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Okay, so lately I’ve been talking about being busy…getting pretty pumped up because of a variety of things and so on. This has confused a lot of you so I’m going to go ahead and explain things…as soon as I reboot…fucking computer.

*saving draft*

I really need to clean this computer up…I’ve got 8 gigs of RAM and a 2.5 GHz 6 core processor…this thing should not lag with only Youtube, Facebook, WordPress, and Thunderbird open. GEEZE!

Anyway, most of you know I run a website…I don’t hide it, I just don’t usually bother folks with the details. Most people aren’t interested. I guess I should say I actively run two websites…kinda forgot this is one of them…*duh*. For the record, when I say I was up all night working on my website, I am NOT referring to this site. This site is actually here to utilize a wasted domain name. When I switched hosts, I got a free domain name…so I chose the name “blackshireserver.net” and figured I’d just set it up as a portal page with links to all my websites and all the sites I host for people (at one time I probably owned half a dozen sites and hosted half a dozen more–now I think I’m down to 5 1/2 total including this one. The half is one I’m somewhat working on for a local business but currently have shelved). I got sick of trying to remember to keep my portal page updated so I figured, “Hey…Wordpress is free. I’ll install it on my server and start a blog.” Voila! And here this blog was was born!

No, the main site I run is called HerpFamily.com. I often joke about it being a genital herpes support group, but in reality it is a community of reptile and amphibian (herp) enthusiasts with the main focus being around my vBulletin forums. I’ve been involved in the herp forum scene since I was 13 years old. I registered on a website called AnimalNetwork.com when I was in the 8th grade under the username Gecko_Boy_2000 as I was a big gecko fanatic back then. As I got more involved in posting, I shortened the name to GeckoBoy2000 and finally to GB2000 (or as I occasionally used for shits and giggles GB2K) because it got annoying having to type “Gecko_Boy_2000″ at the end of every post. 12 years later I am still posting under that name and on my website alone I have 10,100 posts since January of ’06. AnimalNetwork.com was owned by Reptiles Magazine (yes, the monthly reptile magazines you see on the shelves in pet stores). I posted on there daily aside from when I was grounded…through multiple software changes, staff changes (at one point, their main editor was a member and got to be good friends with us on there) until they decided to add moderators who decided they didn’t like the way we policed ourselves (we were such a tight-knit group that we could often resolve our own fights with limited moderation–which if you’ve ever been on a message board, you’ll know is EXTREMELY rare for people to be able to do). The new moderator would randomly delete any posts they saw fit…and if members spoke out against the deletions, they were banned without warning.

For a while we just gritted our teeth but one day my buddy and I received an email from a good friend and fellow member. She had been banned for no reason whatsoever and that was the straw the broke the camel’s back. We both had been discussing how cool it would be to start up our own website and at that point I decided to take that idea and run with it. I created a free web-forum (yes, one of those cheesy ad-supported free forums) and named it Herp Family Forums. We private messaged every member from Animal Network (then named Reptiles Magazine Community) and recruited them to join our new forums. We figured most people would join and leave…but within the first week, we had a few dozen members and we were doing really good. Reptiles Magazine Community pretty much died out at that point (we continued to steal their members via private messages over the years…until they disabled their private message system to stop us. Funnier yet, they actually came over to my site and compared my members list with theirs, banning every user who was a member of both sites…LOL). Ironically, before all this had gone down…I had been offered a position on the forum staff on Reptiles Magazine Community’s forums. I was basically going to be a moderator without the power to delete posts (I was asked to help keep conversations peaceful…but the moderators would have to do any actual police work due to “liability reasons”). So that was when I emailed them and told them to take that offer and shove it up their ass.

With the success of our free web-based forums, we’d started getting sick of the ads on proboards as well as the reliability (server was always overloaded) so we downloaded phpBB forum software and I purchased a hosting plan.  I also purchased the domain name “HerpFamily.com”. That was somewhere around 2005. Our members were happy to migrate over and we continued growing. Later that year, a few of us decided to have a group gathering in southern IL. This is when our annual “Snake Road” trips began. That year, it was me and a friend from Piqua, my co-founder, and another good friend/member as well as his son. Yep, it was a small gathering.

