I will only be updating my new page from here on out.  I’ve finally gotten it functioning well enough to be presentable.  So anyone who has me linked to this page should update to my new site.  http://www.chasecaseco.net

I will leave this message up for a few weeks and then this blog will be completely deleted!  Thanks!

Scott

At first I thought the media calling this kid “Balloon Boy” was pretty funny.  I mean, how could that not make you think of the “Bubble Boy” from Seinfeld?  And sure, the media coverage of this story is finally dying down but what does strike me as concerning is the fact that this guy is constantly being referred to as a serious ‘Storm Chaser.’  That couldn’t be further from the truth!  But not all is lost as finally an article appeared telling our side of the story.

Times Online Story

I’m glad they used quotes from my blog as well as Tony Laubach’s because this guy is a joke, fraud, and a bad parent.  I hope charges are filed and the actual storm chasing community can move on without this tarnishing our reputation any further.  Let us never speak of this guy again…

Scott

Phone Geek Scott here and all I will say is peep the MLB game tonight and you’re sure to see a new aggressive ad campaign from Verizon about their new Android phones coming.  The phones in question are the HTC Imagio (called the Hero on Sprint), and the Motorola Droid (which is the one I’m salivating over).  Supposedly these ads will be focused around what these phones can do and what the iPhone can’t; what Verizon is now calling the “iDoesn’t”  I guess those ‘iPhone coming to Verizon soon!’ thoughts are no longer.  Also this is very unlike Verizon to actually promote a phone instead of their network in their ads.  Just one other bit of info regarding this; is it just a coincidence that if you visit http://www.droiddoes.com it takes you to the Verizon homepage?

**UPDATE**

As usual, I was right on the dot!  Hahaha…here’s the commercial: Youtube

I gotta admit, it puts a smile on my face…

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a...storm chasers experiment gone awry

I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but all of a sudden breaking news confirmed that there was a runaway weather balloon out near Hudson.  Apparently, an avid storm chaser had been constructing this balloon to launch in to storms but today it got loose and up it went.  Some thought the family’s 6 year old kid Falcon (irony) was in it as it soared away but when it landed, he wasn’t to be found.  The thing looked kind of like a UFO and was designed to be a foil type of craft.  I know nothing about airplanes and the such, but it made a pretty soft landing.  After it landed, authorities moved in and started pitchforking it to deflate it.  I thought if that kid was in there, he was going to be terrified!  He wasn’t in there.

UPDATE: I’ve been at work all afternoon and didn’t get to see this thing play out, BUT it sounds like it was a hoax the whole time.  I’m not even really sure if this guy is a storm chaser as I’m familiar with or know most of the Colorado chasers and I’ve never heard of this dude…ever.  Anyway, the family did an interview on CNN and the kid even says “we did it for the show.”  Hahahahahahaha!!!!  Duped everyone, myself included.  Now that the kid is okay, I can fully admit I was laughing my ass off the whole time I was watching this go down.  Oh man.  Absolutely made my week.  I just pictured some X-Files nerds freaking out that their homemade UFO got loose somehow.  Plus it was airing on every national news station in the country!  Everyone must think we are a bunch of lunatics here in Colorado.  Very entertaining television today.  Thanks again Heene family!

Season 3 of Storm Chasers premiers this Sunday at 8pm MT.  There is a 2 hour Storm Chasers “Greatest Storms” airing before that as well.  My guess is that it’ll be a 2 hour recap of the previous 2 seasons before they start with the new season.  Be on the look out for the TWISTEX crew in the new season which is a Colorado based team with some people on it I know.  Also there is supposedly another show called Tornado Road which was going to be airing on NBC at some point but they canned it.  Turns out now that NBC has bought TWC, they are rumored to have brought the show back and are going to be airing it on Sunday night as well on The Weather Channel.  I really know nothing about this show but will look out for it.  Like most chasers, these shows to me are part good, part bad but I’ll be watching nonetheless.

Well, today didn’t amount to much in the way of tornadoes and after a hectic night at work of NHL games, a brief glance at the reports doesn’t show anything too substantial.  Kind of disappointing because I thought this was going to set up for a pretty nice episode of severe weather.  Timing is everything and we didn’t get the right ingredients to mix at the right time thus only yielding a squall line, hail and wind.

10/05 is starting to look like a possible chase day.  Plus, it’s on a Monday so I could make a run on it as I have the day off.  I admit to looking at Mondays models for literally 2 minutes so I haven’t really done any forecasting on it yet, BUT western Kansas looks like a very preliminary target to me.  We’ll see as the weekend gets closer and I get a chance to sit down and have a serious look at the models.  I’m super desperate to get out at least one more time before winter is here for good!  Wish cast ahoy!

***10/03 UDATE*** Things for Monday are starting to look like a no-go for me.  Models are starting to get more consistent and unfortunately, they stall this system out too far south for me to make a 1 day trip.  Plus the areas with the best shear have almost no CAPE to work with.  Like Thursday, the right ingredients aren’t lining up, so we will see if anything changes over the next day or so, but currently its looking like a wash for me.

