Yes, I’m back. Besides my being sick, the wedding was great and quite lovely. It was good to see an old friend again and get to catch up on a bunch of things. It’s been far too long since I’ve last talked with the guy. Just wished I had felt like being more social that day… my cold was in full swing and I only wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

This trip has reminded me of how much I love Seattle… and it’s reminded me of how much I hate Portland. As a matter of fact I’m not even that thrilled about Oregon in general either.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful state. Shitload of trees, hills, and other pretty things. But the people are just plain weird. I can’t really explain what it is specifically that creeps me out… but the entire state seems to be full of Ted Kaczynskis. They make me feel like a social butterfly… of which I am most certainly not.

So, I realize how nutty they are ten minutes after crossing the border. It’s late, I’ve been driving for more than twelve hours, and I’m famished so I stop at a BK Lounge to grab a quick burger. As I pull into their rather long driveway I notice a sign posted rather conspicuously that states, “No turn around provided for large vehicles.” You probably already know where this is going.

As I pull around the building there’s this guy in a huge 18-wheel rig trying to get himself turned around. I park out of his way and go inside so I can take a whiz. After cleaning up a bit in the bathroom I notice that everybody has stopped eating and is watching this guy back-up, pull-forward, back-up, pull-forward, only to end up where he started. He cannot get this behemoth of a vehicle turned around.

After I place my order for my meal, I was chatting with one of the guys in line and he told me that the trucker had been at it for well over twenty minutes. That would explain the complete look of exasperation and frustration I saw on the poor guys face as I walked inside only five minutes earlier. Cars are zipping around him, front and rear, in order to get to the drive-thru. No body does anything to help the guy out (i.e. ground guiding), yet they all have the time to stop and gawk at him trying to correct a minor mistake.

Now mind you, if he could pull in there, he could pull out. It was his own inability to handle the vehicle that was truly screwing him up… but the embarrassment couldn’t have been helping his mood any.

Finally, he’s had enough. He quickly pulls to the right, whipping the vehicle around the tight depths of the parking lot, clipping a vehicle and completely obliterating a tree. The funny thing was, he didn’t seem to care. At first I thought he just didn’t realize he had done it as the car was on the passenger side of the truck, and may have been out of view — when you’ve got a heavy load a little car would have made as much impact as a large hornet hitting the windshield at fifty-five.

Several people, however, tried stopping him as he pulled the trailer through the snaking driveway. At first he got hung up on a landscaping boulder, but (I still can’t believe he did this) he pulled the rear wheels up and over the rock! Doing so snapped the rear axles — individually loading each tire as he pulled the loaded trailer over the boulder must have exceeded both axles’ weight limit. But it doesn’t stop there.

The guy who was in line behind me had raced to join the small number of people trying to impede his escape, and had attempted to pull the passenger door open. Though it was locked, the attempt alone freaked the driver even more, and he drug the trailer with its two locked wheels out of the parking lot, up and over the overpass to the I-5, and took the Northbound onramp!

I’m assuming the police didn’t have too hard a time finding him… just look for the tractor-trailer with smoking rear tires!

As I didn’t have my camera handy, I couldn’t do much more than shake my head in disbelief. Lesson learned… never leave my camera in the car. Ever. And to sum up… This situation, along with numerous other encounters, inside and outside of Oregon, have shown me that people from Oregon are flat out nutty.

NOTE: for some reason, I can’t select individual photos from my CopperMine gallery… and with work being what it is, I’ve had no time to fix my plug-in… so take a look through the gallery as it’s got a few aftermath shots of the car that was drug and the boulder that snapped his axle.

I’m having issues with a plugin that I use for displaying images from my CopperMine gallery… it’s not displaying several images that I want for an entry about my trip to Seattle… and I’m not posting it without the images as it just won’t be the same… so until I get time to rewrite a section of crappy coding, there won’t be anything said about my trip. Count on it getting done by the end of next month as I have a bit going on right now!

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a road trip. I’m just now about to leave for Seattle for Mike’s wedding… a sixteen plus hour drive… and I’m sick as hell… driving a car that is not my own. Sounds like a ton of fun.

I should be blogging from the road as I usually do, but in case I don’t, see you all in seven to ten days!

For those of you who are huge fans of Steve Balmer’s escapades on stage: Young FrankenSteve. That’s Fr-ahn-ken-stee-ve.

Wonder if he’ll be going to the musical?

I’ve been into photography since my parents bought me my first Fisher-Price camera — you know, the type with the slider to wind the 110 film cartridges — I studied it (photography, not Fisher-Price cameras or 110 film) for three years in high school, and have played with it as a hobby ever since. I’ve gotten to the point that instead of automatically using stock photos for my designs, I end up running through my own catalog of pictures on my server first.

So, it doens’t come as any shock to any of my friends or family when I say that one of two reasons for my joining the Army many years ago was so that I could learn to keep my head down in a war-zone should I choose to do photojournalism as a career.

It’s automatic; I’ve tried to turn it off, but every time I see a great picture in the newspaper or online I cringe at the thought that I’m missing out on it all.

When I was on the Eastern leg of my European vacation last year I was more than half tempted to take the fastest thing smoking into Paris to capture the riots. I would have, had I packed a decent camera with me — never again will I travel without a good camera and lenses.

Lately, to sate my hunger, I’ve turned to the likes of Michael Yon and Kevin Sites. Both of these guys are great at what they do, but it’s Yon’s writing that speaks to me. He’s a former military man himself, and instead of corporate funding like Sites’, he’s doing all of his stuff on his own dime. I’m always impressed with anybody who feels as strongly as he does about anything. Especially if his political motivations are in line with mine — a sort of realistic centrist, who has to see everything for himself.

Today, Yon posted a blog entry describing a perfect situation for anybody trying to make it in the photojournalism world. The Command Seargent Major in charge of all enlisted Army men in Iraq has made a request for reporters… and Yon is proposing to send one with his own gear!

Though I’m down and out for at least the next month, I’m without a real job, I’m in decent shape (not that you can outrun a bomb) and definately have some serious wanderlust left over from my last couple of trips. This would be far more intense than any vacation I’ve ever had — and I’ve had some downright feral vacations — but just the same, it’s one of the few things in life that I’ve always had a passion for.

Thank God I’m not much of a writer and have no professional experience, or I’d probably be thinking more of it.