The following year, I believe was the year we ended up with 19 people showing up from all over the country…I told you we were doing well! The following year had about the same amount of people (a few less), but a fight had broken out ahead of time and my co-founder and I ended up having a huge falling out during the trip. We ended up camping at two separate campgrounds which kinda killed the “family” aspect of the website for a while. I also stripped him of his administrator status as I came to learn he could no longer be trusted when he began telling lies about me stealing his ideas and the website from him (which I later was able to prove were untrue via chat logs which I automatically saved with my AOL instant messenger client). This really broke the site up as many people felt they needed to choose one side or the other. I ended up banning my co-founder after I repeatedly warned him to keep the drama off the forums and every time he chose to blow up on me publicly. The majority of my staff agreed it was the best thing to do.

So fast forward a little further…we continued to slowly grow but our member retention rates were low so I decided it was time for a website overhaul. I also had gotten one of my best friends and moderators to agree to become my co-administrator. The current site was cheesy and due to software versions changing with my forum software, I could no longer make any big changes without completely redesigning my website. I figured if I was going to do that, I would do it right…so I purchased vBulletin forum software. I also installed a mod that allowed me to build an entire website around my forums and utilize the same theme. I was able to import my member database over and aside from a few minor hiccups, the transition went pretty smoothly. Essentially that’s where I’m at today…I changed themes a couple of times and have added/removed various features, but it’s basically the same site. Things have been steadily slow the past year or two…but every time I start thinking it’s about to die and I should just call it quits and shut things down, suddenly it starts picking back up.

And that’s where I’m at now…we were at a low point and over the past few months, things are beginning to pick up again. We’ve been getting more and more new user registrations, I’ve implemented a few new features to hopefully retain some of those members. On top of that, recently I decided I was going to donate $50 toward a couple small contests (giving away a $25 gift card for each contest winner). One contest being a simple recruitment contest…recruit members, get an entry into the contest. The entries would be placed in a box and a winner would be drawn at random.  The winner would then be posted in the thread and would have 24 hours to message me and claim their prize. If nobody claimed their prize, a new winner would be drawn, and so on.

The other contest is a more interactive and fun contest. That is where things get interesting…if you’re a member of my website and you’re reading this, keep this off of the public forums please. I’m in the process of finalizing the details and am about to begin obtaining sponsors. Originally the idea was just to get the members to have a little fun while helping the reptile community out. In light of the events in southeast Ohio where a man keeping a large number of dangerous exotic animals released them all from their cages and then killed himself, exotic animal bans are popping up all over the place now. I would estimate one to two proposed bans PER WEEK. Yeah, it’s THAT bad. They also just passed the python ban due to the pythons being released in southern Florida. Even though the problem is ONLY a problem in southern Florida due to it not getting cold enough in the winter months to kill off the snakes…they have passed a NATIONWIDE ban adding 4 species of pythons to the Lacey Act and banning the importation of those pythons into our country as well as banning them from being transported against state lines. People who’s snake breeding businesses revolve around any of those species have now had their business completely DESTROYED because they’re now stuck with hundreds, if not thousands, of pythons (some worth $20,000 or more PER SNAKE) that they can no longer sell outside of their state.

The contest idea was to get members to make a fun little video/mini-commercial with them and their pet reptile(s) explaining why they should be allowed to keep their pets and not have them outlawed. The entries would be placed in a poll and voted upon. The winner would get the gift certificate. Yesterday it hit me…this could be HUGE! Why should I limit this to only members of my website when it has the potential to benefit the entire reptile community. So I decided that instead of just doing a small contest…I’m going to organize the contest so it will run nice and smooth. In order to enter, they will need to be members of my website…but aside from registering which is quick and pain-free, there is no catch to enter. From there, they will upload their video to youtube and post the link to the video in the contest thread. The contest will be open for one month and then we will shut it down and choose the top 10 finalists (or so). Then we will choose the top “x” amount of winners where “x” = the number of prizes available.

Now for the prizes…instead of just making it a $25 gift certificate, I decided to double my own donation and make it a $50 gift certificate. But it gets better yet. This contest has the potential to draw in hundreds of entries if we get enough breeders, organizations, forums, etc to make an announcement about it. So once I have the main contest details finalized, I’m going to send off letter to 10-20 herp supply companies asking for gift card donations. I’ve done this in the past with a photo contest and even though it was a small contest, still managed to get a couple hundred bucks worth of donations. Provided I play my cards right…I think we should get enough donations to make this contest a HUGE success and in the process, put out TONS of positive herp videos on youtube in response to the proposed/current exotic animal bans, and possibly double or even triple my member’s list (which is currently sitting at somewhere over 400 people). It’s a win/win for everyone involved!

