Author: Doug

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was watching CNN (yes I watch it more then TWC now) and they did a story about the food we eat.  More important, what is in the food, High Fructose Corn Syrup and how bad it is and it is in almost everything we eat all the way down to the Ketchup and BBQ Sauce to baby food.

Well, I decided to give it up for a month just to see what would happen and that was a week ago.  No, it’s not Atkins and it’s not any strange diet but holy shit, I have lost 10 pounds in a week but just cutting out foods with that stuff in it. 

Let me get more to the point, I have lost 10 pounds, sitting on my arse, working on several computers, not leaving the house much, and pretty much being a lazy bump on the log, but I have not been taking in anything that has tons of sugar or Corn Syrup.  So, after looking into this more, I find that their are a lot of people out there that say that a lot of the stuff in the food we eat is messed up.  Next time you go shopping, read the label and if you can figure it out, eat it but if you can’t figure it out, put it back on the shelf, I have. 

Ok, I was watching a show last week about Hawaii and all the stuff that is cool about it and no it was not Dog The Bounty Hunter…

But they had a part where they talked about how SPAM is the state meat.  No not the junk mail but the real ham in a can, Spam.  On a whim today while at the story, I picked up a can.  Well, I cooked it up and tried it and with a little honey mustard, it’s pretty good.  It tastes like Ham Loaf that my mom used to make when I was a kid.  Granted I cooked it pretty good on the grill but it tastes pretty damn good cooked up. 

Still it looks kind of funky coming out of the can and I don’t think I could eat it cold like a chunk of Ham but cooked, it is crazy tasty.

Oh, in other news.  Hurricane Felix hit Central America destroying some remote areas but then again there grass huts, not time square so there built to be destroyed.  It is funny watching the news and how hyped up Hurricane Dean was and now Hurricane Felix is way toned down since a lot of people got burned by Dean missing much of everything and not doing much.

Non weather type producers, yes, even at The Weather Channel, get caught up in the hype and think even though it is a Cat 5, the wind field only extends 30 – 40 miles from the center of the storm.

What does this mean?

Ok, here is Felix before making landfall.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 45 MILES… 75 KM… FROM THE CENTER…AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 115 MILES…185 KM.

And now, here is Hurricane Frances 2004 from Sept 4 2004 the afternoon before it hit Florida.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 105 MILES…165 KM…FROM THE CENTER…AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 185 MILES…295 KM.

See the difference?  40 Miles vs 105 Miles.  A storm the size of Louisiana or a storm the size of Alaska. Big difference.

And now, to help put it in better perspective, The Katrina Reference.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 160 MPH…WITH HIGHER GUSTS.  KATRINA IS A POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN STRENGTH ARE LIKELY DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.   HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO  85 MILES FROM THE CENTER…AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 185 MILES.

So, what does this teach you?   Yes, size does matter.

Oh, and on the BNVN news, the new site should be up and running in a few days.  I’m leaving it to be a free site for a while but it will be moving to a paid subscription in a few months once I get everything up and running.  Total number of videos that will be on line by this weekend is over 710 and pushing for 750 if I can get some more work done tonight.

I was out shooting video this evening for the breaking news story of the Larry Craig news story.

Since the actual arrest happened back in June and the story is breaking today, I shot footage of planes landing at the airport and with just my luck the planes were landing with the skyline in the back ground.

Follow your dreams…

You can reach your goals…

I’m Living Proof…

beef cake

BEEF CAKE

Ok, I know one person that is reading this will be saying “god damn it, he is still joking about the south park shit…”  But I’m happy and I don’t really give a shit.

Anyway, it was like a fn hurricane this morning on 494.  It is very rare that I have to pull over for safety but today, this morning, I had to pull over for safety since with the 70 mph winds and the forward speed of trying to drive, it was well over CAT 2 Hurricane Force on the front of the truck. 

Ok, I slept most of the day yesterday since I pulled an all nighter working on the last of the stock video catalogs for the new site. 

I got all the stock video stuff done for the first phase of the new site.  So I got up at 9pm-ish and so now it is like 6pm for me and its really 6am. 

My schedule is ass backwards again… auggggggghhhhhh   But, I was able to be wide awake for a sweet lightning show that hit the metro area this morning.

Here are some of the still photographs of what I got on video.  This is from my living room deck .

I was out chasing the severe storms once again pounded the area around Rushford, MN and brought heavy rain and lots of cloud to cloud and cloud to ground lightning.

Sunday was pretty insane today in Southern Minnesota with record flooding hitting the area.  I was out for the whole day covering the event.  Here are the videos I shot starting out from the Owatonna, MN area over towards Kellogg, MN and the Rushford, MN area.

I was out chasing tonight doing a local chase.  Got on some insane flooding in Minneapolis but before the flooding kicked in, I got this shot.

But it feels good to be back in the saddle with working freelance gigs.  It has been so dead for the longest time but now things are starting to turn around for the stringer biz. The down side, it was mostly due to the bridge collapse so I’m only making a living when people are suffering or getting killed.  It’s a messed up world… but hey, it’s the news.

Ok, been hella busy here but here is the video from the storms on Monday Night that hit the metro.

Ok, I missed a chase today, several parties and probably pissed off a few people thinking I blew them off when I was still Kentucky fried after covering the whole bridge event. Staying up for 36 hours sucks ass and for the lack of a better example, this was like a hurricane chase.

Huh, how was the bridge collapse like a hurricane chase? Well, I was up for most of the day waiting and working on other stuff then all the sudden this story hits. You go into adrenaline overload shooting footage and just in the go go go shoot shoot shoot, edit feed work work work mode. Before you know it, it’s 24 hours later and the last time you ate was 24 hours ago right before the story broke. But your not done yet. Even though your body is screaming at you to get some sleep, you have to keep on working and pushing yourself beyond the breaking point to finish up several more tasks that clients want completed before you can go to sleep. Tapes need to be dubed and fedexed out and you still don’t have time to eat because you have to go to the store to get food but you can’t stop working… It’s like I’m doing the running man…

And when I do finally get to stop and rest, I can’t!!! I just can’t stop and get any sleep because as I lay down, the phone rings with friends calling. But I have to answer since I know some are looking to see if I got the story or worse yet, was there when it happened. As one friend of mine said, “just checking in because we know your dumb luck and thought you might have been down there…”

When I did finally get to sleep, I did not sleep well and woke up around 4am so all day Friday I was still fried. So combine Friday and Thursday, I was up for 3 days with little to no sleep. It really hit me Thursday night when my brother Chuck told me I had my days ass backwards because tomorrow was Friday. Staying up all night into the next, it was still Wednesday in my head but now it was almost Friday. Now can you figure out why everything around me is kind of a crazy mess?

So, today I just relaxed and slept most of the day since yesterday was still pretty crazy. But it was great to get sleep and wake up then go back to bed and rest some more. I just wish I had the new website up and running before all this happened. Now I’m in overdrive this week to get it up and running because CNN was blasting the world with my URL.