In high school, I learned how to make photographs, not just snap pictures. We shot exclusively in Ilford FP4 and HP5 black and white film. And my school was lucky enough to have a darkroom — complete with about 8 or 9 enlargers — for developing film and printing photographs. I enjoyed those photo classes and thrived at the “hobby.” I spent all my free time in the photo lab. My year book was even signed by a girl who said she’d never forget me using the light from an enlarger in the darkroom to read a book for English class. Good times! After graduating high school, I decided to continue my education and enrolled in “college.” I’ll say college for lack of a better word. It was really the Art Institute of Philadelphia.

Of course, my family couldn’t afford to send me to an institute of higher learning, so I went to see Satan and applied for financial aid. I received some Pell Grant money, then Satan had his way with my virgin anus as I signed on the dotted line for Federdal student loans. Of course, this was the 1980s, and I guess the government was handing out student loans to any deadbeat with a Bic pen and the ability to sign their name… So with tuition paid, for the immediate future, I was enrolled in classes.

One of the first things I did before classes started in July of 1985 was sell my Nikon FG at a camera shop in Philadelphia. I don’t remember what I got for it, but it was not nearly enough to cover the camera I bought to replace it. With some monetary help from my grandfather, I got a new Nikon F3 High Point, arguably the best manual-focus, professional level 35mm SLR camera of its time. I’m going to say it was the best manual camera Nikon ever made, and I never owned an F or F2. So there!

My F3 was awesome! I loved that camera. I babied it like it was made of glass, even though Nikon professional cameras have a world-renowned reputation as being the most rugged cameras ever built. I was only 19 at the time, and it was the most expensive thing I ever owned at nearly $900 for the camera body alone (no lens). That’s over $1700 2008 dollars! But I recall the F3 actually costing more than a grand at camera shops in Philadelphia at the time, which is why I bought through mail order. I always drooled over the multi-page print ads in the back of the photography magazines, for they usually had great deals on gear. So when it came time to buy my Nikon F3, I called the number of one of the biggest print ads around… B&H Photo. We’re talking 1985, people! There was no Internet. Well, there was, but it wasn’t available to us peons yet. There was no ResellerRatings or customer reviews. There was only credit cards and faith, or C.O.D., baby. I used C.O.D. because there was no money exchange until the UPS driver showed up on my door step with what I ordered… and I always opened the box in front of the driver before he got the cash. I wasn’t going to pay nearly a $1000 for a boxed masonry brick. Fuck that! I would use B&H several other times — and C.O.D. — when I bought an MD4 motor drive, two lenses, and a handle-mount flash. I don’t have a picture of my old Nikon F3, but it looked almost exactly like this Nikon F3.

When school started, it was great! I was surrounded by like-minded students, learning and experiencing large- and medium format cameras as well as my own 35mm camera, color, design, visual expression, B&W and color darkroom skills, as well as photo retouching and mounting. I also learned a lot about location and studio photography, you know, with strobes and umbrellas. I really enjoyed the classes, and stuck with it for almost two years.

However, life has a tendency of getting in the way. One thing that burned my ass were a couple of the instructors at the school. I got the impression they were full-time photographers, part-time teachers. If they were hired for some project, they wouldn’t show up. I can recall many times sitting outside a class room or a studio — listening to Howard Stern on WYSP — waiting for the instructor to show up and unlock the door. Several of us went to see the “Dean,” but were told that the school is looking for a substitute. Excellent. We’re paying good money for tuition, and they’re going to find us some Peggy Hill to lern us sum pitcher takin’. But I can’t blame the school completely. I was an impatient prick then as I am now, and didn’t stick around for a substitute. Tuition was expensive. Instead of sitting in a hallway outside a studio, I got a sales job at my local Radio Shack, and never looked back. That was the beginning of the end.

It wasn’t long before I had a second job making signs with computers and vinyl at a place called SIGNprinters (yes, that’s the actual company, still in business). Well, one thing led to another, and before long, I was finalizing plans in 1989 to leave Pennsylvania and move to Washington. In fact, to fund my trip to Washington, I sold my Nikon F3 gear… a decision I still regret to this day, realized when I drove over Snoqualmie Pass on I-90. School was the furthest thing from my mind, so too was repaying my student loans.

Long story short, defaulted student loans have a way of following you forever and fucking up your credit. It took several years — more like ten — but the Federal government tracked my ass down. With the help of a few Nazi debt collectors, they held my feet to the fire until we worked out a repayment plan. I was supposed to enter something called “rehabilitation” after jumping through their hoops, but the assholes at the collection agency never reported my rehabilitation to the Department of Education. Every year they took my tax refunds, and when President Bush gave us stimulus checks, they took those, too. I didn’t think this year would be any different, so when I got my W-2 from The Company, I quickly filed my return electronically. I simply wanted it out of the way, so the quicker I filed, the quicker ED would get his goddamn money.