The other things that are keeping me pretty pumped…I’ll keep this part super short….

1.) I’ve decided I’m going to purchase a second vehicle in the near future. I’m trying to figure out how to get around $3000 together…as much as I’d love the second vehicle to be a project car like a Mustang GT or a motorcycle or something, I need to be smart about it. I’m going to look for something decent on gas and utilize it to help reduce my gas expenses, especially if I am going to be bottle raising a deer fawn this year which will mean 50+ miles of driving to/from work each weekend and 30+ on weekends. Running my numbers…I think I can actually trade my Jeep in and buy a brand NEW Dodge Caliber (I work for a Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge dealership…so that’s what I would go with if I bought new) loaded with the options I want for about the same monthly payment. But since I love my Jeep and have a lot invested in it…and Jeep Wranglers are the #1 vehicle for holding it’s resell value, I’d really like to just hang onto it. If I buy a beater car…I’ll save money on gas, spend a tad more on insurance, and I’ll have my Jeep paid off in about 2 1/2 more years. At which point if I decide to sell it, it’ll still be worth plenty.

2.) I’m working on a few different plans for debt reduction…right now they’re iffy. I think I’ll still be able to reduce my debt, but if things work out optimally, I could have my tax debt for the last 2 years completely paid off. Credit card debt will stay where it’s at, but it’d be progress in the right direction.

That’s where I’m at currently…hope this reduces some confusion with you folks.

Sorry to disappoint my readers, but I’m still kicking. Actually doing somewhat decent aside from not being able to regulate my sleep schedule if my life depended on it. So, let’s see where I’ve left off…my last couple blogs, yeah, I was seeing somebody. Didn’t work out. Ended up being one huge lie and admittedly I should have seen it coming but refused to believe it even though most of my friends were calling it well in advance and all the signs were there. Fast forward, ended up in a short relationship over New Years. Broke things off with her. Wasn’t working out. Started talking to an “ex” and we kinda talked about trying things again and then she quit speaking to me. Same night another ex texts me and we end up hanging out…just as friends. Kinda odd…I used to damn near have to pay girls to hang out with me (is that considered a form of prostitution????) and now it’s like I’m switching girls every week. Ah well, somebody on my website said there’s probably a good explanation for why suddenly girls are talking to me and I told him to shut up and just accept it…I’m sure there’s an explanation too, but I’d rather just think it’s because I’m awesome. Hahaha! I crack myself up (I’ll be here all night…)!

Work sucks…I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but since I’m still waiting on winter to arrive, my winter projects have basically been put on hold until further notice. It’s hard to clean the woods up when you tear them up more with the tractors trying to pull out the dead trees (leaving huge ruts in the mud) than just letting the dead trees lay there. Sooooo I’ve basically been burning the wood I got out before the recent rains hit and cleaning the barns. YAY.

I’ve got a couple ideas up my sleeves for paying off my taxes this year since I’m up to my neck in debt…if everything pans out, I can have my taxes paid off in full and then some. But something tells me I’m dreaming…never gonna happen. We’ll see. I’ve also decided come spring I’m going to bottle raise a deer fawn….for two reasons:

1.) Debt Reduction — this ensures I put in over 40 hours a week. Anything over 40 hours will go into my savings account and be applied toward taxes.

2.) Schedule Regulation — when I have a deer fawn’s life in my hands, no matter how much I want to sleep in, I can’t. It forces me to be at work early in the morning and late at night to feed, as well as throughout the day on weekends. This will ensure that unlike last year, I will be at work on time daily which I really need to get into the habit of because I’m pretty sure my boss is gonna start cracking down on it if I keep slacking off.

I sold off my main conceal carry gun…my Glock 27 Sub-Compact .40. It was a little too bulky for my liking and not much fun shooting at the range after about 20 rounds or so. I ended up picking up a Bersa Thunder .380…took it shooting and I love it. Out of my first 50 rounds fired through it at 15 yds, 46 of them hit the box I was shooting at. With my Glock, I probably would have been lucky to get 10 in it. I just couldn’t handle the recoil of the Glock so well…it kicked harder than my buddy’s 1911 .45 and .44 special snub-nose revolver.

