Merry Christmas, you no longer have a job.

That's what my boss called me up to tell me I missed at our meeting. My place of employment as of today, is no longer in business. I never saw this one coming ;-). So, now, I go look for a new job that will have flexibility that I need, and hopefully I get one before school starts. They told me I could claim unemployment or something, but I'm not the person that can do that. Plus, there are many jobs out there that are of equal level (pizza job!). I just thought it was funny they closed down, because I called it 9 months ago. They purposely ran it into the ground.

The Outlaw Chasers have a new show tomorrow night at 9 p.m. CDT called "Tornado Hunters" that will surely give the Big D a heart attack. Here is a preview:

Strong language!!! But great footage.




Lanny Dean and I have become pretty good friends since Greensburg, and my opinions of him changed once I got to know who he was. I haven't talked much to Randy Hicks, but Darin does, and he seems alright. There recently has been a thread about them which was locked, because of real Special people on Stormtrack, attacking their character.

If you want a good read, check out Steve Miller Texas' thoughts on the group that calls themselves "CFDG" as well as Steve Miller OK's blog about the subject. These two have seen this stuff go on for a long time, while I have only known about it for a few years (I'm a newb). I have this funny feeling, that in a couple of years, these same guys who banished others because of silly things, will suddenly become the focus of many parodies, that will be shared worldwide. As Darin's favorite boy band member once said in a song, "What goes around comes back around." Justin Timberlake was like SO right!

Lastly, inspired by Bill Doms' brilliant logo, Darin and I are starting the DuckChoz clothing line, featured by our new company YahooWear. It will feature shirts as these below. We're working on getting them printed, stay tuned! You'll want one of these for next year, it's the new chaser look of 2008!

Chiefs Game today

Section 106 Row 12 and seats right on the end. Two touchdowns happened 40 feet in front of us but we still lost. Oh well, it was my first regular season Chiefs game ever, and with my dad. We had a pretty good time, and even though we lost, at least the cheerleaders were right in front of us. Plus, I saw Vince Young in action, the first time ever, him and Tony Gonzalez look like absolute monsters up close.

Storms of 2007 Preview

Power is out, Storms of 2007 Charity DVD

Storms of 2007 Charity DVD has finally been released. After watching it for the 3rd time, it's easy to say this is my new favorite storm chasing DVD. Darin did an excellent job on the May 4th chapter. It was hard to fight back the tears reliving it all, and seeing the emotional pain on the victim's faces captured by Allen Detrich.

Every chapter is a great production, Bill Dom's is probably the most upbeat and intense. I liked every bit of it, it's worth every penny.

Battery is dying on the laptop (13 minutes left)and my connection on the internet will time out shortly..

Been processing photos I hadn't from this year and forgot about some pretty neat shots, that I will be posting in the next few days.

Plaza Ice Pics

Pretty exhausted, trees are starting to snap as surface temps are slightly dipping, and another band of FR is heading this way. Ice is accumulating big time now......


Pics from on the Plaza this morning...

Ice Pics

Heading out again, nothing like having half of them out of focus or rain drops on them, I will possibly get our webcam set up on our website in the morning when there is more light (and if I can figure out which fuse I blew in my POS car). Thinking of heading north a little ways to see something. Pretty tame here in Olathe as we speak.

Link here:

Live Ice Storm Cam

Ice Storm? The Big Bad "D"

Wow, Chuck Doswell's "open letter" has really dug himself a bigger hole. This letter he posted on Stormtrack only helped reinstate what many storm chasers have been suddenly accusing him of (or accusing him for many, many years). Job well done, Chuck. Also, if you haven't seen Roger Edwards' blog, it is also a tear jerker. I guess they never would have expected so many to publicly debate and criticize their actions. This is only a fraction of what is to be expected in the future, segregation and a collapse within the hierarchy. There is much more to reveal about certain individuals and groups if this keeps getting pushed back into the limelight.