I had a doctor’s appointment on January 30, which meant I didn’t have to commute to Seattle and could sleep in. Around 6:30 that morning, a text message from my bank woke me up. A deposit greater than $10 was just made. In my groggy, just-woke-up state, I was quite concerned when the amount of the deposit was several hundred dollars less than my pay check. What the hell, man? Rubbing my eyes and looking at my phone again, it hit me; that amount was my tax refund! Holy shit, Maynard! ED let the IRS give me my refund!

Tina and I spent most of that day discussing what to spend it on. I knew I didn’t want to nickel-and-dime it on bills, or dinners, or gasoline. My first thought was tires. My truck is going to need tires pretty soon, and the tax refund would just about pay for them. Tina suggested I spend it on something fun since it’s the first refund I’ve received in a long time, and I deserve something fun. I looked at in-dash DVD players with GPS navigation for the truck, but the good ones are too pricey. While watching a TiVoed television show, Ashton Kutcher graced our screen in a commercial for the Nikon D90 camera. That was it! Buy a digital SLR camera! Oh, the sweet irony of buying a camera with my tax refund that should have gone to pay my photography student loan. Simply perfect! Of course, when I started pricing cameras online, I ended up at bhphotovideo.com, where I ended up buying my new Nikon D90 nearly 24 years after buying my Nikon F3 from them. Good ol’ B&H. Talk about coming full-circle.

My new baby arrived a week ago, nine agonizing days after I placed the order. You can have free shipping or fast shipping, but you can’t have free and fast shipping, bastards. It was all good. I was scheduled for pager duty anyway, and couldn’t be far from a computer. During my UPS-imposed wait, I did a bunch of reading and downloaded (illegally, shhhh) a couple videos about the D90. I also started a wish list, which I’m sure will change frequently over the coming weeks and months. I even joined a Nikon User Community, as well as a few other photography forums.

I’ve been out shooting with the camera only once so far. I woke up early Saturday and drove to Anacortes to capture the oil refineries in the dark. The images turned out okay, but not as cool as I thought they would. Shooting digital — beyond point-and-shoot — is all new to me, so it’s bound to take a while to get good at it. From the refineries, I drove to Deception Pass Bridge to wait for the sunrise. I have no idea what I was thinking. It’s Washington. It’s winter. It was cloudy. Silly me! I managed to get some decent shots of the bridge, though. Then I drove back to town and took some photographs of the Dutch windmill in City Beach Park. You can check out my “First Shoot” photographs at a brand new subdomain of wafwot.com: http://photography.wafwot.com.

Well, that’s the story on my photography school days, and the news of my new digital SLR. You may also check out the few photographs I have left from school at http://www.wafwot.com/blog/photography. I’ll be putting all worthy photographs at the new photography.wafwot.com, so keep an eye out.

When we left work yesterday evening, the start of the soul-crushing love-fest that is our nightly drive home was like any other. The roads were dry, the surface streets were clogged (like they ate too much cheese… draw your own conclusions), and all appeared normal. But then we tuned in KOMO AM 1000 and heard about severe winter conditions in Everett and Marysville. Our cell phones began to ring. Worried loved ones were concerned that we might be stuck behind a recent 50 vehicle pile up (story – crash pictures) on I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass. Our commute doesn’t take us anywhere near I-90, thankfully, but the weather on north I-5 had us worried. By the time we made it to the northbound express lanes, the traffic slowdowns had already begun. Every day, we drive past a digital road sign that reports travel times to Lynnwood and South Everett. Normally that sign reads 30 to 45 minutes to South Everett. Tonight, it read 65 minutes. Fuck. As we got closer to the sign, we realized we misread an “8″ as a “6.” Eighty five minutes to make a 20 mile trip. Do the math, people… that’s 4¼ miles per hour. Four and a quarter! Jesus fucking cajun-style Christ! To be fair, that electronic sign is for the main line, not the express lanes. But considering the express lanes weren’t going any faster than the main line, it’s close enough for government tolerances. We tired quickly of the traffic radio, and switched to a CD of The Crystal Method.

It was slow going. After the express lanes ended, it was snowing quite heavily. We were driving in and out of snowsqualls up to Lynnwood, where it was snowing continuously. It wasn’t sticking, just making the roadway wet. Traffic flow sucked. The HOV lane was moving at about 20 miles per hour, where the regular lanes were stop and go. We finally made it to South Everett a full two hours late. The snow was coming down solid, and made for some pretty cool pictures with our shitty camera phones. Here’s a photo, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and even a short movie in MP4 format. Pretty cool new image viewer, eh? If you’re JavaScript-phobic, you probably just saw those images open in your browser. Yawn. People with JavaScript enabled saw the web page dim, and the images appear on a new layer, resized to fit your screen resolution. It’s fucking amazing. You know how I know? Because it’s fucking amazing!

