How dangerous is that spider?

 

As these images should show you, not very.   I spent the better part of 15min handling this spider to prove to people just how safe most spiders are.  I want people to know that the very common garden spider.. Araneus diadematus also called the "cross spider", is quite harmless.   Although any spider can be dangerous if you by chance have a rare allergic reaction.  Like taking medication.  Spiders should never be handled mainly because it is so dangerous for the spider.  It is very easy to expend all there energy or silk and kill the spider without knowing it.  So PLEASE DONT TRY THIS!  I just want people to know how safe they are.   So I took these shots in the hope that people will respect them and not spray or kill them when they see these webs in there yard.  

This shot was taken with my Fuji S1500 digital camera (10mp) and edited with digikam for Linux.

 

She did not want to bite me despite all the stuff I did to her.  Indeed she did not bite even once nor did I feel she came close to biting me despite wanting to get away really bad!  I had to capture her and then had her walking on me for at least 15 min.   That is allot of stress.. yet no bite reaction at all.  She clearly knew when she was on me and in contact with me yet she never bit.   That is how non temperamental they are.   I chose a healthy female for this test and returned her safely to where I found her.

 

This is the same species but of a slightly different race and thus color.   What people should know is simple.. this spider is harmless and in fact very beneficial in controlling dangerous insects.  I have been bit by this species back when I was a kid and a bit more careless.   I did not even get a welt.. just slight numbness and about 1/8th of a beesting in pain or so.

 

I don't usually handle spiders because they are traumatized when you handle them and can be very easily harmed.   Please do not try this at home with any spider.   Even handling pet tarantulas can be dangerous to the spider.   This can be of course very dangerous if done with the wrong spider and you never know what kind of allergic reactions you may have.. even though this spider is highly unlikely to bite.. please leave them in there natural environment.  I can't stress that enough.   I only did this to get a few shots showing how confident I am about how safe they are.   

 

After these shots were done, she was fine and so was I.    I found her at a good time when her web was already destroyed and thus she was ready to rebuild a web.   Handling a spider can prove FATAL to the spider so please don't do this!  If they use too much silk or get too stressed.. they will be unable to build a new web and die no matter where they are released.   Also NEVER attempt to feed a spider sugar water or anything else.  Pesticides are in nearly everything human.   The only way to feed spiders this way takes a small lab and special sources.   Also.. keeping spiders in such things as coffee cans or even some jars can lead to death due to pesticide residue.   There is so much pesticides inside coffee cans that you can't rinse one out enough to make it safe for a spider.   I learned this the hard way when I was a kid.   And we wonder why so many people are getting cancer these days!

  

And of course I continue to do what I can with my compact camera and my 35mm SLR.   These shots were taken with my compact digital slr and edited with Digikam for Linux.

Really?? This building has not even been built yet!?$# Right??

I have been working on sunset images on the tracks near where we live.  This is one of my favourite shots.  I hope it's not too dark on your monitor.  Some of my pictures appear too dark on some monitors due to gamma differences.  I'm working on viewing my website from other computers to insure this problem does not continue.   I may re-post old pics that seem to dark on other people's monitors in the future.

My wife and I wish to thank everyone who has prayed for us and helped us since the fire in 8/09.   I also wish to thank the local ham radio operators who have welcomed me to Portland.   Despite the steady stream of stressfully insane bills it will take most of ours lives to pay off.. we are doing ok and getting over the disaster one day at a time.  My mom, dad and family have been very helpful and a very special thanks goes out to them as well for everything.  Godbless.
--Gabe and Alina Beasley

FUN WITH FILM--THE NIKON FE 35mm SLR

When I first got into photography digital was hardly a thought.   Now, film is being very quickly replaced in nearly all aspects of photography.   However..film has qualities that you can't really get very easy with digital.  The look and feel.. the expectation and not knowing if your shot turns out until it's processed still has me hooked on film.

 

I got the Nikon FE film SLR kit from a friend of my mom's who had taken very good care of it.   Complete with the case, it's a 1980s high quality professional SLR.  I even got a flash, a 50mm lens and a 40-205mm Macro lens which I used here to capture a funny moment with my wife.  No flash was needed here I shot this with ISO200 film indoors.