Hey Chuck, if you are suggesting saying something to your face, just give me a date and time, and we'll have coffee or something, k?

It looks like, possibly, that the KC metro will not see as big of an ice storm as expected, based on the 12z runs, suggesting that the WAA will push further north than the previous runs. But it's anyone's guess of where the freezing line will be placed in the near future. I hope it goes further north, as I travel 3-400 miles per week for my job, school and my girlfriend's house and that would only complicate things for me!

Snow!

I think we got around an inch or two, not much, but the flakes, at times, were gigantic and there was virtually no wind at all.

A couple of GR3 grabs...It's nice to have all of the free ad-ons that Grlevelxstuff.com. If you haven't checked it out, they have got just about everything you can think of.

Gotta love the free Tiger roads street level maps!




There was even a hail marker at one point! 27.5 tops and 52.5 dbz! lol.



And a couple of quick snaps in the backyard...







And a pair of "contrast-enhanced" video captures of the Macksville tornado on May 5th as it crossed US 50. I have noticed in the video, that the condensation funnel lifts up for about a minute, before coming back down, I am guessing 1/2 mile or closer to our W/NW. It began to slowly rope out after this, a very beautiful rope out with that bent tail pipe look to it. (I just made that up lol.)

Ice Storm? Corona and Sunset Pics Pt. II

From the NWS in KC's AFD:

TIMING OF ONSET OF PRECIPITATION
IN WESTERN CWA HAS BEEN FAIRLY CONSISTENT...08Z-10Z SATURDAY SO WILL
GO AHEAD AND HOIST THE FLAG FOR AN ICE STORM WARNING FOR FAR
NORTHWEST MO AND NORTHEAST KS WHERE PERIODS OF MODERATE FREEZING
RAIN AND SLEET MOST LIKELY. ALSO ISSUED A FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY FOR
KC AREA DUE TO LIKELY START OF PRECIPITATION PRIOR TO 12Z SATURDAY.

MAX TEMPERATURES MAY VERY WELL OCCUR AT 00Z SUNDAY OR EVEN LATER
INTO THE EVENING HOURS. WENT THE CONSERVATIVE ROUTE ON ICE AMOUNTS
ACROSS NORTHERN MO DUE TO UNCERTAINTY ON TIMING OF CHANGEOVER TO
RAIN. SHOULD MY WORST FEARS COME TRUE AND THE MODELS END UP SCOURING
OUT THE COLD AIR TOO FAST THERE COULD CERTAINLY BE HALF AN INCH OF
ICE ACCUMULATIONS. TO COMPOUND MATTERS THE MARKED TIGHTENING OF THE
PRESSURE GRADIENT AND INCREASING LOW LEVEL JET WILL RESULT IN STRONG
EAST TO SOUTHEAST WINDS TOMORROW...RESULTING IN THE POTENTIAL FOR
SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO ICE COVERED POWER LINES AND TREES.

I haven't had a chance to look lately, but it looks like it could get bad further north of there.

Some more pics of a sunset last night and a corona, which there hasn't been a short of lately.

Sunset Pics in Olathe

I was on my way to work, when I noticed one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen (non storm), so I turned around and got my camera, and subsequently, was late to work about 20 minutes. It was worth it!

Trains, trains, trains, always waiting on trains in Olathe!

A Greensburg Resident's Blog

I stumbled on this blog today, a resident of Greensburg who seems to write in this blog nearly daily. This entry really bothers me a lot, because it's told by your average resident.

His wife had called last night to tell him that on CNN they said the rebuilding was going well.
He looked at me, hands out to his sides, palms up and shrugged his shoulders.

"Where?" he asked me. "Where is the rebuilding? They don't even have a single building on main street. You don't have a place to eat. Your only "grocery store" is the convenience store. The only stop light in town hasn't even been replaced. I see a few houses around the perimeter, but where is the TOWN?"

All I could do was shrug my shoulders in answer. Someday, maybe we will have a town. Someday.

