Funny Story

Yesterday Nathan spent the day in Detroit with two of the other photographers from the paper, John and Shaminder. They wanted to go down and check out the city and see what they could find to shoot. Nathan has always had a fascination with abandoned buildings. He just thinks they're cool. Of course Detroit is like the abandoned building capitol of the world (just my guess.) So anyway, they found a building to explore. Well Nathan was shooting a photo of John and started to take a couple steps back... and fell in a hole. A hole. A rusty hole in a building that once housed who knows what and now houses who knows what. From what I hear he was fortunate to only walk away with a few cuts. It could have been very very bad. But even a few cuts can be dangerous, so when he got home I welcomed him with alcohol wipes and this morning he went in for a tetanus. Then after his fall, they did some more exploring. You may not know this but we actually have to go south to Detroit to get to Canada. So the boys, feeling adventurous, decide they want to eat dinner in Canada. What's that you ask? Did they have their passports (You are supposed to have your passport when going to Canada now)... No they did not. But they tried anyway. The Canadian welcoming crew gave them a hard time, but let them through while warning them that there was no guarantee that the US would let them back in without passports. Now if you know Nathan, you know that he was panicking the entire time. I imagine his palms were sweaty, his cheeks red, and he was likely trying to talk the others out of it. They continued on. Nathan said he couldn't stop imagining the call he'd have to make to me, telling me he was stuck in Canada. Anyway, they made it back in.

Moral of the story? Nathan now knows he has no interest in being a conflict photojournalist. He learned a lot about himself. I think he is happy with doing things the legal way, the safe way, the familiar way. And there is nothing wrong with that. Personally, I was happy to hear it.

Of course I called my parents and told them of Nathan's frightening trip to Canada. Dad got the great idea to tell Nathan they saw on the news where they had a problem at the Canadian border. We took it one step further and decided to tell Nathan they were looking for them. Dad and I knew there was no way we'd be able to do it ourselves, so he sent me a great, fake email that I shared with Nathan. I think it made Nathan's heart stop for maybe just a second, but it was too funny! In fact, I'll include the email for you.

Kelly,

You mentioned Nathan's experience with the border crossing. Afterwards, your Mom was looking at foxnew.com and noticed a small article related to a border crossing problem today. The article reported that 3 individuals were allowed to cross into the U.S. in error. I'm sure it wasn't related to Nathan and his friends. And they said the car in question was red and I thought you said they were driving one of your cars. At any rate they reported that anyone with information should immediately call U.S. Customs, U.S.Border Patrol, or the FBI. I guess we can't be to careful.

Love,

Dad

Anyway... I thought I'd just share Nathan's little adventure with you. Nothing else new in Midland.