Archive for November, 2011

I guess I’ll never understand it… I thought she was finally beginning to realize I was right and that people don’t change, but nope, it appears I was wrong. Serves me right for saying I was gonna try to move on and instead getting my hopes back up. I’m not blaming her for that one…I was the one dumb enough to get my hopes up.

I’m pretty sure my alcoholism is beginning to creep back up to me…but oh well. I started thinking about it and I think I’ve drank almost every night this past week…and I’ve probably drank more this past month or so than I have the past 2 years combined. On the plus side, I’m able to loosen up, forget about all the bullshit here, and have some good fun with my friends. I’m not eating as much so my money problems aren’t getting too much worse aside from when I really got into playing Keno…trying to cut that shit out now…it was fun when I was winning, but it really sucks ass when I blow $100 and don’t win more than about $10 back (if that). Time to cut my losses and stop for real this time…normally I wouldn’t care…especially as of lately since I’m lonely as fuck and have nothing better to do but sit at the bar spending my paycheck, but I gotta get my Jeep fixed and catch up on a few bills and Keno is stopping me from accomplishing that.

I brought up on another blog that I’ve considered getting the fuck out of here and starting over…that consideration is still there. I don’t know what I’ll do yet. Admittedly, I’m still hoping my ex will realize her boyfriend is a piece of shit and doesn’t truly love her…it’s become very obvious to me that he simply feels like he OWNS her and every time he starts to realize that she’s wising up and catching on, he does just enough for her to bring back that spark of hope in her so she’ll continue to stick around. That’s probably the biggest thing thats holding me back other than money…just hoping she’ll realize everything and come back around…and if I leave, it won’t matter because it’ll be too late then. If she doesn’t ever realize it…oh well I guess…I hope she’s happy with the decisions she’s made, but I know I could have given her so much more…and I think deep down she knows it too, but she’s still stuck believing that things will go back to the way things used to be with him. And they never do.

I had a potential job offer the other day…and depending on how everything here goes, I’m considering it. I personally would like to move out west somewhere…or closer to my family in IL…preferably southern IL so I’d be a couple hours from my family but in a more scenic area with a lot more reptile habitat (ie Snake Road). The only drawback to that is most of my family is more or less moving out of IL now it seems like too…so if I move there, it seems like I’m just gonna end up in a similar situation as I’m in here–alone for the most part. If I go out west…I can start over…but if I run into bigtime trouble, I’m also far away from any assistance. Not to mention since most of the places I want to live are kind of in BFE, finding jobs over there is going to be a real pain in the ass. I was looking in Kansas earlier…and aside from very little houses for rent and the cost of living being about the same as it is here ($500+/mo for a small house), there are very few job openings nearby. It seems like in order to live in BFE, you gotta drive an hour plus just to find a city with jobs.

The offer I was given came from my parents…in Florida…if I’d be willing to adjust my hours (which I could do depending on the hours I’d have to work), they might be able to hook me up with a job down there. Plus if I worked to save up some additional money here to help support myself once I got down there, my dad would do what he could to help me get on my feet since I’d be proving that I’m trying to better my life and not just trying to bum off of him like I did for quite some time before I moved out on my own. I’d love to live closer to them…but I know how hot and humid northern Florida gets in the summer and I don’t really like the thought of that. But it would be accepting of my CCW…plus as a friend of mine mentioned, they don’t collect a state income tax so it would help me out very slightly with getting my debt caught up. I dunno what I’ll do yet…my brother is hoping to move in the near future as well so I’m curious to see what he ends up deciding on too. I’d like to stay near my brother if at all possible…he’s talked about moving north though and I sure as shit ain’t going where we’re going to get even MORE snow.

I’m also considering trying college again…thinking about pursuing a degree in meteorology or something. That would kind of tie right in with my stormchasing, but would also give me the opportunity to work in the weather field as well…which would be pretty cool. The main thing slowing me down on that decision though is the fact that if I go THAT route…I’m going to accumulate even MORE debt. And I really want to start eliminating my debt. I’d like to be able to buy a house within the next 5-10 years and that will never happen if I’m in debt up to my eyeballs.

Enjoy the read…I’m also considering going the route of a hermit for a while…seems like everything turns into a big letdown anymore and I’m thinking about isolating myself from a lot of it. Mainly just disabling my Facebook account temporarily…using my phone exclusively for work…and requiring people who want to see/talk to me to actually SEE/TALK to me. I doubt I’ll end up doing it…but it’d be nice to just break away from everyone for a while and focus on finding myself.

I need to take my blog in a new direction…tonight feels like a good night to do so since I’ve been enjoying some fairly violent music, cleaning my guns, planning a new photo session starring yours truly and just taking my mind off of everyday life.

Recently I got into watching the tv show Stormchasers. It’s been on for a while now, but even though I’ve been a storm chaser for a few years now, I’ve just never bothered to watch it. I’m really regretting that decision now. It’s a great show! For those who have never seen it…this season it features three stormchasing teams, two of which have vehicles specifically designed to be driven directly into weak-moderately strong tornadoes with minimal risk of serious damage. Each season basically focuses on the chase season for the past year, so this season has hit on the outbreaks that hit Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama pretty hard this year. While I love watching and getting pumped up seeing them chase and intercept these tornadoes, what I really like is the fact that these guys are not just thrill seekers/scientists out there chasing/researching storms…but they also have big hearts. They had a special episode before the season started that featured the greatest tornadoes of 2011 and I’ll admit, I got pretty teary-eyed watching it because it really hit on why I am involved in stormchasing–helping people.

