Sorry I have not updated my blog in a while but I have been busy working, doing college and not chasing much storms lately. But I have some stuff to talk about I suppose, so read on…

Recent Footage

My most recent footage of any severe thunderstorms and tornadoes would of been the strong storm that went through my home town, Hurst, Illinois where I have actually moved back to. I took a quick video in my back yard… It produced a lot of wind, rain and lightning but that was about it…

WMM Watermarking

As you can see, I have finally mastered the watermarking on my videos from watching the one above. Now I can go about my day not worrying about getting video ripped off. If you have vista home premium and windows movie maker, you can see my tutorial on adding watermarks to your footage at this link.

PR 3 Baby!!!

I didn’t even mean for this blog to get a high ranking but now in the terms of Google Search ranking, we are PR 3 or Page Rank 3 which means this site is ranking high for being so new and so non-updated. So a big thanks to my viewers and those who have linked me to help my blog get to this point! I thank you very much

Until next time, see you all in the funny pages!

I wanted to write about my storm chasing experience and those of this year. I have been chasing since I was about 14. When I first started doing it, I could only go when my friends wanted to and we really didn’t know what we were doing. Once I turned 17, I started driving and really got into it. Shortly after I became a Skywarn storm spotter and did some local emergency management stuff as well. After that, I usually only chased when it was very local. It was about 2009 when I started going out of my county to chase. I saw a historical derecho rip southern Illinois apart that year and thought that was my greatest chase year yet. I was wrong, lol.

I am writing this blog today to nominate 2011 as my greatest chase year, ever. I have seen more this year than I have in the past 10+ years chasing before it. It started out with myself and Kevin Askew barely escaping a storm with over 100 MPH winds while chasing in the jungle (AR/TN area). Then we had some crazy experiences up north near St. Louis with hail and all sorts of RFD. I met Katelyn Pfeister this year and she is one of my best chasing buddies I could ask for. Me and Kate went to Lincoln, NE this year as well. We went for a severe weather conference and decided to chase that day. I had never been to the plains before (let alone chased them) and I chased the Mapleton, IA EF-3 wedge tornado all the way into town and then helped with search and rescue once we got into town.

I have seen a lot of freak accidents this year as well and avoided all of them from affecting me. These usually happen when Kate is with me, haha, she reminds me of that. I have met a lot of chasers this year too. I even chased with John and Brad from Australia who came here to chase for a few months. That day we intercepted several funnel clouds and I got lost in IN near a funnel trying to touch the ground. It was one of the most scariest storm chases I had been on but I am really glad it happened because it reminded me of what I get myself into, hahaha.

This year has been a freaking blast and its not even done yet. I just wanted to write this blog to share my thoughts. Please comment to this blog telling me what your favorite chase year is and why. Feel free to share blog, photo and video links if you want.

I just wanted to let you all know that I have a new project going on that I would like to personally invite you all to. Its called Discuss Illinois, its a free online message forum community for the discussion of Illinois from living and visiting IL to debating politics and laws, sports and more.

So if your from Illinois or plan to visit, you should join up! I will be looking for forum volunteer staff soon and will be keeping an eye on the most active ones. Also the first 10 extremely active members will get some in return for helping keep the community active in its first weeks.

So check the new forum out today!

http://www.DiscussIllinois.com/

Hope to see you all there!

I figured I would make a blog today. My last blog about my most recent chase experience was a great one though. I am still psyched about that one. Being lost on a gravel road in the Indiana farmlands with low fuel and a large funnel cloud wanting to touch the ground…well it will keep a memory in a person’s mind, haha and now that its done and I lived, I think its a cool memory. Katelyn Pfeister, the gal I chase with said it is good for us to experience such horrors at times because it lets us know what exactly we get ourselves into. I have had a lot of close calls this year, though. Myself and Kevin Askew chasing in the Jungle was the craziest though, driving 100 MPH to get away from a storm moving 70 MPH and gusting over 100 MPH winds….was a crazy thing, haha. No, we do not usually drive fast but to get away from a tornadic storm, you bet your sweet ass, I will break speed limits lol.

