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No internet of phone calls for 9 days.
Almost 16 Hours of time of time under water.
Tons of new reefs explored.
Almost filled up a 250 Gig of video and photos.
Got the OK to get into the off limits area of the Light House on Logger Head Key from the National Park Service and several hours at Fort Jefferson.

Oh, and I saw two Water Spouts yesterday morning.“958 minutes of dive time in the Tortugas = 958 of F5 Wedge Time”

The destruction to the reef system, well, it was pretty bad on some of them.

Back Home later today and will post videos and photos tomorrow after I get off my sea legs. Everything is still swaying even though I’m sitting at the airport.

OMG, this is the perfect way to unplug.

Be back sometime next week, later folks. If I don’t make it back, it was fun!
Just like the song says, Amused To Death…  
Back in a couple weeks.

Yeah… That is sexy storms to Florida. I show up and BAM, storms fire. Yep, it was all me, I did it, spank you very much… LOL Here is a screen cap of Swiftwx. There are some decent storms firing up. Just on the boat getting stuff setup. I have to give David Weathers a holler here shortly since we may hook up for a few but not sure when the boat is leaving. Right now, I’m the only one on the boat. The crew took off to take care of stuff and I don’t want to leave my gear on the boat with nobody here.

Once again I still could not sleep before the flight even though I had everything ready to go 2 days ago. It is just those early morning flights that bug the shit out of me. What bugs me even more is the yahoo traveler. Ok I stole that term from storm chasing but it is the people that have NO FREAKING CLUE about traveling. So again, I am at the airport with newbie “Yahoo” airplane passengers stuff their faces with $5.00 Cin-A-Bun and way over priced coffee.

What am I doing? Well, it is just after 5AM and my flight leave in 90 minutes. I figured I would get in some last minute stuff before I am out of communications for the next 10 days. But, everything is on auto pilot so the next stop is Fort Myers Beach Florida and then its off to sea.

Oh yeah, I shaved for the trip.

Screw You Guys, I’m A Going Scuba Diving!!!

My flight is not for another 30 hours and I am all packed up and ready to rock.

I just have to pick up a couple things in the morning from the store (contact lens stuff, soap and a couple other things but otherwise, I have 30 hours until I fly out and I’m ready to fly out today.
Now lets hear the jokes about packing everything…
Yes, all of my bags have the Orange HEAVY tags on them.
The Scuba Gear bag is about 60 pounds.
The Underwater housing is about 50 pounds.
The Clothes is about 50 pounds (hey I’m going to be gone a while).
The carry on stuff is the camera box and the backpack and computer bag. The computer bag goes inside the back pack. Yes, I have traveled WAY TOO MUCH but this time… For Nine Days we will be Kid Rocking on a yacht with a flag sayin’ chillin’ the most.

Hmmm, has there been Nine Days Of Good Storm Chasing All Year? Nope.

Hmmm, Nine Days, with eight of them scuba diving on the reefs to shoot video for a project…(insert Cartman Voice Here) Let me see here yah, That’s eight day’s of scuba diving, with 8 dives per day. Each dive counts as a F5 Wedge Tornado but only and F3 if the visibility is less then 50 feet and the water temp is below 75 at depth, yeah, um yeah, screw storm chasing and screw you guys, I’m going scuba diving down on the South Sideeeeee!!!
Oh yeah, I’m Sun Country VIP, I can bring as much stuff as I need!!

Ahhhh, today was a good day.
Thank you lord, today was a great day.Business was good today and I owe it all to the man up stairs.Well, it is no secret that I used to go to church a lot a few years back but then I met someone and I stopped (First Mistake) and business was great then it slowed down. Hmmmm, maybe because I turned away from the straight and narrow… hmmmm, maybe…Anyways, the last few years have been a little stressful but I have been still trucking along with BNVN so its all good.

Then came this weekend. I went to Houston for the Hurricane Workshop and thought I was going to make some coin with the DVD sales and I barely broke even for the trip.When I was driving back to Dallas on Sunday from Houston, I was channel surfing and listening to the radio. I ended up listening to a Christian radio station and gee, what were they talking about? MONEY. BNVN used to do a lot better but its still going but it used to do a lot better a couple years ago when I also gave a lot of my time to help out with Church and money was not an issue for me. I had what I needed and could do what I loved to do.But then I stopped going because of work and relationships and it took a down turn to where last fall just sucked.