I admit, I chase mainly for the thrill…there’s nothing like driving into a huge storm while everybody is heading out. It’s even cooler when the sirens are blaring and everyone is headed for the basements and that’s the sign that it’s time to go outside and play…and not only am I going out to play knowing danger is nearby, but I’ve got radar pulled up and I’m headed straight for the tornadic activity. Until I screwed my truck up on a big chase (funny what happens when you hit curb to curb floodwater at 60mph), it was a well-known fact that if a tornado warning was issued somewhere in the Dayton area, we were already there. I’d get text messages from my dad saying, “Stay safe and watch the sky…tornado warning in Fairborn,” to which my reply back would be, “I know, I’m there.” We chased one locally on a night chase that put us into a scary situation…when we chase we always plan out our destination and our goal is to either beat it or get ourselves off the road and at a safe observation point before it hits. This night… not only were we unable to reach our destination (Relay for Life in the next town over–where we knew they would need help with cleanup), but there was nowhere all that safe to take shelter either. As the storm blew in, we bailed off the road and jetted over to the hospital parking lot figuring we’d be safe from trees and power lines as our destination was right in the direct path of the strongest winds in the squall line. When the wind started blowing in, we realized we were in for a ride…my whole Jeep was swaying HARD. I angled us so the rear corner was going to take the brunt of the wind. It got so strong we tightened up our seatbelts thinking it was gonna flip us. I think the winds were recorded at over 90mph off that storm…they came in so strong, they actually blew an entire row of power poles a couple miles away from being perfectly vertical to sitting at a 45* angle. No joke. Lowes also lost most of their demo model sheds.

Our most successful chase involved a tornadic storm that went just north of my house and had a good amount of rotation involved in it…enough that it formed a very distinct wall cloud. Unfortunately it never spooled up a tornado, but it did have a few good funnel clouds form. Not only did we manage to chase this storm, but we managed to get a really good shot of the wall cloud before the storm weakened. We got this photo featured on both of the local news networks.

The main reason I chase though as I mentioned above…I like to help people. I don’t necessarily believe that doing good deeds will guarantee me a place in Heaven or that I need to do good deeds in order to have good karma. But I feel like if I help people, I’m doing my job to make the world a better place…and if nothing else, I brightened someone’s day. It makes me feel like I have a purpose. So if I see someone broke down alone on the side of the road, yes, I’ll often turn around and see if they’re ok. People always assume these folks have phones on them or are just fine, but not always. I’ve stopped to help a guy who had just bought a truck earlier in the day and it broke down on him the same night…so he was not at all familiar with it. I had a friend who was driving separate in front of me that was pretty mechanically inclined so I called him for assistance and within 10 minutes we had the engine running and the guy was back on his way. I had another night where it was 2am and I saw a car with a blown out tire pulled off in a local business’ parking lot. The driver, a very pretty younger girl got out of the car and tried to flag me down as I drove past. I almost kept going, but felt guilty and turned around. Turns out she was from out of town (currently living out of state) and was visiting friends who lived in the next town over…she was borrowing the friend’s car, it had a flat earlier in the day and the spare was the one that had just blown out on her. She had no phone on her and was freaking out. I let her call for a ride and offered to stay with her until her friend arrived, but she said she’d be okay just waiting in the car since he was leaving to pick her up as soon as she’d hung up the phone. It’s the little things like that, that can totally make somebody’s day.

My dream as a stormchaser is to not only be able to witness a strong tornado with the potential to destroy everything in its path…but also to be able to help anyone who might be in its path when we’re out there chasing it. I don’t want to be one of those guys where a tornado goes through and wipes a town off the map and they just walk around taking pictures of people injured/dead under the rubble and don’t even offer to get their hands dirty. Fuck that. If I’m in a chase, we’re gonna get the best footage we can…but as soon as there are people in harm’s way, we’re heading in to help until emergency officials can take over.

With that being said…we’re hoping to step our game up for the 2012 chase season. Originally our team consisted of just two people. My buddy, Rhett and me. Because of the amount of duties that need to be taken care of during a chase–driving, navigation, storm tracking, communications (yes, we communicate with Skywarn and other storm spotters/networks via ham radio), video streaming, etc–we’ve decided to add at least one more person to the team. That duty will be filled by our friend, Matt, who will be taking over the duties of navigation. Rhett and I intend to purchase a decent chase vehicle before winter and we’d like to spend the winter getting it ready for the 2012 chase season. So far discussions have been to equip it with all-terrain tires, upgraded charging system to power multiple laptops and other electronics, wire up both cb and ham radios, strobe lights, roll cage, webcam on the roof for live streaming, mobile weather station, and maybe a few other things. We want to make this vehicle not only look professional, but we want to make ourselves look professional. While we will never be able to make a living doing this, we would love to be able to get plenty of local exposure from it. On top of that, because of the skills and responsibilities involved in this type of hobby, we also are going to step our game up with our education. Rhett and I are already trained spotters through the National Weather Service–we’ve attended both their basic spotting courses and their advanced spotting courses. I also intend to enroll in some kind of meteorology course(s) and Matt and I have agreed that first aid/CPR training would be extremely beneficial, especially if we intend to be able to help people. Matt and I have also taken the Skywarn spotter courses and got our certifications through them recently.

I guess the purpose of this blog is just to let all of you know that I’m not all talk…I AM a stormchaser and you better look out…because we’re gonna come out stronger than ever in 2012.