Enough cock waving. By the time we got through Everett and Marysville, we were in a full-on blizzard. I’m not sure, but think we may have been experiencing whiteout conditions… but what the fuck do I know? The snow was coming down so fast and heavy, the headlights were reflecting off it, making it near impossible to see the roadway. The snow was also starting to collect on the slush between the lanes, which meant it was getting colder outside. Our speed wasn’t very fast. This picture of the car radio shows the average miles per hour we were traveling from downtown Seattle to Marysville, and the outside temperature. Pretty fucking swift, eh? I think we broke 25 miles an hour once or twice before things got worse, and they did get worse.

There’s a point where there so much snow that the highway eventually gets completely covered. We reached that point around Smokey Point, and it was not fun. The road was eerily free of traffic. It was us, a Subaru about 200 feet in front of us and a pack of other slow moving vehicles a mile behind us. Previous knowledge told us there was a highway under the car, but we couldn’t see it. “Where’s the lane? Shit!” We were literally driving by braille! As soon as we’d drive over those little bumps or reflectors on the center lines, we’d steer back into the lane until we hit the rumble strip. It’s funny now.

Several dickholes in 4×4 SUVs thought they were impervious to bad weather. Many were wrong. There were vehicles galore that had slid off the Interstate and were now stuck. One Dodge Durango driven by some old fuck sped by us faster than a priest leaving Chuck E. Cheese's with an 8 year old in a duffel bag. A couple minutes later, a cop pulled onto the highway, and his lights came on. Tardboy had spun out, and was now on the side of the road pointing the wrong direction. It appeared that there was a tow truck pulling a station wagon out of a ditch, and the Durango had to avoid the obstacle, and over corrected, spinning himself around.

A couple miles after that spinout, the highway was just wet, and we were back up to 70 miles an hour through the Skagit Valley. All that fucking snow was caused by the Puget Sound Convergence Zone, which we drive through twice a day. By the time we got back to Oak Harbor, it was 9:30pm. Ninety seven miles in 4½ hours. That’s an average of 21½ miles an hour. Fucking snow! We were home just in time to grab a bite to eat and go to sleep to do the whole goddamned thing over again in 6½ hours. Pass the melatonin… and the antacid.

Today was the day we picked up a former co-worker for a trip to the Westin. He had a convention to go to in the hotel. Yesterday’s wintry boot to the coin purse almost put a damper on things, but the powers that know nothing north of Everett forced us to make the 97-mile trip anyway, in the face of sure death on icy highways… and they were icy until Lynnwood, where they were just wet. It was good to see Jake/Di-Tech again, even though we suffered partial hearing loss from his maniacal, Ed McMahon-esque laugh. Good times, though. Made the commute seem shorter, and that’s always a good thing.

Since it snowed, we didn’t head into the office. Although we made a valiant effort trying. It was 35°F when I woke up at 4:00am. The first thing I did was check the traffic cameras on the state’s transportation site from Mount Vernon to Everett. No snow. Doppler radar showed precipitation over head, but there was nothing falling. I got ready to go and met up with the car pool… Aw, fuck the long story. I’m too tired and too old to type it all out. Let’s fast-forward to crossing Deception Pass Bridge. It was just starting to flurry, and the highway was only damp. The further east we drove, the heavier the snow was falling. We didn’t even make it past the Swinomish reservation before the highway was so slippery, the car’s traction control was kicking in trying to save our fat asses. We turned around and headed home to .

Oh Jebus H. McChrist! Tina’s watching the premier of American Idol 6 as I type this. What in the southern fried fuck makes these people believe they can sing? Goddamn! Some of these people sound like a pygmy goat trying to queef out a Whitney Houston song. I think I’m getting a headache.

Well, crap. I’ve completely lost the desire to write more. I have to pee, and I’m tired of looking at a computer. I have a few more topics to cover… including one that might even get me into some trouble. I’ll Wikipediafy this update and call it a done deal. Sorry for the shortness. I’ll try to do better next time.

As I start typing this update, my alarm clock with indoor/outdoor temperature display reads 28°F outside, and it’s the lunch hour. Temperatures are expected to dip into the low teens or single digits over night. Brrr! It’s colder than a witch’s tit in a brass bra outside. I took some new pictures, but be warned, they’re just boring pictures of snow… just like the one featured in this update. All this snow and frigid temperatures has made my toes and fingers cold, as well as my nose. What am I, a puppy? And thanks to Weezie Jefferson (one of our carpoolers who doesn’t know how to cover his fucking mouth when coughing), I have a nasty cough and a case of the sniffles. Pass the goddamn Kleenex.

