Last night I was brushing my teeth and saw one of the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen in a house… unfortunately, mine. While looking in the mirror my eye caught movement in a box of bandages located a few inches from my face. I jumped back and saw the black legs inside.

I happened to have a clear plastic box on hand, so I scooped the bandages box into the clear box and taped it shut. A large spider then emerged.

I then took a few closeups of it, as you can see. Oh man, if that thing jumped out of the box and hid, I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight… or ever. There’s a certain comfort knowing it’s locked up and won’t be later found in my bed… unless there’s more.

I hope that’s all of them and that there’s not some enormous mama spider around this place somewhere.

Using a macro filter, I shot this with smaller aperature (for more depth of field) and at a slower shutter speed. I used a flashlight to backlight the hairs on the spider’s legs, enhancing the ‘creepiness’ of the image.

Today at approximately 2:45 there was a fatal car crash on I-5 in Kelso, Washington, near Longview, Washington, USA. Longview borders between Washington and Oregon along the Columbia River in the United States.

I personally was stuck in the traffic jam that followed. It took exactly 1 hour to drive from the I-5 southbound onramp near the Three Rivers Mall to the next I-5 exit at Highway 432. The drive was from 3pm - 4pm on March 29, 2008. Traffic was totally gridlocked and still for the first 20 minutes and people were standing along I-5 talking and standing on their vehicles in hope to get a view of the scene ahead.

The main accident, noted as a red circle on the map below, was I-5 southbound just before the the Longview junction 432 interchange. Weather has been bad- with a random assortment of sleet, snow and rain. The main accident involved 3 cars. The main impact was on the drivers side of a vehicle, which completely demolished the door- pressing it into the middle of the vehicle. Without knowledge of the condition of the people, I feel safe in saying it was fatal for at least one person, just looking at the severity of the T-bone impact to that driver’s side door.

Another accident was probably caused because of the first accident- note the yellow circle on the map. Accidents can breed more accidents, with the sudden starting and stopping. It looked like a bad rear end job. I believe it was a minivan that was hammered on the rear with a few feet of the rear compressed. This second accident appeared to involve 3 cars as well.

In total, it appeared at least six cars were damaged as a result of the accident, with at least one fatality.

I feel very sorry for the families involved.