Here is some photos from today. The first one I know you will laugh your ass off at. I saw it on a garage next to an overlook of the downtown area and harbor.
A few more photos from today around Duluth
Back up on the North Shore
After last weekends great fall colors project with Neva, I’m back up along the north shore today and tomorrow (sorry Neva) to film the Fall Colors peaking and shooting some stock footage projects for clients. This is a once a year thing and if your not here when the colors peak, you will miss it.
Below is a screen grab of one of the scenes I was filling with the colors and contrast just making for a painted scene. I am heading up north towards the USA and Canada boarder tomorrow for some more stock footage requests, fall color requests in the morning and then do some exploring along the shoreline for some new footage for archive stuff before I go home tomorrow night.
Quick update from the chase up north.
Up north right now and just finished up a late season chase with Neva to show her how to photograph lightning.
We had a perfect setup with the line moving over the north half of the area and over the lake with a boat waiting to come into the harbor. We also got some shots over the harbor back towards the antenna farm.
Here are some of the images we got over looking the lake.
Fall Color Chase This Weekend
Today and tomorrow look’s like one of those rare fall chase days in Minnesota. No I’m not heading out looking for Tornadoes but I’m looking for lightning and fall colors.
SPC has the northern half of Minnesota in a slight risk today and with the fall colors sit to hit peak this weekend, this could be a decent photo op.
In other news, Tropical Storm Kyle is now in play and forecasted to become a hurricane before making landfall in Canada this weekend as a Tropical Storm. It is once again the forecast track that has me worried about trying to intercept a storm that may just go out to see or hit in the middle of an area that you can’t get next to the coast for a daylight landfall.
Update on stuff. 9/25/2008
Been busy for the last few days working on stuff for the new website and new show. Mostly reviewing code for the new site while fielding phone calls to help find additional stock footage, reviewing footage and today it was several hours of audio work and working on the mic. A lot of friends are really bugging me to tell them what happens on the show but no can do. Only the editors, producers and chasers really know what is going to happen. All I can say is that it’s going to be hella cool. It’s the Storm Chasing version of Deadliest Catch and produced by the same people that made Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers. My field producer was one of the Ice Road Trucker Field Producers so you know the show is going to rock!
I can’t talk about it people so stop asking. Just watch this site for updates in the coming weeks.
It’s Not Must See TV, “It’s MESO TV”!!!
In other news, yes, working on the new site here and it will launch right before the show. Also busy working on a bunch of other video projects as well with one of them being a tornado DVD project that is should launch before the show as well as a bunch of video projects to do in the next few weeks. That’s on top of the stock video stuff. If this keeps up, I’m going to need to start thinking about hiring some staff to help out.
Well, I got to get back to working on a video edit project that needs to get out to a client. Just updating the blog while the footage renders on the edit bay computer. I’ll post more later.
Red Neck Graffiti
Well today was fun because I took the weekend off from the computer for the most part with the exception of just checking the weather. The plan was to go up north for the fall colors but we got word that the colors would be better next weekend and just changed the trip for them.
We did go to the Quarry Park and Nature Preserve here in St. Cloud this afternoon to explore the area. Neva has been there many times but this was my first time there. What a cool place to go have fun on the weekends or during the week. They even have a few places to Scuba Dive so I’m already planning some dives this week if the weather holds out.
There are a lot of photos in the photo gallery but this one that I just uploaded made my day. Since moving out of Murderapolis (Minneapolis) I have been growing to love the slower pace of living in St. Cloud. The traffic is better, the air is cleaner, I’m still an hour away from the cities and we have Red Neck Graffiti vs. the Gangsta cRap Graffiti.
St. Cloud Superman? WTF?
As much as think that I have seen some pretty crazy stuff in my time, nothing tops that latest stuff thing I saw the other day.
No, nothing about storm chasing, it is just proof that there are just some whacked out messed up people in this world no matter where you go or where you end up, there are always some people that have issues.
I would have expected to see this in Hollywood or maybe in Miami or Orlando but in St. Cloud Minnesota, WTF.