I’ve been telecommuting during this latest round of icy Mother Nature ass rape. I am lucky to work for a company that allows me to work from home when the weather turns ugly.

Okay. It’s now after dinner, and I’m sitting in bed typing this update. The TV is on History International, and I just saw a commerical on for a free diabetes glucose meter from Liberty Medical. What the fuck is wrong with Wilfred Brimley? Why can’t he pronounce diabetes? It’s dia-bee-tees, you old cocksucker… not dia-bee-tus. My Dad died of ESRD, so I’m a little sensitive about diabetes. What of it? While linking Brimley’s name to Wikipedia, I was mildly amused to see the article mention his oddball way of saying diabetes. I found the video on YouTube by Stephen Colbert.

Where was I? Oh yeah, telecommuting. Since we’ve been working from home, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather forecasts. The weather guessing weenies on the network affiliates in Seattle are the epitomy of gay. Neither rain, sleet, snow, or gloom of night will keep the weather guesser from trying to be funny. It’s not really their childish jokes or silly little comments that piss me off, it’s the anchors that force their fake laugh. It sounds like a bunch of snooty housewives at high tea. I so want to smack each one of them.

Of course, the next biggest story besides the weather is the commutes. When the snow makes the roads bad in this state, drivers lose their motherfucking minds! People with 4×4 vehicles think their impervious to bad weather. I just laugh when 99.9375% of them are found upside down, in a ditch, cell phone (and pocket contents) on the ceiling, and the driver is suffering from first degree burns caused by the spilled latté. This time, like last, people couldn’t get their vehicles home, and literally abandoned them on the side of the road. The freeways and arterial roads were littered, just littered, with hundreds of vehicles. Millions of dollars worth of BWMs, hybrids, and SUVs just left on the road. And I swear to God, every time the news crews shoved a camera in the face of some driver that left a vehicle on the road, that driver was asian, or female… or both! Be afraid.

As I wrap this up, the temperature is now 24°F, and is expected to drop to 18°F. I just called my manager, and we’re heading into the office tomorrow. I’m gonna freeze my freakin’ ass off. I’ll fucking bet my swollen left testicle that 5:00am is the exact time the mercury hits 18°F. I’m gonna have to warm up the truck before heading out at 4:55am. I just hope that we don’t sit in any stop and go traffic for six hours. What a terrible way to start a weekend.

Go Seahawks!

We knew there was a big wind storm coming; all the TV weather weenies were besides themselves about it for several days before, carrying on like a hyperactive retard about the storm bearing down on us. On Thursday night, the front of the storm hit Seattle around 4pm, and dumped — just dumped — an assload of rain. It had been raining most of the day, but it really started pouring around 4. We left the office around 5pm, and the rain was still coming down in biblical proportions. Rain was running downhill, turning Seattle’s streets into grade III whitewater rivers, and collecting into huge standing puddles of traffic-slowing goodness. Rich Eisen of the NFL Network even joked that we had started collecting pairs of animals here in the Pacific Northwest. Interstate 5 was pretty much wide open, making the commute easy… until we hit the usual snag in the colon of traffic known as Everett. South of Everett, a torrent of rainwater had pushed mud and gravel into the freeway. Some rocks were as large as baseballs, which started the slowdown, and it was slow all the way to the Highway 2 offramp. We listened to the Seahawks game for the rest of the trip home.

The wind had already started before we left Seattle. It was pretty strong when we got back to Whidbey Island, but we still had power. I was text messaging one of my carpool members about the game. The ‘Hawks were playing so poorly, I gave up on watching the game and started watching a recorded episode of Jeopardy! on my TiVo. Without watching the end of the game, another text message told me the final score of 24-14.

But we’re not talking about the Seahawks… we’re talking about the weather. I know, both were terrible… But this blog entry is about the blowing of wind, not the Seahawks blowing. The wind was whipping outside, but it wasn’t too bad. The power flickered a couple times, but stayed on. I watched the weather at 10pm and went to bed. Four in the morning comes way too early.

At 1:51am, a tree branch hit the roof and woke me up as it tumbled down the roof to the lawn. While my sleepy brain processed the noise, the power went out. Crap. Then as quickly as it went out, it came back on. I remember thinking I was glad I asked Tina to shut down the computers. Ten seconds later, the power went out again, and stayed out. I went back to sleep.

