Vineyards

I've been telling Darin about this vineyard outside of Lawrence that I've been wanting to take pics of for a long time. We finally did it tonight. We pulled up and Tony Kugler was trimming his old vines up and getting ready for Spring. I asked him if it would be alright if I could snap a few photos, and he very kindly complied. Darin and I were messing around taking photos for about 15 mins, when I started asking him the process of making wine. That's when he invited us in to sample some wine he had made from 2003, and 2004. WOW. He gave us a brief tour and a rough explanation of how he crushes the grapes and the fermentation that goes with it.

Darin and I agreed this was some of the best wine we had ever tasted. 4 different kinds, some with sugar and some without. 3 whites and 1 merlot. Tony and Kay were from Czechoslovakia and had strong accents which added to the good vibes. "Kugler's Vineyard" (785-843-8516) 9-10 dollars a bottle! What a deal! This stuff isn't massively produced folks, it's perfected, hand made if you will.



Anyways here are some pics,

Just for Rachel

This one's just for you, I enabled my commenting for you. Rachel is my ex-girlfriend's sister, who is one of the best people I know. Her boyfriend is also a great, great guy. So now anyone that is registered may comment. Met Mike Deason tonight, what a great guy. I'm tired must sleep. RACHEL COMMENT NOW. ;)

Photography class Project

We were supposed to use a "color" through custom white balance function to express emotion via a picture. I guess I over did the "scenery" and didn't focus too much on the vibe. I thought the greenish blue gave a sorrow/sickening/emptiness feeling to it, but others in the class were WAY above me. Next project is taking exact same photo (in exact same position) at 3 different times of day. Trying to think of a landscape I could use for the background. Anyways here's the picture, you decide. I used my fake fireplace of the red flame to create the greenish blue color.

Yesterday.

Not too bad of a day considering it's February and storms were moving at 60 mph in terrain Paul Bunyan would stay out of. Here's a link to the : Report

I posted a thread in Map Room on Stormtrack which of course is going to turn into a flame war. It's where it belongs. PERIOD. Stormtrack moderators, (and no offense to most of them) don't moderate or move posts or delete shit that shouldn't be there. I give credit to Jeff Snyder for doing his part, (and he's always answered any questions I've had), but the others don't do a damn thing. Bring your best punch to Storm Chasers.org and your A. Going to get a warning on rules violations (we don't have MANY) B. Your post moved to the correct location and a PM for doing so. C. Post deleted for flames. D. Banned. Simple. I don't care who the fuck you are. No one pulls weight on our site, which was created to get away from the bullshit that goes on right now. There are no secret forums, and we usually take a vote on certain subjects that have come up or let THE CHASERS decide.

Bottom line, you can't govern yourself. Noise is ridiculous. Who gives a fuck about wind in the northeast. I don't care about Norman oklahoma's cold front.

Get some balls. Kick the weather enthusiasts off, let the chasers stay. Or you can just join our site where we at least can joke around a little. Ad free!

Quote of the day yesterday by Mr. Highway Patrolman......and i shit you not: "I'd rather shoot people than chase tornadoes."

Me too! Storm chasers should convert their favorite hobby to homicide!

Living on the Road my Friend......

IS gonna keep you free and clean.........

I'm not gonna wear my skin like iron, and my breath will hopefully consist of smoke and caffeine. I keep waiting for May 20th to come, so Darin and friends will be coming down for the chase season. Sends a sense of euphoria to one's mind. Excitement surrounds me. Busting was something 2005 was for, for me, minus just 4 successful tornado days out of 25 some chases all the way from Hamlin Texas to Seylon Minnesota (missing those by minutes). Darin and I have concurred that certain chases, we, never prepared like successful chasers do. Preparation is only a part, I know. Mike Johnston and I scored 3 out of those 4 times. He's a great forecaster, nowcaster, and chaser. Eric B Hymer and I, put ourselves in the right spots, just nothing happened. (So close on June 30th) Eric's nowcasting skills are far and beyond. Marcus and I busted on a red box that was busted from the beginning, but we saw debris float along and hit his car due to extreme wind gusts. Once again, another excellent nowcaster. Stewart Manning and Mike Deason also, excellent, excellent nowcasters.


The memories of 2005 will forever remain.

Now it's off to shoot a photo for a project tonight and dream of that day that is sure to come sooner or later.

Happy Valentine's Day Devin.

Last Round of Nov. 27th's

Goodbye wall!

Finally getting around to the last storm we were on. Nothing new to report, except it snowed on and off today (little accumulation), and my sister is pregnant.
Last one is my chase vehicle, nothing special. Let me do this the right way and put beginning up top and ending of storms at bottom. Getting so close to the chase season, and by next week the gulf will be drained I assume. Some "moderator" said I Photoshopped the white cone (previous blog entry) on a photography forum. Yep, you're a moron.

DM

Sorry for those browsing

Time restrained me from putting up the rest, here are the rest. BTW, this is taking forever. Okay that was the tornado machine, started SE of Meridan and went straight north I believe. More to come from storm number 2.

DM

Tons of Pictures from Nov 27th

Decided to show a little more than before. It's a real pain in the ass to process 75 raw pictures, then resize photoshop, blah. Gotta be a batch RAW processor out there. I'll keep them small, but you can click on to enlarge.

DM

I'm going to redo November 27th's tornadoes tonight in class or before it, and hopefully print some out (Thank you Anthony!) and see how they turn out. I never touched them before, without adjusting exp/contrast/saturation in Canon's raw processor.

You can click on my archives on the right here for November to see the tornadoes/funnels.

Quick Update

The spots on my recent photos were due to the fact that my UV protector had scratches, spots on them. *Sigh* Thank Jesus. I have 1.5 billion things to do today before attending my digital photography class tonight. I missed it on Tuesday night, but a friend said we didn't do much, just finished up project one: color temperature. I've listed everyone's blogs (that weren't already on here) from Stormchasers.org.

DM

Random pics

Few I took the other day.....