Scott

Thursday October 1st has the potential to be a decent chase day in the central plains.  A nice cold front will move through CO on Thursday which will ignite some severe weather out in front of it.  There are a lot of positives working for this episode including strong wind shear, plenty of moisture return, and CAPE near 3000 j/kg.  If I were heading out I would be targeting the I-35 corridor between Wichita and Oklahoma City where the dry line should be.  The moisture returns from the Gulf look damn impressive I will say.  Possibilities also exist north in eastern Nebraska/western Iowa however, the most unstable air will live down on the southern target.  Unfortunately, I have used up all of my time off from work which doesn’t recharge until the day after October 1st!  Damn!  So I will be keeping an eye on this from home/work on Thursday.  Tony Laubach will be chasing this event possibly with a few others from the Colorado crew, so check his page on Thursday for updates as I know I will!

And speaking of Tony’s page, it’s brand new and it’s impressive!  A few other chasers I know have done re-vamp’s of their blogs/websites and it’s motivated me to start putting something a little more comprehensive together for myself.  So, I’ve started looking around at some other Word Press type sites and will be moving this website some time during the off season.  I like the idea of having a few more options and widgets when I post blogs or chase re-caps than is possible on the current page.  So, that’s mostly going to be the big project during the off season.  Also on the docket for the off season are a few minor upgrades in equipment.  I’m still looking to shoot in all HD next year which will be great if I’m ever going to try to put a DVD together.  Also, the Pathfinder is in need of some better tires for those muddy roads.  Lastly, I’m looking to invest in a new dash mount for my streaming camera.  Something that easily pans would be a seriously nice addition!  So that’s about it from my end of chasing these days.  If anything else looks promising during the Fall and I have some time off to play with, I will be on it.

Scott

Looks like a long drive to Oklahoma on Monday is not in the cards for me personally.  In order for me to dedicate a multiple day chase, there would have to be a significant tornado threat.  Looks like wind/hail will be the primary threat down there.  Yup, MCS city.  So I’ll leave that to our Oklahoma friends where no doubt, there’ll be an outbreak since I’m not going.  Hahaha…

Locally, there might be something to be had up in Wyoming on Sunday.  I’m keeping my eye on the models and may decide to head out since I haven’t chased in a long minute.  Also, a few of us are going to watch the Man United/Man City match at the British Bulldog Sunday morning at 7am, so man up and come drink some beer!  Anyway, we’ll see what happens Sunday afternoon…

Scott

Well, probably not.  BUT hurricane Jimena is on target to hit the Baja Coast early Thursday morning and then move almost directly north to guess where?  San Diego!   Exactly the place where I’ll be enjoying 5 days of vacation starting on?  You guessed it; Thursday morning.  Hopefully Jimena will make landfall and move back out to sea rather than straight up the coast north.  My hurricane knowledge is nil, so take that for what it’s worth.  The forecast in San Diego currently is still a bit unsure about what the weekend has in store.  One update shows partly cloudy with slight chances of rain, while others show a weekend full of Jimena left-overs.  It’s my cousins wedding so I hope we get some good weather but I’ll definitely have my camera with me to shoot some potential post hurricane goodness!  Either way, bring it on.

Potential areas affected by this weekend...

Scott

On a rather slow night at work I was sitting there letting my mind wander and not shockingly, it drifted towards storm chasing.  Normally the thoughts that occupy my mind in that kind of situation are simple like, “is there going to be a good chase day over my weekend?” or “can’t wait to get home to check the models for tomorrow” or something along those lines.  But tonight for some reason my thoughts not only involved storm chasing, but also a previous hobby of mine that I did for a very long time; DJ’ing.

Almost everyone who knows me, remembers a pretty successful (at least I like to think it was) 5 years or so where I was playing records all over the city.  I loved DJ’ing.  I liked controlling the room, I liked people telling me they dug the records I was playing, I liked meeting people, and most importantly I loved the fact that I did it all on my own.  I was completely self-taught.  I didn’t have any DJ friends that showed me how to mix, or beat match, or scratch or anything really.  I had to learn all of that shit on my own.  I worked so hard at it.  I finally started landing some gigs and actually got pretty good at it, but I had to learn it from scratch like it was a new instrument.  It drives me nuts when people say a DJ isn’t a musician or that a turntable isn’t an instrument.  It’s such a narrow minded way of looking at it.  And trust me, if you ever heard any of the first mixes I did, you’d realize that I was like a person picking up a guitar for the first time and saying, “okay, so how does this thing work?”  They were rough to say the least.

