit cocoon.




A rare look at the world of the spittle bug. Usually totally covered, this one probubly moved or was in some stage of life change to be out in the open momenarily.


I got several angles but my movements scared it into making even more spittle.

Finally it ended up coverd up quick. I got lucky finding this shot!

"HUGE OPASOMA"
This common hunting spider spins a sack and catches insets by feel like the sack spider. This female had a huge abdomen, she was almost certainly ready to lay eggs. I caught her by hand on my wall.



And this guy put on a show! Watch the palps just below the eyes! It seemed to have seen it's reflection in my camera lens and that's probably why it was displaying to me, it did this for several minuets.


And one more shot as it moved it's palps up and down. Probably an intimidation strategy.


And he just kept going!


This is a tiny Zebra spider. A jumping spider, out in the sun shot with my Canon 10D. This spider could fit on my smallest fingernail twice.


This is why they call it the Zebra spider. You can clearly see the markings in these shots.


So no, I have not forgotten photography or spiders! Finding things to do being disabled is very important. Watching TV all day is no fun after a while. So I found in photography and in Ham radio new worlds to explore and hopes for my future.

CLOSE UP shots of the week

I waited for the right moment with my heavy but ergonomic Canon EOS 10D DSLR and lighting setup to catch this shot. I was really elated when I got it because moments like this can be hard to capture. It is pictures like this I've been dreaming of catching since I was a kid and saw them in books. Just last night I got lucky and was in the right place at the right time with my camera as this beetle decided to fly. They spread there wings and hesitate just a moment before liftoff which gave me just enough time to keep my cool and take a focused shot.

I am not sure what kind of beetle this is yet, I think it's some kind of june bug, but I could be wrong. I will be looking it up sometime soon here.


And incredibly, it spread it's wings yet again for me when I had a clear shot. This beetle was captured with a Canon EOS 10D, extension tube, and a home built macro flash system.

CLOSE UP --The Grass Spider

This is one of my favorate species of spiders. She is related to the crab spiders. Useing a small plastic petree dish, I got some serious close ups on this Tibellus oblongus. They are hard to find since they blend in so well with grass and folage. That flying beetle shot was nice, but spiders still have the most of my interest. This one made it to my outside light last night.

Here you can see the eyes which are actually quite small for a hunting spider. Her main senses can be seen in those hairs on her limbs. They are highly sensitive to vibration.

On the underside we can see her clearning one of her limbs, and clearly we can also see her female reproductive organ, the small black mark on the abdomen, the epigynum.Another shot of her cleaning her limb. Spiders often do this and keep themselves quite clean.

The full underside as best as I could with the setup I had here. It took me couple of hours of shooting to get these shots.

Here she is about 0.5mm above the ruler here but this gives you some idea of her size, she could grow to have a body 10mm long.

Hanging out here, as you can see she's in the plastic dish and just about 0.5mm above the surface here. To take these shots in doors, I used a LED flashlight to see through the SLR viewfinder well.
I tried my best to get through any glare and get the best shots I could of this spider as she was in the dish. She's nearly fully grown but they get a bit larger.

Then I let her go right where I caught her, this is the typical way they sit in wait. They are a sly and very quick species.