Yes I know I have fallen to the quick and easy updates on my Facebook page to update my friends with what is happening in life but I have to remember that I also have a lot of friends that are not on ‘Crackbook” and they look at this site for updates.
So what is happening? What have a photographed in the last three weeks? What is new, fresh and exciting gossip in the Storm Chasing world?
Well first off, there are a lot of new news stories about how “Storm Chasing Is Out Of Control” because so many people are storm chasing now that it is clogging up the roadways.
Really, the road’s are full of Skywarn Spotters and Professional Videographers and Photojournalist all looking for that winning shot? Um, no, the road’s were not full of professional chasers and Skywarn Spotters looking for the tornado to warn the public.
In this (not so) great reporting by KSTP, http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2582204.shtml?cat=1 about the storms last Sunday in central Minnesota, they started out with a great recap of the weather by Dave Dahl, some nice chopper footage of the storms and then the story pretty much takes a nose dive from a top twenty market to something a 200 market college intern would put together.
Not only did someone think it would be funny to shoot video of “Rainbows” over the town of ‘Gaylord” but Mitch Pitman wins the worst reporter of the year award for finding a “Storm Chaser” to interview. The guy they found was someone named “Jim Sochko” who was called a “Storm Chaser” but when asked if he had any experience with this? His answer was “NEVER DONE IT BEFORE. I FILLED UP THE TANK WITH FUEL AND I THOUGHT I’D GO FOR A CRUSE”.
Really, you fill up you’re gas tank and just go driving into severe weather with no clue? Because you saw something on TV and now you are “A Storm Chaser”. And people wonder why I don’t call myself a Storm Chaser but Weather Paparazzi.
So for all the Emergency Managers and Law Enforcement that are pissed off because the roads are filled with “Storm Chasers” no they are not filled with chasers, their filled with locals trying to chase but without a freaking clue what they are doing just like Mr. Sochko. I’m still shaking my head that Mitch Pitman could not find one Skywarn spotter out in the field when we met up with several people that were at the Skywarn Conference the day before in Minneapolis.
I have said it before and I will say it again, anyone can go Scuba Diving if you have the equipment but you will kill yourself if you don’t know what your doing. The same can be said about storm chasing and anyone can Fill Up Their Tank and go. I am a trained advanced open water scuba diver and the key words are “Open Water”. Just like the idiots that go chasing without a clue, I could fill up my air tank and go “Cave Diving” even though I probably would end up killing myself since I don’t have any training and Cave Diving. Why don’t I go Cave Diving? It’s called “Common Sense” because I don’t have the training and I have heard too many stories about people running out of air and drowning in the caves in Florida.
Ugh, sorry for the rant but some people in the media just bug the crap out of me when they call anybody a “Storm Chaser” but they have no freaking clue about storm chasing.
And speaking of chasing last Sunday, I didn’t see anything worth reporting as the storms were moving pretty fast to the north. I did get to hang out with my buddy Blake Naftel who was in the area chasing the storms back home to Michigan. Blake was down in the huge outbreak the day before in Oklahoma and Kansas and worked his way up to Southern Minnesota to chase with me and catch some FauxNaders (fake tornadoes).
The day before on Saturday, while almost everyone I knew was out chasing Oklahoma and Kansas for the uber super tornado outbreak, Neva and I were in Minnesota at the Minnesota Skywarn Workshop.
The workshop was great to help get Neva up to speed if she is to go chasing with me this season to know what to look out for. I was busy running the Chasers Edge booth so I missed most of the conference talks but had fun meeting everyone that stopped by the booth.
Outside of doing a ton of work for StormChasingVideo.com, I have not had much to go and photograph this month. I’m in the office almost everyday working on stuff behind the scenes. Even the Aurora’s have been pretty tame. This is the only decent shot that I have taken all month.
It really has been pretty boring around here. Back on April 4th, I did meet up with Bill Doms after he called me to ask if I saw the smoke filling the air off to the east near the wild life refuge.
So with nothing better to do and needing a break from working in the office, I picked up my camera and headed out to meet up with Bill. These are some of the images I was able to shoot from the side of the road. Well not really on the side of the road. I parked in the refuge headquarters parking lot and walked along a trail on the side of a creek and under a bridge to the other side of the road were the fire was still burning.
And speaking of fires, Neva and I were driving home after having a “Date Night” down in the north metro and came home to see a warehouse on fire.
Here is a short video of event that I shot.
Late Saturday night a fire broke out in a warehouse that was reported by officials on the scene as the warehouse for the that housed WW Inc. WW Inc is owned Charles Ward who also owns Saint Cloud State University Bookstore and Gas Station by the campus and Textbook1 on 9th and University Drive.
Crews were on the scene from about 8:30 PM to well past midnight trying to put out the fire and remove smoldering contents from what was left of the warehouse located at 2645 Clearwater Road.
Well that pretty much sums up what the heck I have been doing for the last month. Working, working, more working on video production stuff for StormChasingVideo.com (BNVN). I am going to be posting more updates on this site now that I have found a way to integrate my Twitter and Facebook posts with this site. So now I just have to update Twitter and it should be updating everything.