But listening to the radio, it brought back something that I was taught which was I only serve one lord, not two.  I can serve the lord or I can server the money.  One will stress me out when another will provide for me and relief for me of the stress and help me out to make what I need.  I talked to Dan about this yesterday and today, well, today was a good day for me and for BNVN stringers.  I’m not going to say anything more or brag about what we did, except I put my faith in Jesus and it was just like old times.

Thank you Jesus!

Ahhh, home catching up on stuff. I’m home for a few more days and then I’m back on the road to Florida for an 8 day scuba dive video project for the State of Florida and the boat with Brian. This is going to be sweet!!! By the time I were done with this project, I will have in at least 40 more Nitrox dives, tons of ore footage for stock and for the documentary were working on that is just going to be sweet!!!

I will have more scuba dives in then I will have storm chases in. Ahhh, I’m almost storm chase free. Man it feels good to have a life again. Its like being a junky that gets cleaned up. Well, I’m hooked on diving but at least those are not all busts.

Ok folks, I’m back home in Minneapolis and for those who don’t check the gps tracker stuff or my blog and call me to ask if I’m seeing any tornadoes when I’m actually picking up my bags at the airport, I will slap you if I see you for being an idiot. Yes, i got a call like that today just as I was picking up my bags…

Anyway, I’m at home and just relaxing and had to restore my contacts list since my computer goofed up on me. Just hope I don’t get everyone sending me an instant message all at once tomorrow. Well, I think I’m going to run down and get something to eat. I see there is a line of storms coming but looks like they will die off by the time they get here and there turning to the south so I think today’s big chase will be to cub foods for some milk and stuff.

What a day in Houston. Well, the crowd was not one for DVDs and sales covered the cost of the trip but I think for now, unless I get some big money backer that is willing to put money into a lot of advertising, I’m holding off on any new DVD projects. The crowd of almost 2000 for the hurricane workshop were not there to buy stuff, they were their to learn and hang out.

I did have a problem with people even shop lifting a few of the DVDs when I was talking to others and they would come right up and just move the price sign and take one. One lady was like “what, they cost money? fu I’m here for free stuff…”

Well I’m glad I did this trip on a very limited budget so it was not a loss but I did have hundreds of business cards picked up by the crowd so if I get a couple stock video sales or on line DVD sales then it will be worth it. But the Punta Gorda block party day it was not.

The highlight of the day was the talk I gave about being in the hurricanes. Dr. Chris Landsea who is a well known researcher sat in on my talk along with a bunch of NOAA and FEMA staff and that pretty cool enough for me.

Well one good thing about this trip is the hotel. I got a freaking deal on it from Hotels.com I’m staying at the Inn at the Ballpark in downtown Houston. The rooms are what I would expect to pay $200 a night for and I got them for $80 a night. That is the price I would be paying at a best western motel or some other no name shit hole motel in tornado alley. This place is great and the hotel is done up in a hard wood style of an old baseball head office. The rooms have one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in and there is even hard wood floors in the room in the entrance and bathroom.

The internet is hella fast and there is even a ceiling fan above the bed and the furniture is just nice. This place just says, ahhhhhh relax in here, it will all be better.

Ok, this stranger all alone in a strange land is calling it a night. After dealing with the shop lifters at the hurricane workshop what I had to deal with next was worse. Some homeless guy was pissed that I would not give him my drink cup from Subway so he could go and get free refills. I walk out of subway with a full diet coke so I don’t have to spend $2 for a can at the hotel and he is pissed and bitching at me because I won’t give him any coin and I won’t give him my drink.

Oh well, off to Dallas in the morning time to get some sleep.

After checking into my hotel here in Houston, I was up most of the night and got an hours worth of sleep on the plane so I was fried big time.

I had to wait an hour in the lobby which had wifi so I was able to catch up on stuff to work and got up to my room about 4pm and this place is sweet. I’ll post a full review of it after I leave tomorrow but for a 5 star hotel at $80 a night on hotels.com, this is pretty cool.

Anyways, I’m here and needed some sleep but can’t sleep before huge events or trips. Yes my record is almost 4 days without sleep so I can deal with it but it sucks ass to go without sleep. I got up to my room, took care of a few things then called down for a wake up call. I told them I needed a 12:30 wake up call.They said “you want what?”

I said, I needed a 12:30 AM wake call. I’m working in a different timezone on stuff so I’m in Houston just not working on Houston Time. They guy at the front desk said “ah, okay, makes sense…” I thought that was the easy way to tell them that I have a fd up sleep schedule.

I got the wake up call and now I’m just finishing up some last minute changes to my talk I have to give today.Oh yeah, if your in the Houston Area. I’m speaking today at the http://hurricaneworkshop.com