Tina’s travel alarm went off at 4:00am. Responsible adults plan ahead and prepare for possible power outages. We set alarm clocks that don’t require electricity so we can make it to work on time, thus avoiding the need to come up with lame-ass excuses for being four hours late…

Anyway, at 4:00am, the power was still out. I grabbed my 4D Maglite and dragged my groggy ass to the bathroom. I used a dirty towel and propped up the flashlight so its bright beam was aimed over the shower head. Perfect. The water in the tank was still hot, so I was able to take a shower and get ready for work like it was any other normal day.

By 4:30am, I was dressed and ready to go. I text messaged our carpool driver the following: “Power out here, how about there? I still had hot water. Im ready to go if youre going.” The reply was, “I good.” “I good?” What in the oven-baked fuck? While I twisted my drunken manager decoder ring in the pre-dawn darkness, another message came in. “B here ¿ 5:15” was still a little cryptic, but I knew what he meant.

I left at 5:05am, and headed towards his house. The wind had blown a shitload of pine braches everywhere. The highway had pine branches on the shoulders, but Swantown Road was carpeted in pine. It reminded me of my parents’ house where I grew up, which had the gaudiest wall-to-wall green shag carpet. The late seventies and earlier eighties lacked any style, didn’t they?

I turned onto Heller Road, but before I reached Whidbey Avenue, the road was barricaded. I couldn’t see the reason why, but followed the “Detour” sign. I use the sigular form, because in typical Oak Harbor fashion, there were no further detour signs, so I was somewhat lost in some neighborhood in the darkness. No street lights, no house lights… just my headlights to guide me to familiar territory.

I made it back to Heller — still before the barricade — and said “fuck it!” I headed towards town and would take a round-about path to my destination. I reached for my cell phone to call about running late due to detours, but I left my phone at home for Tina. Since there was no power, there was no Internet, and without Internet there was no VoIP phone.

After driving faster than 60 mph on back roads, I got to my manager’s house at 5:23am; 8 minutes late. I parked my truck, hopped into his car, and we started heading north to Deception Pass. The highway was cluttered with pine branches, and there were remnants of trees that had fallen into the highway about every 50 yards or so. By the time we reached Cornet Bay Road, the Washington State Patrol had barricaded the highway and turned us around. They told us Deception Pass was closed until daybreak at the earliest due to hundreds of trees that had blown down across the higway. With no bridge access, and no ferries running in the rough seas, we weren’t leaving the Island. We called the Seattle office, and were told to go to the old Oak Harbor office (which we still have open for repair, retail, and drop payments) at 8:00am and work from there. I went back home and crawled back into bed. It was still dark and cold — inside and out.

When I got to the Oak Harbor office, it was warm and lit up nicely. The office has a natural gas-powered standby electrical generator, and while the rest of the Island was dark, we had lights, heat, and Internet access. Rumor had it, Puget Sound Energy wasn’t going to have power restored to the Island for seven to ten day. Excellent. That wasn’t good news for Tina who was at home in the cold, trying to keep a small flock of birds alive.

I checked the local news web sites, and they had a lot of photos of the damage. There was an estimated one million homes and businesses without power! What are we, Amish? Goddamn! PSE alone had over 700,000 customers in the dark. Wind speeds were still quite high outside, but nowhere near what they were at the peak of the storm. Speeds at the Hood Canal Bridge reached 74 miles per hour. That’s hurricane speed, boys and girls! Yeah, okay, a category 1 hurricane has 74 mph sustained winds, and these speed were gusts, but damn! Ocean Shores on the coast reached 73 mph, and Tacoma, Sea-Tac Airport, and home sweet Oak Harbor each hit 69 mph. The strongest gusts were clocked at 113 mph at Chinook Pass in the Cascade Mountains. I like me a good blowjob, but this shit’s ridiculous.

At lunch, I went out and took some photos around town. I couldn’t find a lot of wide-spread damage, but I did find some. Hell, the fence in my backyard even took a hit. Here’s a link to the entire gallery of wind storm pictures I shot with a borrowed camera.

About 3:00pm, I went to Home Depot. They had generated power and were open for purchasing emergency supplies only. I was looking for some batteries (for the radio and flashlights), and possibly a safe heat source I could use indoors that wouldn’t give off fumes. The respitory systems of parrots are sensitive as hell when it comes to odors and fumes. A kerosene heater would smell slightly to humans, but kill a bird in minutes, just like over-heated Teflon. There were no safe heaters at Home Depot, so I headed to Marketplace (a grocery store) which was also on generated power. I picked up some milk, cereal, lunchmeat, bread, peanut butter, jelly, chips, and Pepsi; all things we could eat without the need to cook it. The great outdoors (namely the front porch) acted as our refrigerator, since the outside temperature was close to freezing.

I got back to work by 4, finished up a ticket I was handed earlier, and was sent home by 4:45pm. I drove home, being careful at the traffic lights that were obviously not working. I was shocked by the number of cars that simply blew through dark traffic lights as if they didn’t exist. When the traffic light isn’t working, the intersection should be treated as a four-way stop, you fucking artards.