Overall, things have been going pretty good for me…around Christmas time, I had hit rock bottom. I wasn’t suicidal but I just didn’t give a shit anymore. I made a lot of choices around then that I don’t necessarily regret, but a lot of people were like, “Holy shit.” Choices that were so “not me” it wasn’t even funny…on the bright side, it kept me from getting too drunk. Sometime around then I ended up drunk at my buddy’s place and we took off for the casino on a whim one night…that was pretty cool…first time ever going to the casino. I lost all my money, but we had a blast in the process and it was nice to just get out and forget about life for a bit. Up until Saturday, I hadn’t had a single drink this year…my old roommate was in town possibly for the last time until his fiancee graduates…so we hit the bar up and decided to kick back and have a few drinks. So I got a little buzzed but not because I was depressed or anything…that’s the night I got to hang out with my ex too…so it was just an all-around fun night. A little awkward when my buddy decided to ask her if she knew my other ex and was interested in a threesome (okay, I ain’t gonna lie…REALLY awkward!), but all-in-all, a really fun night.

Oh and I bought a new snake too…I’ve never been bit by any of my 3 snakes in the past 3 years. This new guy is supposed to be one of the most docile of the four species I keep…and yet he’s managed to tag me about 10 times in 2 days. Talk about freaking nippy. lol

So that’s a quick recap…basically life is good, I’m still single but for a change I’m not depressed about it, and I still ain’t dead yet.

The new nippy little bastard…at least he should only reach around 6 feet…

It’s funny how we’re always searching for perfection and how things can suddenly just “work out” after a while…considering I’ve been happily involved with a few girls in the past year, I think it’s safe to say I don’t believe that there is only ONE perfect match for me. But at the same time, I don’t think EVERY match is perfect…sometimes they aren’t even close. I had one this past year where we were so different it was ridiculous…but things just seemed to work out (for a while anyway). The other one seemed pretty perfect…but things just DIDN’T work out and that pretty much stopped that relationship dead in its tracks.

But fast forward from then to now…

I’m talking to a girl who seems pretty perfect. If she reads this, I’m sure she’ll sit there adamantly shaking her head ‘No,’ but it’s true. She’s the kind of girl who’s not only got good looks (read: she’s fucking beautiful…seriously!), but she’s got the personality to complement it. It’s hard to get both looks and personality all in one package…usually you’ve got to choose one or the other. She’s the kind of girl who can put a smile on my face no matter what’s bothering me and turn the shittiest day into a great one just by sending me a text message or sitting and talking with me over lunch or drinks after work. She cracks me up when she’s been drinking and turns me into a little kid when I’ve been drinking…lol. Even though we’re not an official couple or anything and have no plans to become one in the immediate future, we’ve been through quite a bit together which has given me a chance to see the real her in a lot of different situations and I really like the way she’s able to handle herself in those aspects.

I think what I really like most of all though…and this is going to seem kind of odd…the fact that even though we’ve only been talking for less than 2 months now…she’s been in the picture for almost 2 YEARS now, but due to issues known as “life”, we never really had the opportunity to take this road before. It’s funny though because I had one ex (while we were still dating) flat out ask me why I didn’t just date her because she noticed how friendly we were with each other. The other ex got noticeably jealous when I would talk to her while she was working. We didn’t even flirt with each other or anything back then…it was solely just friendly discussions and nothing more. Even my brother had commented after the first time he met her at lunch with me one day that we should hook up because there was totally a connection there. Funny how they all noticed the connection that far back (some noticed it before I even realized it even…I mean I’ve been attracted to her since the beginning, but I never thought she would feel the same way)…and now suddenly it’s all kind of playing out.

I guess all I’m really getting at in this blog…I’ve been searching for the perfect girl for a while now…and while I don’t know what the future holds for us, I think that search has come to an end. I’ve found perfection and I have no desire to search for alternatives.

Jess, I hope you have a Merry Christmas…thanks for coming into my life and while I know I can be a real jerk sometimes, I hope you realize it’s just me being a total smartass and I would never say or do anything to intentionally hurt you. You are simply amazing.

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.