So I am moving back with family in Hurst, Illinois. Not ashamed of it either. I have credit card debt and a job that hardly pays so I need help. Instead of letting bills go into late payment, instead of getting deeper into debt and instead of going a few days here and there without eating…I am going to do the right thing, get some help, pay stuff off and then get out and try it again. Besides I will be paying my way at the family member’s house instead of living off them so its not like I will be a loser… Plus Hurst is A LOT closer to work and its a very small town, peaceful… I grew up there so I doubt I feel alienated as I know almost everyone there.

Other than all that, my life has not been that exciting…LOL…until next time!

Then we were near Greenville, Illinois and saw some really wonderful structure and some hail and rain and rode the storm out because we were not sure if there was a tornado behind or in front of us, lol. The footage of that is below:

Then we went into Indiana and observed a fairly large funnel off the interstate (64 I think) and then myself and Kate got lost down a backroad (gravel, farm land) in the boonies and I was about to run out of gas and a funnel was in front of me, the funnel can barely be seen at the end of the footage linked below. It was a close call and I was driving extremely fast to avoid death so I wasn’t focusing on videoing it that much LOL. Due to stress and panic, I used a lot of profanity during that video LOL so I masked it with music instead…

Once I got away from the funnel, I found Owensville, IN not far away and came to a gas station and rode out a pretty crazy derecho but did not get footage of that haha because it was an old gas station with old pumps and I was out trying to figure them out while getting a shower from mother nature…

Then we went to Dennys to eat and reflect. As I told John, I still think its my third favorite chase day, haha.

NOTE: Sorry for the poor quality video and shaking.

But… yesterday was a completed bust! I didn’t see anything but towering cumulus and a few good cloud shots which I have posted on this blog below. I raced towards St. Louis, MO from Greenville, IL. It was a risk because the cell I went to intercept was not really that severe. When I got over there, there wasn’t anything worth chasing. So I raced southeast to try to intercept another cell which also turned into crap by the time I got there. However, I did get a few good cloud photos, well good to me at least. And I saw a giant ketchup bottle water tower (photos below) while stuck in traffic at Collinsville, IL. so it was okay for a bust day.

In the future though, I will probably wait around and let any severe stuff get closer to me to see whether or not its going to happen or not.

The blog I made last was about an idealism in the storm chasing community. It was not about a person or a website. Listen, storm chasing is a hobby and nothing me… there are NO official storm chasers over another chaser, no such thing, never will be… if you think there is, maybe you should let your ego resrt and get out and smell the ait, pet a cat or do something to bring you back to the real world! These new storm chasers coming into the HOBBY are being scared off because they thrive so hard for acceptance from bigger names or groups and they never get it because most of these people don’t even pay attention to them because they don’t have a $5000.00 camera or their footage wasn’t on MSNBC… and that is what I am trying to focus on getting the chasetr community to keep away from… If you like expensive video and photography stuff fine but don’t expect all serious chasers to have that kind of stuff because that is NOT what chasing is about, its about passion, not gear, not who has the most media coverage, not who has been driving over 10,000+ miles to chase storms. Some people are poor? Are you saying they are not chasers because they are poor? That is called discrimination and if you think that way, you are nothing more than a waste of oxygen.

Here is my suggestion to those who get vidceo but feel its not very good… instead of trying to get approval from big dawgs in the chaser community, just post it up or even try to sell it anyways… doesn’t matter how good the quality of something is, if its the right video or footage that someone wants, they are gonna buy it from you. Think business when you are doing this and don’t look to other chasers for approval to sell it…lol

So yeah, its simple really… why are most chasers looking for acceptance of other storm chasers? So what if you been doing it for 10 years! What the hell difference does that make? Its severe weather, very unpredictable and unexplained…even meteorologists can not explain a lot of stuff about iit so what the fuck does 10 years means to a stomr chaser? LOL put your ego back in your pocket please… Don’t expect me to brown nose like your other brain washed followers, lol. All this brown nosing and acceptance BS is long overrated, snap out of it people. There is no such thing as a official storm chase… its just a facinating hobby and that is it…