 

I used to love to process my own film and plan to do it again.   I just need the gear and the chemicals which here in Portland should not be too hard to find.  This shot shows the effect film has.   It was taken with a very low aperture setting thus giving it real depth.    It's been a while since I've used a film SLR and so these shots were the first few I've ever taken with this camera.  I bought a 3volt battery for it and the Nikon FE was ready to go.   It's got an auto-shutter speed that's very acurate, mulch-exposure..and many other cool features.  However..shooting film these days this way is not very practice since it costs allot of money to process.   However.. now that I have an SLR again..there's some stuff I can do with film and I can also most likely use the Nikon lenses that came with it if I eventually buy a Nikon digital SLR again.

 

 This shot was taken with a flash and although its a bit over exposed it shows the best way to capture a portrait.   Make sure you have a flash that can angle upwards brightly or to the side so that you don't hit the subject directly.  I angled my flash nearly up to the sealing for this shot.  I left the camera on auto shutter which would be 90 and put the TTL flash in the correct mode for my 200 iso film.  Aperture adjustment is critical when using film with a flash because it's the only thing keeping your film from being overexposed.

 

 This is a nightshot long exposure.  I held it down for about 1/2half of a sec. or so..just enough time for a car to go by.  Of course the car is not visable because it was not in the picture long enough thus you only see the headlights and reflective surfaces.

 

Like the shot above this shot was taken on a tripod with a shutter release cable.  This is criticle when doing night exposures to avoid camerashake.  The exact same vantagepoint here only this time you see the local light rail (The Max) train going by.   It's lights and reflections made for more and more of an exposure.

 

Another nightshot of a local back yard.   This was a shot I just thought I would try on my own, holding the shutter open in B-mode.   Useing a shutter release cable with the camera on a tripod..it was probubly about 20-30sec exposure with iso200 film.

 

 The stars can be seen in this night exposure as well as some blur caused by the wind while the shutter was open.  I left the shutter open for this shot for nearly 60sec.

 

Another shot showing depth.. focus on what you want to see the depth in.  For example.. set your lens for f4 or it's lowest setting and then focus on the tracks.  Thus the objects in the foregroud will be in focus and the background will be slightly blurred giving a depth.   This time I focused about half way..giving a comprehencive view.

 

Shooting spiders is not easy and even harder with 35mm film.  Espeically with the limitied two lenses I have here and the fact that I have not used a film camera in a long time!   But I did ok and managed to get quite a few good shots.   This was when the spider was climbing out to catch a small fly that landed in it's web.

 

When shooting macro shots with a 35mm film camera I've found that it can be very important to use a digital camera to see what your pictures exposure will be like if you have one.   Set everything up exactly as the film camera will be, ISO, white balance to sunlight..shutter and aperture.  Digital cameras are built to emulate film cameras so they can give you a good approximation.   Most film SLRs have a sensor for light measurement built towards the center of the image.  But you will get an overexposed picture unless you set your shutter for a bright image.   So if shooting in direct sunlight, setup your shot (aperture and shutter for correct lighting) on something well lit with the same sunlight.  As a small spider or other reflection will not give correct readings with most film SLRs.  You can compensate with EV+/- or by setting up a shot where most everything in the image is as illuminated as your intended subject.   Otherwise you might get an overexposed spider as in this shot.

This was one of the shots I just had to trust on. I used the flash and set the camera to both take advantage of that and natural light.   Setting up macro shots from a distance with a flash can be difficult but even older equipment often has charts on it to work out distance settings for the flash.  You can sometimes compensate by covering the flashes sensor or setting it to manual and adding more light as well as upping the Fstop to F16 or higher to compensate for the bright flash.  It will take some practice.  It's a good idea to mark your shots. Each picture what your settings were in a small log so you can go back and find out what you did wrong later.   I use a digital recorder for this purpose which stores files one by one.. so I can go to each picture and recall what my settings were so if it did not turn out I can figure out why.   This was the first time I've ever used a Nikon FE and the first time I've used a film SLR in almost 2 years.  It came back to me quickly.   The FE is an automatic camera except for the film advance and aperture controls if you want it to be.   It also has a wide range of creative settings including multiple exposure ability and the link for a moterdrive.  When I was a kid and dreamed of taking pictures of spiders for the first time, this was a very expensive high-end camera.