I got home safely, and unloaded the truck. I installed batteries in a couple of flashlights, and Tina and I “enjoyed” a dinner of bologna sandwiches with Lay's potato chips and Pepsi.

I was playing wth my cell phone when it rang. I answered, but no one was there. Caller ID said it was my manager. I tried to call back, but since we were 15 hours into this power outage, Cingular‘s local towers must have quit working. My phone was reading “Emergency Only” or “No Service”, and only occasionally reading one bar of signal. Raising the bar, my freezing ass.

I hopped into my truck again, and drove around trying to find a signal to call back. I ended up at one of the highest points in town — under the radio tower at the police station, where I was getting 3 bars. When I called my manager back, he told me he dialed the wrong number. Excellent. I told him I was listening to KOMO-AM 1000, and they interviewed a PSE employee who said that “crews were currently working on restoring Bellevue, Olympia, and Whidbey Island by the end of the day.”

After that call, I received a call from Tina’s sister-in-law, Amy. She was calling to see how we were doing, since she saw on the central Oregon news that the Puget Sound region was pimp smacked by a wind storm. I assured her we had enough food for several days, and were doing okay, with the exception of Felix, a lovebird, who died because he couldn’t handle the drop in temperature. Poor little feller, he was just a bird.

When I got home, we listened to the radio while staying warm under blankets. I was dozing in and out of sleep. Midnight came and went, and I half-ass-bitched about that lying snatch at PSE who said they were working hard to get Bellevue, Olympia, and Whidbey Island restored by the end of the day.

Around 12:30am, I had to pee. I grabbed the Maglite again and headed to the toilet. In the beam of light, I could see my breath! Brrrr! The temperature in the bedroom was 57°F according to my alarm clock thermometer, and the living room and bathroom were probably five to seven degrees colder. Under the blankets, I was nice and warm… standing over the bowl while relieving myself, I was shivering like a scared chihuahua with the DTs. I had to clean up the seat before heading back to bed, or face the wrath of Tina.

It was 3:51am when I was awaken again. I heard the heater kick on, and the AV receiver do it’s normal clicking when power was restored — exactly 26 hours to the minute after it went out. First thing I did was turn the television on. But all that I could find on was Billy Mays pushing some stupid picture hanging hook and some limey motherfucker trying to sell me a buttplug-shaped mini food processor that could make dips and spreads in six seconds. Jerry Springer‘s How to be a Hillbilly self-help show and similar middle-of-the-night television bullshit was in full swing. I clicked the TV off and went back to sleep, never more thankful to have heat once again.

After six weeks of commuting to Seattle, I’ve come to totally agree with the Asian driver stereotype. Every time — and I mean every time — there’s a slow-moving vehicle in the HOV lane, it’s either an Asian driver, or a bus (probably driven by an Asian) causing the slow-down. What the fuck? They nose their cars into traffic like you’re invisible, expecting traffic to stop for them. They seem completely oblivious to any cars on the road!

I’m not kidding. They drive erratically. They don’t know how to merge into the freeway. They drive too slowly. If you pass an Asian driver on the freeway, odds are they will speed up and pace you! “I tink I’ll drive arong in dis round eye’s brind spot for as rong a posserble.” It’s infuriating. If you see a vehicle backing up at an intersection, turning right from the left hand lane, stopped dead in the middle of rush hour stop-and-go traffic trying to merge into another lane… It is always an Asian driver. I am not shitting you.

And, there must be a language barrier, too, because they don’t seem to read traffic signs. Are they busy texting a message with their phone? Maybe they’re distracted by the Hello Kitty kitsch hanging from their rearview mirror, or reloading their camera… I just don’t know.

There are two kind of Asian drivers. You’ve got the young Asian male driver, and the FOB Asian female driver. Males are recognizable by the rice burner car they drive. It’s always an Asian import with a 4-cylinder engine and an over-sized wing on the trunk lid that looks as out of place as cat turds in Christmas pudding. Don’t forget about the carbon fiber hood (with non-functional scoop), neon lighting kit under the car, cut suspension to lower the vehicle, a fart cannon coffee can resonator bolted on the exhaust pipe, logo stickers plastered all over the paint job, and an 8-inch tachometer mounted to the dashboard. Their cars sound like a mosquito tweeked on meth and are usually louder than an A-6 Intruder. These boys have more money than brains, and really need to get laid. They probably still live with mommy.

Speaking of mommy, the Asian female driver can be identified by her thick-ass goggle glasses that look like they were made from the old optics of the Hubble Space Telescope, her hunched-over posture, her white knuckle death grip at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, and her head never moves, keeping an eagle-eye stare on the fog line four and a half feet in front of the vehicle. The body of their car — also an Asian import with a 4-cylinder engline — is riddled with the battle scars of parallel parking and driving in the city.