It's good to know that our leaders are letting everyone know that the rebuilding process is "going well." Still, no grocery store in the town. Kwik Shop was barely up and running as the town's source of a grocery store back when we were there on July 4th. So what is going on? Many residents are still angry that FEMA left one day, after the story slowly fizzled out of the headlines, and without warning. Speaking of FEMA, read this entry she wrote about what FEMA has demanded of them! Are you fucking kidding me?

Where is the funding? Where are these god damn politicians at that promised to help Greensburg? I'm doing my part as much that is within my power, why aren't they? Who is going to tell the real story about Greensburg?

Who is going to tell the stories of suicide that happened because someone lost their entire world? No one will. They want everyone to think that Greensburg is okay; America does not like cater to bad endings or stories that aren't either 1. Heroic or 2. Absolutely horrible, despicable. There is no in between.

Our friend Daniel has decided to move to New Mexico, due to finances, his employment, and the house he was loaned, was not his. I think that night still terrifies him quite a bit, and I don't think he wants to live there any more (although he says the move might be temporary, I think it's permanent). Things are not going well in the town, there is still debris there nearly 7 months later. 7 months!

What's going on in Greensburg? Obviously, you can't rebuild an entire town overnight, but progress should be further along than what it is now. Drive down there yourself someday, at night even, and see what these people wake up to every day. It's a war zone. It's a nightmare, and it's there every day to remind them.
Tis the season.

May 22nd Photos

I turned off the KU-Mizzou game and decided to process some photos I had forgotten about for awhile.

Here is the beginning of the first supercell south of Gove, KS on May 22nd. It's pretty high-based at this point and had just begun to get a little precip underneath it. For those who have never been down highway 23 south of Gove, it is absolutely stunning, with nothing but prairie grass, big hills, draws, and no civilization whatsoever.



This storm is now taking on supercell characteristics as we narrowly avoid the core and get a little east and south of it on dirt roads. This is south of Gove a little bit, and a few miles east on CR-H road. We thought about going into Gove first, then east, but would have ended up in the developing core of the storm. I'm glad we didn't.



We move further east, then north up a county road where several chasers are now present.

Another storm firing up, which IIRC, was the one that would produce the tornado later on.



A few looks at the meso on the storm to the north. It was funny, at one point, a guy was mowing his grass on a hill, with this view to his west, and I don't think he ever noticed.









We move to east of Collyier as the first tornado warning goes out to someone who reported a funnel cloud which was not attached to the base. (Looked like one, but wasn't). Probably warranted however, because a few minutes later, the storm was more organized, and started to pull in scud, with a nice tail cloud to the north of it.




It produces a nice wall cloud, with a weak funnel, but it never does it to our knowledge. We find a parking spot with the chaser circus now everywhere and watch this meso get rained on by the developing supercell to the south of it.



Our meso is done to the west, and this is our view to the SW.




We're getting about 1-1.5 inch stones at this point, and the supercell is now on top of us, and literally breath taking. I wish I could wake up to this everyday.





And a last look at it before it produces a tornado about 20 minutes later.



I had a nice Thanksgiving with my family, including grandfather on Thursday, then with Devin's family that night. Then, another Thanksgiving at my uncle's in Lawrence yesterday! I still have one more to go tomorrow at Devin's aunt's house, which usually is huge.

This deer was in my backyard on Thursday! I have literally dozens each night that just casually walk through my backyard.





On another note, I have received an email from a member on that "list," who told me an email was circulating around about my blog with the "original" comments and posts. Unfortunately, a quick check on statistics on this blog, revealed he and another person were the ones that saved the entries and have been circulating them. He also wished for me to shut down the website (which I had nothing to do with), that listed all members of CFDG. Sorry, but I have no idea who put it up, nor do I have any control on the person who did. I sure as heck don't care who is on that list, now why would he? Geesh, let it go. My argument is the death wishes on others, not the list.