This one turned out best although I wish I had better film to work with.   I also am limited to Wallgreens scanner which makes 1mb JPEG files out of my negitives.   That's not bad.. but not as good as it would be if scanned with a pro-scanner.

Webs are easy to capture in bright sunlight but often spiders wont' want to show themselves.  They can be coaxed out of there hiding spots but that does not always work.   This is a case where I should focus on a group of leaves nearby thats fully lit to find out what settings I should use for my camera and then use them on this area with the spider because the background is so dark.    The spider can very easy be overexposed if you don't compensate.   Make use of natural light when ever possible because it's the best light.    Focus will be very fine so be sure you set your f-stop to give you enough depth of field for the shot.  This is a small spider and the web was in a good place.     Shooting with film can be exiting and interesting as effects happen with it that often don't with digital.  I also like the anticipation of not knowing how good the shot is and then getting better and better at knowing if it will turn out or not.   Once again.. a good measure is to "clone" a digital SLR or camera to your film camera's settings and see how well it's doing.   Keeping logs of how well you did and what your settings were when you took your shots can be very helpful in the future.  It's all about practice.   You can use programs like Photoshop and Picasa to adjust some degree of color temperature in 35mm.  It may not be as good as a RAW file, but it is worth trying if your pictures are off color.

I want to express my deepest thankyou to Mike and Julle Mudd for donating this camera to me after all my SLRs were destroyed in our house fire.   It will take me years probably, but eventually I plan to buy a Nikon digital SLR now so that I can use the lenses I already have.   Even Nikon's older manual lenses can be used on new digital SLRs.  You just have to focus them manually and also remember to set the f-stop manually.   Hopefully by the time I can afford a new digital SLR that will still be possible because there are alot of good lenses out there!

You can't keep a good photographer down

The first thing I had to do after the fire was get my medical stuff in order which still remains to be done.   The first thing I wanted to do came next.. after moving to Portland right after a doctors apointment my wife and I went for a walk to a park I spent many of my teen years in.   It was a trip back in time to good memories as well as proof to me how much better life will be now that we have a public transit system and so many places I can go to take pictures.   Saddly, the first documentery I made on video when I was 15 did not survive the fire..however (I tell people now to DIGITIZE EVERYTHING).. I was able to walk back through memory lane and find many of the old places I have captured some of my best spiders and spider shots.   Right next to a max staition there is still a forested area and hopefully wont' get developed any time soon since it's the only place I've ever found the triangle spider.   That will have to come later..since I did not get a chance to go there yet..but it is only a light rail trip away and that means I can nearly go anytime I want.

 

Araneus diadematus (The Garden spider, Cross Spider)

Probubly the most commonly noticed spider in this area.  Development has pushed most compeditive species such as Argeope away.   However I hope to find some in isolated pockets.. I know a few places.  For now however..I was astonished at the number of large and harmless garden spiders that were out here.   About 2 or 3 per 10 square feet is my guess in the park.   They are all large this time of year as they only live one season.   This female may well be ready to lay eggs and was photographed right on the same sidewalk I used to walk to high school every day on.   

 

 Another one.. and this is not white ballence.  There are actually varriations in color just like you get with human beings.   Spiders have races and genetically pass there traits on.   In large populations like this it is easy to spot some that are slightly different colored then others and have some other different charicteristics.  This is no different then races of people.  A note on racisum here. Race is nothing but a tiny genetic difference.  I have no tollerence for racist people and don't understand racisum at all.   I strive to be colorblind when it comes to humans.   When it comes to spiders however I am interested in how these variations spread and what causes them.

 

As you can see I have near full control of my shutter and apterature with the Fuji S1500.   I am restricted in that I can't use high aperature numbers.. however getting arround that is not very hard.   If I had my pro-cams I'd be able to take this shot showing both the background and forgound in near perfect focus.  Most compact cameras are limited to F8.  Why I don't know.