Now! About the forum that thinks this is aimed at them, haha. Sorry but nope, not today. I wont mention what forum because I don’t want to gossip… The forum though is quite new and requires that storm chasers be verified… its their thing and I have no issue with it. Personally speaking, its odd since like the the boogyman there is no such thing as official or verified storm chasers. If you chase storms, your a chaser, plain and simple. What kills me the most is that they use spotter network to verify chasers, spotter network is far from official… hell SKYWARN is more largeer and official than spotter network will ever be… that still makes me laugh out loud, lol… but its their deal and I respect that, though I could care less about being verified. I see it as a good thing because my stoprm chasing forum, Storm Chaser Forum doesnt require a fee or a verification process like these other chaser forums, no we actually would rather make a resourceful community with everyone interested rather than a select few of friends or whatever, lol. So if you ever feel singled out on these chaser forums, come to mine because we care about community and friendship rather than taking our shirts off and showing you our muscles. But as I said, I respect these forums for doing what they do but I have been running forums for about 12+ years now, so I know better.

So there you have it. If you thought these blogs were about you in particular or your site, you need to put your ego back up, haha.

“Shut up and chase or get the Hell out of my way!” – Katelyn Pfeister (2011).

A friend of mine, Kevin Askew once told me how he got into storm chasing. He said that him and his wife saw some specials on TV about chasing and was interested in giving it a shot. This was long before GR3 and mobile radar use, so they watched The Weather Channel for a little bit and then chose their target near home and went to it. Kevin explained that they were very new to chasing and didn’t know much about it. They ended up driving to a point where debris was raining out of the sky and decided to stop chasing at that point. They then wanted to get some safety training and knowledge in before they chased again and they found Skywarn spotter classes for assistance on that knowledge. See, to me, that is real chasing… Kevin and his wife got very interested in severe weather and just went out and chased. They didn’t do it for the greatest picture shot in the world, they didn’t do it to be king of chaser videos, they didn’t do it because they had to use their $7000+ photography equipment, they simply did it because they were interested in severe weather and to me, that makes a real chaser.

Why should I have to fill out a resume (metaphorically speaking) to show to others that I chase storms? If you don’t believe I chase, check out youtube as I have videos all over it and after that, if you still don’t think I am a chaser….just give it up because your too much of an egotistic high school clique drama queen for me to even consider someone remotely related to a serious storm chaser… simply put, your just a kid trying to fit in.

I am not going to look to impress the chasing community any more. If people don’t like me, oh well, I am going to keep being a storm chaser. I have also decided that my sites are going to be open to all chasers or all people interested in chasing because ANYONE CAN BE A STORM CHASER, ANYONE!!! If you find a site that belittles you because your name is not known in the storm chaser community, come join one of mine so the real chasers (the ones without ego, the ones who are really interested in severe weather) can get to know you and help build strong relationships and communities together.

If this blog makes you mad, maybe you should take a look in the mirror and see how egotistic you really are…

If this blog makes you happy, tell me about it by leaving a comment!

It has been a while since I have last updated my blog, so I figured I would update it this morning and let everyone knoe what I have been up to lately.

Storm Chasing - Storm chasing has been very slow for me lately. For one thing, I have been broke otherwise I would have done what I could to be down south during the 2011 record tornado outbreak. I am very very sad for those poor people down there that have lost everything, loved ones and had to experience such a horrible disaster. Many people probably think that we storm chasers love death and destruction. This is not the case. You can either be scared of tornadoes and run away when they hit, and there is nothing wrong with that or you can not be scared and  follow them like I and other chasers choose to do. My idea is to follow and report to either 911 or the National Weather Service. When I chased the Mapleton, Iowa EF-3, I stopped chasing once I got into Mapleton and starting helping with search and rescue as did most of the storm chasers I saw there. We really do want people and their property to be okay but since tornadoes are not going to be stopped, we just choose to chase them and learn from them.