May 5th Revisited

Darin and I went to a small chaser party the other weekend, and I tried to round up some video to show at the last minute, and ended up chopping up May 4th, 5th and 22nd. We missed out on Rick Schmidt and Doug Nelson's Greensburg tornado footage, but we saw the stills. Absolutely incredible stuff they had. We also missed Scott Currens' Protection Video which I've been dying to see in HD, but we got to see probably, hands-down, the best tornado footage I've ever seen. Jon Davies had some incredible footage from June 9th 2005, near Hill City. I'll leave it at that. It was good seeing everyone again, and meeting a couple of new people who I had not met but did know via the internet, and we all stayed to watch the KU game after the videos were shown.

Anyways, here is May 5th, from the beginning to near end (no footage of the nighttime Seward wedge that the TIV supposedly drove through). We ran out of tape on the merry-go-round tornado, thanks to 4 tapes being used between the two days. Derek didn't do that bad of a job, on May 4th or 5th, considering he never had picked up a camera in his life!

It's hard to see on the first Pratt storm video (not time lapse), but you hear Derek talk about a spinup, and me calling it RFD, well seconds later, it was clear it was under the cloud base, and clearly rotating. I noticed on some chaser's report logs, that they said they missed it due to whatever, well we were up close and personal!


I've posted this timelapse before....

*Disclaimer* This video is
rated *CFDG* and is not suitable for those not accustomed to "yahoo" like behavior. lol



Then slowed down......with two weak spinups and a gorgeous white funnel that never touched to our knowledge.



Then the beginning of the first "Radium" cone/stovepipe.


Then end of Radium and Macksville beginning. For some unknown reason, I noticed that I loop the same footage twice, sorry about that!



And then the ending of Macksville


I think Derek and Darin slept for an hour from about 9- 10 a.m. (after we all stayed up all night assisting victims in Greensburg) the night before. Meanwhile, I couldn't sleep, and had to help navigate a friend from Lawrence to our hotel, and shortly after the long day had begun.

If both days could have had just 1 more hour of daylight, it would have been a blast, but fast storm motions on tornadic storms and dark do not mix well.


I'll probably take these down in a week, so enjoy!

I Think it's About time

For Chuck Doswell, Roger Edwards, Brian Curran, Joel Genung, and many of their colleagues of CFDG to remove their death wishes off of their websites of certain chasers they "deem" yahoos.


Not only is this unprofessional of them, it serves as a double standard for the rules Chuck set forth for his proclaimed "Storm Chasing Ethics." Hmm, I wish for you to die, but don't put yourself in danger out there or hurt others. I get it, Chuck D.

Children, read these websites, and a young chaser should never be wishing death upon others (nor should grown men with children). You're exposing kids to violent behavior, as if there isn't enough of that in this world already. Do us all a favor and drop the childish behavior, before Karma steals the limelight.

No one cares about old grudges. It's time for apologies to be made, or lines will continue to be drawn (forced more like it), and segregation will keep happening. Your days are up, there are a new generation of chasers out there, who don't give two shits about your rules, or what you've done. We're all the same out there, and we're here to help each other, as there aren't a lot of people out there who enjoy this "strange" hobby, labeled by the outside world.

So drop the egos, pull that crap off your websites, and apologize to those who you've forced into hiding, and have forced banishment upon. I hope someday you can look back on all of the stupid bullshit you've pulled, and realize what you have done to other human beings. But I'm guessing your narcissistic egos won't allow you to. This topic will continue to flare up more often than not, and it's your reputations that are in the cross-fire. Just consider yourselves lucky to be alive, and let others chase as they wish.

I can think of about 1,000 things you could do for the "community" instead of the childish hate you keep spreading on this hobby. Educate, help, and share are just a handful.

It's your choice, do the right thing.

Please feel free to comment below, and put other names on here that I have left out, so that justice is served, or to voice your opinion on the matter.