Westmoreland Asays

My muse has disappeared for all things new and exciting, so to keep my site fresh, I'm swimming backwards in time to write about experiences that left lasting memories in my brain. I welcome any insight or other related memories that you could add to my stories, since years and decades have passed since most of these events transpired, and I might be coloring a very different picture than how you remember it. So please don't hesitate to comment. During a little league baseball game when I was about 11 years old, the home plate umpire ejected me for arguing a called third-strike. I was passionate about baseball, and I had quite the temper. I still remember the rage I felt for being dealt with so unjustly,and seeing my mom rush down from the stands to escort me off the field. The anger and shame took some time to go away, and it wasn't until my Dad fished me out of the van (I was holed up crying somewhere, I think) that I finally calmed down. I feared that he was going to kil...

Having a birthday so close to Valentine's Day makes for lots of action. Sometimes the line between the two gets blurry, and who knows which one we're celebrating. Meg ordered a new oven and over-the-range microwave for our Valentine's Day gifts. They arrived Friday morning (the 13th), and I helped Meg install the microwave on my lunch break (I heaved and hoisted and held the microwave in place while Meg installed it). After work that evening, we tried to install the gas oven, but we had trouble getting the piping installed without the gas leaking. We were going to a party that night at a general contractor's house, so we agreed to hold off and ask the expert what we could do differently. So that night we celebrated my birthday early by going out to Newport Bay. Since Meg doesn't care for many varieties of fish, I always try and order fish whenever we go out, since it is one of my favorites (thank you Japan for educating me properly). We then went to the party; I pla...

I took the whole family to the capitol for a huge birthday party for Oregon that the state was hosting. There were free hot dogs, soda, Kettle chips, Umpqua ice cream, and even birthday cake (if you were willing to wait in line for 30 minutes). I normally don't like big gatherings of people, but I feel a strong bond with Oregon and wanted to help celebrate the birth of the place I truly love. We made it inside the capital to the rotunda and had (accidentally) front row seats to hear a choir (West Salem High School, I believe) sing Oregon, My Oregon. Even though I knew this was our state song, I can't recall ever hearing it sung before. And even more surprisingly, I shed small tears of joy at hearing the song--I had no idea I would get so emotional. The boys sat very quietly for the two songs the choir sung, and then we took off--good luck keeping them there and content to hear boring speeches from nameless politicians (at least from A-ron and The Word's perspective). So how...

I spent much of the weekend traveling in a Toyota Prius between Salem and Trinidad, California--about 11 hours worth of driving total--for a race that I was photographing for finishshots.com. The race has an interesting feature where the runners have to cross a river to reach the race's final stretch along Clam Beach. And that was where I got to shoot. The river was pretty tame compared to last year, I heard, but still the Coast Guard carried about five of the participants (all young, attractive women, if memory serves me right). The trip itself was long but manageable. I read while the sun was out, and I had my Zune with plenty of movies and tv shows to watch once darkness settled in. We stopped in Roseburg for dinner at Subway and arrived at our motel in Crescent City, CA, just before 10:00 p.m. Although it rained much of Friday, Saturday morning brought sun and 60 degree temperatures. Before we drove to the race (about an hour south) I spent about an hour just reading in the sun...