Merlo Station High school.  I went there for the 9th grade when the school first opened.  I was among the very first students.  It's a converted Techtronics bulding.  I had a good time there.. allthough I can't say I enjoyed school.  I did not have a very easy time being a teen.   After being moved from one school to the next and one naighborhood to the next every year of my life it became hard for me to learn how to blend in and make friends.  I went to the Science and Technology program wich was the frist of it's kind allowing us access to computers (before the internet was what we know it to be now) to do most of our work on.   It's a good school and for the most part I liked most of my teachers even if I sometimes did not let them know that.  Being a teen is not easy.

 From there my wife and I walked down into the park access way through Beaverton school headcorters.   The park is really awesome and offers allot of really cool shots.   This was a nice day and I was able to walk through it dispite the pain I am in just because I am so glad I can finally be in the park again.  It is such an incredible feeling not to be stuck in The Dalles like we were.  That really was difficult.   Honestly.. even though I lost everything in the fire..we would have had to move somehow and I don't see how with our income.  Don't get me wrong, I would do nearly anything to go back and stop that fire.. but moving to Portland has been a Godsent for us.

 

My wife enjoyed seeing some of the park and stuff allthough she was more into her book most of the time.  She was determened to finish a book in two days.  I'm not sure if she shares my love for nature and the outdoors.. but she puts up with me taking hours to setup shots and stuff so that's just fine for me.

 

Besides spiders.. I could not help but notice the fungus and mushrooms growing in the park.  It was amazing.  This is a shot striaght up a large tree that had come down probubly in a storm.  You can see silk on the left hand side of the picture where a large wood louse spider has made it's home.

 Fungus does not last long.. but when you catch it you can get quite the picture. The right lighting and the right control of your camera and you can get a good shot with nearly any camera that has manual functions.

 More of the mushrooms and fungus..  I dont' know what type this is but most kinds are dangerous and should not be touched.  Also.. you should never destroy these things because for us photographers they make for great subjects!  Not to mention many spores are very harmful and stomping on mushrooms for whatever reason can be dangerous.  Some forms if inhaled are even deadly.

 

 Another shot from a different angle.. click on any of these pictures for a larger view and use your browesers back arrow to get back to my site.

 

 More of this kind of fungs/mushroom.  It was nearly as large as a dinner plate in some places.

 Mushrooms come and go very quickly.  They make for interesting shots.

 

 

Cyclosa conica or Cyclosa sp.

 I was watching this show on TV called "Hoarders" about people who keep there garbdige and junk until there houses are filled.   Well.. this is your spider equivilent.   This species of spider however does it to survive.  Keeping junk it finds in it's web, garbidge insect parts from kills, and even it's own skin sheddings which are often mystaken for dead spiders in a row with a zigzag pattern.   This spider is also harmless and very small so often not noticed.

 

A low light shot I tried to enhance.   If I recall male and female Cyclosa have totally differnt abdominal colorations.  This is called sexual dimorphiszum.

This was a shot of opertunity.. this spider no bigger then a letter in a news paper article was hanging and I just happened to get it into focus in the right light as it hung down from it's web after I startled it.   Spiders have different escape proceedures depending on where they live.

 

 

 A classic Cyclosa and spider situation.  That is actually the former skin of the garbidge collecting Cyclosa.  The reason why they keep such things in there webs is to confuse preditors.  The zigzag patterns lined with remains of old kills and other items make it difficult to tell where the actual spider is.

 

 This was a difficult shot to get but I happened to get it.. this one is pale..possibly because it's a jovenile.  I'm not sure.

Another shot of a femaile A. diadematus, this one most certainly full and ready to lay eggs soon.  This is spider season and the population is very large.   They were everywhere!

 

Yet another sunlit shot of the same species.. this female has yet to eat enough or has yet to mate so that she can lay eggs.

 

And here we have a money spider.. or dome spider.  Family, Linyphiinae.  I have a picture which was on my wall of this species mateing.  A rare shot.  Now that I live so close to so many habitats and they are in range of the public transit system..who knows what I will find in comming months and next summer.  Some spiders do live through the winter here.   We are doing better and dispite limited equpment my photography will continuue.

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