Websites - I have been busy trying to get a few of my websites going again. I have lauched 3 exciting contests where you can win money and more on www.ILSkywarn.com, www.SkywarnForum.com and www.StormChaserForum.com. I have also revamped www.WeatherCommunities.com and updated its blog as well. I have dropped a few domains too that are really just sitting around collecting dust and costing me every year to keep renewed and up to date. My largest project will be transferring Chaser Update to its new software this summer but its going to be so cool once it is done!

Flooding - If you pay attention to my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/StormChaseGroup, you will see that I have uploaded a few new videos on there. The town I gre up in, Hurst, Illinois has had substantial flooding lately. The Big Muddy River resides near the town and has caused quite a bit of flooding including homes, churches and farmland. Even though it is no longer raining as much, the rivers will still rise here and there and cause more concerns. Roads are still closed, roads I have never seen closed due to flooding in my entire life. 1993 was bad when that flood happened but this year is a lot worse, probably right up there with the 1937 flood event. Check our my youtube link above to see the new flooding video and flood slideshow. Please comment if you want to or respond with other videos related.

Broke - For a personal note, I am extremely broke this time around which sucks because I can not afford fuel to chase storms and that. I pretty much just go to work, sleep or stay home. Hopefully something good will come to me soon. I have applied for better jobs including a few police departments, the department of labor and other places as well. I got offered a truck driver job but I really don’t want to be away from home so much. I have a dog with no one to take care of it and I am not giving him up!

Until next time, that was my blog… please feel free to comment!

Once we got up there, we met Jeff Miller and right off the bat, it was like we all knew one and other really well. We checked in to our Amerinn hotel room and then went to DQ next door and got some grub. Jeff Miller made a supercell with his sunday and video taped it, we had a lot of laughs as we usually do on Skype when we all meet up for voice/video chat. Then as we left, we actually got to see a hide speed police chase right on the hiway by us, it was intense but I was unable to get footage of it as it happened really quick.

That night we went to bed around midnight and Kate and Jeff said that I snore like some sort of wild beast in the jungle. Kate slept in her own bed and me and Jeff slept in one bed, yep together and he spooned with me all night. Not really! We did sleep with eachother though, well not sexually but in the same bed lol. I guess at one point I hit Jeff in the middle of the night while sleeping lol.

The next day we went to the symposium and had a blast. We saw Tim Marshall’s presentation and he was funny as hell. We saw Jim Reed and Kate worked for him doing photo, she was with him during Vortex 2 so they knew one and other. I got to see DOW 6, meet people I have only spoke to online and saw some great presentations. Kate won the photo contest and got a $10.00 award along with ribons and so on. Then it was about 3pm or so and we decided to give chasing a shot. We drove towards Iowa after a developing supercell and mainly got lost on dirt roads but hey that is how it is chasing in the plains. It was may first plains chase ever hell it was the first time I have ever even been to the plains for that matter. We chased the storm into Iowa after crossing a creepy bridge. Once we got into Iowa, we saw many Gustnadoes and tornadoes trying to develop and a HUGE orgy of storm chasers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vCAG6UUiFk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdiarfjIOKU

We then saw our wedge and chased it into Mapleton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8a_kVpaI7E

We didn’t know what it was at first as we saw so many gustnadoes and we also thought it could have been a heavy band of rain but once we got closer, it didn’t take us long to figure out what it was. We started seeing trees down and then we rolled into Mapleton, IA. IT WAS LIKE A BOMB DROPPED. The damage was more than I have ever seen before. Power lines were down, houses were leveled and not a car in sight had windows left. People were screaming and crying in plain terror. It felt like a nightmare and it still feels like one. We quickly drove into the mess and lended support to a police officer, he told us to start going house to house looking for people and we did so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=follkKtIxVE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOhiP6moxs8

I just want to say I am really happy to be a part of the chaser community. So many storm chasers stopped and started search and rescue and for that I am proud to be a part of it all.

I will post more on this later on. Thank you for reading and please show your support by leaving a comment!