Anyway, storm chasing has been a lot like that for me so far.  Just like when I got my first turntables, I don’t have any meteorology friends that are out there holding my hand to tell me what I’m seeing or to point me in the right direction of the right storm.  It’s been all trial and error for me.  Mostly error.  But I’m learning little by little and getting better at it.  And chase by chase, the “error’s” are getting less frequent.  Exactly the same thing that happened when I was learning the ropes of DJ’ing.  Storm chasing has been the only other hobby I’ve ever had that I’ve fully invested myself in 100% like I did with DJ’ing.  If there’s a book about storm chasing, I read it.  If someone links me to an interesting article, I’ll read it…probably about 5 times to fully absorb it.  I can’t get enough information about weather.  When I see a new book, or a new website or a new blog where I can learn more, I pounce on it.  I’ve read every book by Tim Vazquez about 30 times.  When I screw up on a chase, I immediately start investigating what I did wrong as soon as I walk in the door of my house.  And that’s the exact sort of thing I did when I DJ’ed.  I would spend hours in the basement of Twist N’ Shout digging through hundreds and hundreds of records looking for that one song no one else had.  I’d spend 6 hours digging through records and if I left with even 1 good find, it was a success for me.  When I wasn’t playing out at night or in school, I’d be busy at home working on my skills.  I ate, drank, and breathed DJ’ing.  Now storm chasing has become what DJ’ing used to be to me.  But my passion and desire to be good at both of these things isn’t the only thing they eerily have in common.  The evolution in technology for both are very similar.

When I first started DJ’ing, a brand spanking new technology had just come out that really peaked my interest.  Pioneer had just made and developed the first ever CD turntable.  It was fantastic.  I loved the idea of being able to mix some of my CD’s in with vinyl records because as hard as I would look, some shit I just couldn’t find on vinyl (this was before eBay blew up where now you can find ANYTHING on vinyl).  So I forked out some serious cash and bought two Pioneer CDJ100’s.  They were the Technics 1200’s/GRLevel3 of CD mixers.  No one else I knew had em’.  And guess what?  I’d tell other DJ’s about how I was mixing CD’s and they would give me the look of death.  ”It’s not vinyl?” they’d ask.  ”That shit’s whack dude.”  See, because there was a serious stigma that went with DJ’ing.  Vinyl records were the only way to DJ.  No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.  And please don’t get me wrong here, I’m not claiming to be the OG of CD mixing however, any club I ever played at never had them.  So I started lugging my Pioneer’s around with my record crates and now my book of CD’s.  I’d have to rig up the CD players to somehow function on the mixer at the club to make it work.  Other DJ’s would pop in the booth during my sets and see me integrating their good ol’ vinyl records with tracks I had on CD and they’d kind of do a double take like, “whoa, how the fuck does that work?”  As time went along, CD’s became pretty standard.  DJ’s loved carrying around a CD wallet instead of 4 milk crates full of records.  And now currently, CD players have been pretty much collecting dust as the new laptop setups have made things even easier and more convenient.  DJ’s now days can hold their entire record collection on a thumb drive which fits in their pockets.

Me mixing CD's (gasp!) at Blue Ice in 2000 or so...

Sounds familiar don’t it storm chaser folks?!  Ahh technology.  I see the same thing happen in storm chasing.  The vinyl record storm chaser thinks your laptop in your car is “whack.”  Whatever happened to good ol’ hand drawn map analysis?  That’s the way we had to do it before Al Gore made the internet.  Storm chasing used to be watching the morning’s forecast on the news and winging it from there.  Head to your local NWS office and see what advice they have.  No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.  You had to dig for your information just like I had to dig for unique records.  But just like in DJ’ing, technology in storm chasing goes from being cheating and whack to being accepted and standard.  Now if a DJ wants a hard to find track, they do a Google search and have the file downloaded and ready to go in a matter of minutes.  They don’t have to go to the record store and sift through thousands of records to get it.  I had to put in the work and these new guys don’t have to do things like that anymore.  I used to resent that so much!  But now I accept it.  That’s life.  That’s how these things work.  If you asked a storm chaser ten years ago if mobile radar, cell phone tethering, gps integration to a website, live streaming video, or any of the other things we all see as standard today, would be possible, they’d say you would have to be a millionaire to do such things.  But that’s technology.

I guess my point here other than to illustrate how similar DJ’ing and storm chasing have been to me on a personal level is to also point out that being a snobby traditionalist is no good.  Let me put it this way;  if I went out to see a DJ play a set and all of a sudden his laptop took a dump and he was forced to spin vinyl records all night, I think that would be amazing and I’d love to see it.  The same way, I absolutely respect and admire chasers who are willing to close their laptops every once in awhile and say, “fuck it, lets do some hand analysis today.”  Bottom line for me is you can embrace new technology but still respect your roots at the same time.  It doesn’t have to be a “one or the other” situation.  So don’t let those vinyl only, anti-laptop people push you around!  And also let me disclaimer this whole post by saying, I haven’t DJ’ed seriously in about 6 years or so, and I’ve only been seriously storm chasing for about 3 years so my whole perspective might be out of touch to begin with…

So yeah, that’s where my mind wandered tonight as I watched Usain Bolt smash another world record in the IAAF’s.  That dude is super good.  See, now my mind is wandering again…usually the sign it’s bed time for me.

Scott