Their bad habits can’t be because American roads are different? It’s gotta be genetic. You would think that Asians would be the best fucking drivers in the world. We’ve got Asian car manufacturers falling out our asses: Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Honda, Suzuki, Kia, Subaru, ad nauseam. They even make tires with names like Yokohama, Toyo, Bridgestone, Sumitomo, and others. Apparently they can build the shit out of a car, they just can’t drive the goddamned things. Excellent.

So, what’s the problem? Why can’t they drive? I’ve got some ideas, but these are just theories, so no wagering. First, I think they get their license at a late age. Americans start driving at 15 or 16 years of age. Asians hop off the boat and open a convenience store, make lots of money, then decide to get a license while their male children run the store. The old addage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” plays well here. (Hell, they probably ate the old dog anyway.) Second, they’re genetically predisposed to riding in or pulling rickshaws, which have no gas pedal or turn signals and go pretty slow. Third, they’re too fucking short. They sit in their car, and their eyes are directly level with the top of the steering wheel. This causes a blind spot, hindering their ability to see traffic directly in front of them. Lastly, their eyes are three-quarters closed! Hell, you can blindfold their ass with dental floss. That can’t be good for seeing traffic. There may be other reasons, too. If you know of any, used the aforementioned comments link below and tell us about them.

Okay, for the misleading subject, I’m sorry. But, would you have been excited to read the normal shit I write if the subject had been Some Crap on my Mind? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

This picture is of the windmill in City Beach Park here in Oak Harbor. I decided to start taking some pictures in and around Oak Harbor and place them into an Oak Harbor photo gallery as a rememberance of the 17+ years I’ve lived here. Click here for the gallery.

I’ll be adding more pictures as I take them. I’m going to try to take as many as I can with my six year old digital camera. I really should buy a new one sometime.

So, the search continues for a house in King County as we gather financial records and go through the pre-quaification process. On that note, I was watching John Ratzenberger's Made in America on the Travel Channel Saturday, and Cliff was touring the modular home factory of Silvercrest. Some of the homes they build are indistiguishable from stick-built homes, and look quite nice. This got me to thinking. If we’re going to go into debt for more than a quarter of a million dollars, maybe it would be nice to have a brand new home. Why should we buy someone elses problems? Why should we settle for someone elses cast-off home. The whole idea of old roofs, water damage, weak floors, toxic mold, someone elses dust mites, dead pets in the yard… it turns my sphnicter to granite. Preliminarily, it looks like it may even be cheaper than buying an existing home. We still have some homework to do. Jebus, this whole process is starting to get on my last nerve.

This coming week is our last week working in the Oak Harbor office. We have to pack our offices and disconnect our computers this Thursday so the moving company can come in and move our shit to the Seattle office on Friday. That means we get to work from home on Friday. Joy. I wonder how loud Angel will be when I’m trying to troubleshoot someone’s DSL circuit. “Okay, [squawk] I need [squawk] you to [squawk] power [squawk] cycle [squawk] — SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU WHITE PIECE OF SHIT! — your modem. [squawk squawk squawk]“ Should be about as fun as tweezing the hair off the balls of a kitten.

Starting on October 30, we’ll be working in the Seattle office. There are about six of us from Oak Harbor that will be carpooling to Seattle. The thought of commuting for five hours a day sound about as enjoyable as being raped by a Clydesdale without the benefit of lube. At least I’m not buring 18 gallons of unleaded per day in my truck. As of this Friday the 20th, the news from corporate was they are going to buy a company vehicle — a Dodge minivan — for us to make the commute in. While we’re at work, the van would be usable by the sales people to take clients to lunch, or the admins to make a run to one of the data centers. It should be fun to see who will be the first to bring the van back late, making the Oak Harbor people late for their soul-crushing commute back to the Island. Goddamn, I’m gonna hate it. This house buying/build shit needs to be kicked into a higher gear before I go insane.

Summer was great, but the record-low rainfall, and all the sunshine gets monotonous. The rain and wind are welcome in my book. Pine trees are nice, but there’s definite lack of leaf trees in Washington. I’m from Pennsylvania, and I love when the leaves change colors. The air is crisp, the days are short, and the breeze blows the fallen leaves.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, I was reading someone’s blog during lunch today, and they were talking about toaster ovens. Odd, I know. Anyway, people were talking about how they use their toaster ovens. One person said they heat their hoagies in theirs. I thought this was even odder, since anyone who would use the term “hoagie” has to be from or is currently living on the East coast, specifically Pennsylvania. And if you know what a hoagie is, you should also know that if you broil or toast one in an oven, it’s no longer a hoagie. Toasting a hoagie magically turns it into a grinder. All this got me thinking about wanting some East coast sandwiches. The shit that pillow-biter Jared (he has aides) pedals is not even close to authentic. I’d eat turds from a cat litter box if I could wash it down with a real cheesesteak from D’alessandro’s and some Tastykakes. D’alessandro’s is in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, and arguably makes the greatest cheesesteaks in all of Philly… dare I say the world?