On the corner of 25th Avenue and Division Street in the heart of St. Cloud sits, Superman.
I heard that they killed him off in the comics but I guess he must have entered Super Hero Retirement and moved to St. Cloud MN.
No joke, there is a guy that dress’s up in a superman outfit and sits on the corner of 25th Avenue and Division Street (highway 23) and pretends he is Freaking Superman.
At first I thought it was someone just messing around but Neva told me that this dude just hangs out there in front of the DQ just to watch over the city.
Still think I’m kiding? I did a google search “St. Cloud Superman” and there are a ton of sites about the guy that has been doing this for years according to the MPR story about him in this link.
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200111/19_horwichj_upandaway-m/
Fall SDS season kicked off early
Now onto the real drama. Ok not real drama but looking at the GFDL and the CMC forecast models, there may be a new system in the tropics next week. Still too early to tell what this system is going to do.
Well, it’s almost 5am, time to go wake up Neva. She has class for work down in the cities again this morning so she wants to beat traffic and leave early. Yeah I was up all night again. Been working out at Golds Gym now to get back into shape in case I have to do more stuff in front of the camera.
Stuff to ponder
Ok, Ike came in as a Cat 2 and overnight and not much to report from anyone and not much if any amazing footage that came from the storm. The worst of it did come into High Island where I thought it would come in the day before it made landfall.
The media was over kill on this storm and it turned out t be a bust for them. They said it was going to be the end of the world and then had to make it come true instead of looking like asses. So yes there was storm surge and there was some loss of life but it was a hurricane, that is to be expected from the people that are too stupid to leave the area when they put out the hurricane warnings days in advance. Before anyone rips on me, they had a ton of free bus transports and free shelters to ride out the storm well in advance of the storm.
Now in other news. I have been told that due to someone washing clothes in hot water vs. cold or warm, I have been banned from doing someone’s laundry.
I guess someone thought they were starting to put on weight when someone else washed their stuff in hot water a while back and her stuff shrank from size zero to size nadda.
Sorry, My Bad.
Called off the Ike Chase, the storm is NOT a major hurricane and coming in overnight.
Called off the Ike chase at the last minute yesterday and now I am pretty glad I did after looking at the latest data and IR Loop. Still no eye on the storm showing up on Sat and the center or what should be the eye still only about 10 miles across just gave me a bad feeling about chasing this storm.
Not a bad feeling like lot’s of bad stuff will happen but bad as in the storm looked as if it would never reach that major hurricane status that was forecasted to be just 24 hours ago (2am 09/11 cst).
One other thing to note after looking over all the models and reading all the different forecasts and just using my gut forecast, I have a feeling that the center of Ike will pass just to the east of Houston. That might spare the storm surge some what and put the worst of the storm on High Island during the overnight hours.
The main thing that really bugged me about the go or no go to chase Ike was the time of landfall which is going to be during the overnight hours and the fact that the winds never really got above 100mph after it got off of Cuba.
So for those that want to compare Ike vs Katrina, here are a couple Sat images with the storms in almost the same part of the Gulf the day before making landfall.
The first one is Hurricane Katrina the day before making landfall on August 28, 2005. The Max Sustained Winds with Katrina at this point were 165-175 Miles Per Hour (see 10am and 4pm nhc forecasts since someone will nit pick about facts I post… http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/KATRINA_graphics.shtml )
Now this one is from just before sunset tonight 9/11/2005 of Hurricane Ike.
Ike might be as big as Katrina, Ike might be kicking up some storm surge like all tropical systems do, but Ike is not and never will be like Katrina which was up to Super Insane (my term) Hurricane status of 175mph sustained winds the day before making landfall.
The day before Ike is to make land fall, I look at the Satellite image and want to rename the storm to “Hurricane Cinnabon”.
The wind field on this thing keeps reminding me of a Nor’Easter where the center of the storm is lame but the winds extend way the hell out from the center. Those who live east of the Galveston area should be concerned but not sure about the eye wall.