Portland, OR

Getting ready to head to Los Angeles in a bit. I heard on the weather channel that it's gonna be a wet, windy and miserable ride most of the way. My only real concern is coming through the mountains in southern Oregon and Northern California. I'll see how bad it is when I get there.

I'll be stopping in Sacramento along the way and plan on putting together my next podcast from there. Also I want to thank Trucker Tom for mentioning me in his podcast the other day.

They just finished loading my trailer so I need to go seal it and get the paperwork....

Still in Calexico...

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Calexico, CA

This morning I got a few more shots of the ant colony before we headed out. Pictured to the left is my camera coupled with the Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens. You can see how long it is and the need for a tripod to support it. In the shot below you can make out the spikes on the ant's back. I'm not sure what kind of ant it is but it's got some heavy armor, pretty cool. I couldn't get it focused any better because he kept moving around.

I really like doing macro shots of insects and I especially like shooting spiders. I'm not quite sure what my fascination is with them... I'd like to try some infra-red photography sometime too. With infra-red the shots come out looking kinda like negatives. It's a neat effect, I'll post some in the near future.

We got into Calexico this afternoon and delivered the goods. Right now we're parked at the end of the road in this industrial complex. We didn't get an empty trailer so that makes it harder to get another load. Hopefully something will turn up in the morning.

Tucson, AZ

On our way to Calexico, CA where we deliver tomorrow. We picked up this load of flour in Plainview, TX just north of Lubbock the other day. I spent the two days before that doing local work in Odessa, TX delivering tires for all the Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in the area. Not much fun since it's all driver unload. Each stop gets harder than the last because the trailer gets emptier and it's farther to get the tires to the dock.

The weather continues to stay dry but cloudy. After we drop this load I'm hoping to get something going north, maybe Washington. I shot a few pics of an ant hill out back here with my macro lens. The lens is fairly heavy and needs to be supported with a tripod so it won't break the connecting bracket on the camera body. The picture below, although not the best, is of one of the ants trying to move a small twig. The ant was about 1/4" long and I shot him from about a foot away using a 180mm macro lens. The spotlight and nightvision effect was done in post using photoshop.

Fort Worth, TX

Wow.. I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted anything. I had some computer problems and took a few days off then was too busy to sit down and do a podcast with anything of value. I kept putting it off until I had some time and it just kept dragging out. Well I figured I better at least do an update before I lose ALL my subscribers...

Anyway, my last post was from Billings, MT and since then I delivered that load in Olympia, WA then headed south to grab another load in Portland, OR which I took down to my terminal in Lathrop, CA and dropped there. I took a few days off and visited with my daughter before returning to get a load coming out here to Fort Worth, TX which I delivered last night.

Right now I'm sitting at a Pilot Truck Stop here in Alliance Texas, which is basically Fort Worth. I'm waiting to get another load. The trip out here was a standard desert run, not too exciting. It was clear and dry the whole way although a bit windy in spots. I hope the weather stays like this as I'm kinda sick of all the rain.

I'll be posting another podcast this week and apologize again for my absence.