The gears of relocation are in motion at work. The company wants everyone working in the Westin on October 30. So, in less than 3 weeks, I’ll be making the soul-crushing commute, along with 4 (or more) others from Oak Harbor. We’re trying to talk them into buying a minivan, which can also be used as a company vehicle while we’re at work. We’ll see what happens. I’m not holding my breath.

Tina and I continue looking for a house in the Seattle area as we gather financial records for the ass rape we’re about to go through. In fact, we have mortgage seminar to go to on Saturday. Can you believe I gotta go to school for this shit? I guess when you’re going into debt for a quarter of a million dollars or more, it’s a good idea to know what you’re doing. The seminar gets us a reach around during the ass rape. Simply excellent.

I still need to charge my digital camera and drive around taking pictures of Oak Harbor and Whidbey Island. I want to take some final pictures of the area to compare when I visit. I guess I still need a sunny day or two for that endeavor.

So, I’ve been getting these sporadic pictures from this hot chick I know in Texas. Is “hot chick” okay to use? I’m not going to offend any uggos, am I? Fuck ‘em… no wait… to hell with ‘em if they take offense.

I keep trying to get her to send “better” pictures, but I think she’s shy… although, these are pretty good. I got a third from her, but I can’t won’t put that one on the Internet. The latest picture is taken at an odd angle. I think she’s trying to show me her new “tramp stamp” tattoo, but all I can think is there has to be a better angle than that — one that’ll show more ass, and make the ‘too easier to see. What? I’m a jerk because I wanna see more ass? Here’s a closer shot of the tattoo

I can’t help but think my friend could make some money with her camera phone. I’m sure this is not an original idea, but she could have people subscribe for a monthly fee, and send pictures out via MMS. She doesn’t have to be the subject all the time. She could get some of her hot chick friends in on it, too.

Anyway, I hope she doesn’t stop sending me these pictures just because I posted a couple to my blog. I made sure her identity was masked. The only way you’d recognize her is if you seen her with her pants off… Umm, maybe I shouldn’t post these… Nah!

A while ago, I read on a web page of new gadgets that Cingular was going to be offering the Motorola v635. I liked the features the phone has over my Motorola v551; a 1.23 megapixel camera with a flash (LED light), a transflash slot for memory, and a 4k color external display. I had a few months before my contract ended, and figured I could wait. Well, I’ve been out of my contract with Cingular since October 2005, and they never offered the v635. In fact, no provider in the US picked up the v635. Only Rogers in Canada did in all of North America. I’m out of my contract now, and Cingular has been dangling carrots in front of me. They keep offering free phones at savings of over $200, but I’d have to agree to another 2-year contract, and I didn’t like the phones they were offering.

So, I went looking on eBay for the v635 I wanted and found about 50 listings. All brand new and unlocked. I reviewed the offers on eBay and bought one from a seller with a good rating and decent “freebies.” Three days later, I had a new Motorola v635 in my hands.

I took the SIM card and charged battery from my v551 and popped it in the v635 (they take the same battery) and powered it up. What the fuck? Everything is in Italian. My new phone was meant to be sold by TIM in Italy. Italian isn’t that hard to figure out, and with the help of the phone’s icons, I quickly changed the language to English. Success! The phone registered with Cingular’s network just as my v551 does.

Of course, just like providers do in the States, the Italian wireless company “branded” the phone with their own menu items, graphics, configurations, and even stickers and keypad on the exterior of the phone… things I couldn’t remove easily. But, with the help of HowardForums and MotoModders, I was able to download the factory OEM firmware and flash the phone’s built-in software exactly like it would come from Motorola. I then “reflashed” with a newer firmware, and tweaked a few settings. I also bought an OEM keypad and torx screwdriver set off eBay to get rid of the “i.TIM” browser key, and pealed off the TIM sticker below the keypad. Today, you’d never know the phone was from Italy.

While I was browsing phone accessories on eBay, I found a company in Erie, Pennsylvania named metalfaceplates.com. They powder coat the metal faceplaces that come with certain Motorola phones, the v635 included. There are many colors and textures to choose from. These plates are gorgeous, and quite unique, so I ordered a set. They arrived in two days, and slid on the phone like they came from the factory. Check out these pics of my phone with the “silver vein” power coated plates:

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