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I’m working from home trying to get stuff caught up and saw this today.  Actually I have been seeing it a lot over the last couple days.

I called the office about this a couple of weeks ago and now their doing it again.

Wow, what a great way to save energy and reduce your carbon foot print…

You just rip it off from someone else and use their electricity

Ok, Just wrapping up and working on the blog.

I spent most of the time shooting video for KSTP in Minneapolis and the networks since this was a major event hitting in Mid April.   If were suppose to have global warming, why am I chasing a blizzard in April when I’m suppose to be chasing tornadoes?  Oh yeah, I forgot, it’s not “Global Warming” it is now Climate Change or as I like to call it, Climate Tax. 

This chase took a lot out of me since the drive was freaking intense just to get up to Duluth, MN from Minneapolis, MN  I left my place around 5:00 in the afternoon to head up north since I was waiting around for my new computer parts and did not get much sleep the night before. 

Honestly, I almost opted to stay home and focus on the local area instead of heading up north since the Twin Cities was under a Winter Storm Warning.  I was thinking why drive 200 miles up north when you could get snow right in town.  But after looking at the latest forecast models and surface observations all day to forecast when and where this event was going to happen, I went with my original forecast and headed up north.

Rush hour traffic sucked to say the least but when I got to the north side of town is when the real hazards started, the sleet. 

From the north side of the metro around North Branch, MN to Moose Lake, MN the roads really started to get bad as I was following and now in the freezing line of the storm system where it changed from rain to sleet and heavy wet snow.   There was a lot of cars in the ditch and I even saw what looked like a Tour Bus or Large RV in the ditch at one point. 

When I stopped for gas in Barnum, saw a BMW in the ditch and stopped to shoot some footage.  I think they had a new tow truck driver helping them out since he did not hook up the car correctly and I could hear plastic snapping as he was pulling out the car.  How could I tell?  He was using the cable from on top of the boom which at the angle of the cable was pushing up against the bottom of the front of the car causing it to damage the cars front ground effects.

Anyways, the stop in Barnum MN was a good thing since I was able to winterize myself and change into the space suit I pretty much wear all the time for chasing the intense cold.  And it was good for me because as soon as I left this scene, I got back on Interstate 35 and a few miles down the road just outside of Duluth, I came across a 18 Wheel Semi Truck that jacked knifed about a mile ahead of me. As I got up on the scene I found it was blocking both lanes of Interstate 35.  I stopped and another trucker was there to help light up the wreck so drivers would not run into the trailer.  I talked to the driver who looked kind of pissed that I was not the state patrol but a news cameraman there too shoot video.  Only his pride was hurt so I talked to the other truck driver who stopped and he asked if I could stay until the State Patrol showed up on the scene.  So I lite the area up with all my flood lights on the front of the Jeep and then shot a bunch of video and snapped a few photos of the jack knifed semi until the state patrol showed up.  The trooped thanked me for flood lightning the scene to help warn everyone else and then I was back on my way to Duluth.

Now I made it to Duluth before the snow started to fall but the winds were screaming with reports of sustained winds in the upper 40s and gusts to over 60 miles per hour.  But it did not take long for the snow to start falling and it was not the lite fluffy snow but the heavy wet concrete like snow that is the worst to deal with.  Even though the snow was the nasty heavy snow, this is all going to melt in a few weeks and help raise Lake Superior which has been dealing with a drought for a couple years.

The winds and waves were pretty intense during the over night hours and I broke off the chase about two in the morning to start editing and uploading footage to KSTP and the networks.  I thought I was going to be able to get the video out and get some sleep by 3am but those planes were scrapped now that I got the footage out because now I was seeing thunder snow and power flashes form the heavy snow and high winds snapping power lines.   When I got back from shooting some more footage for the station and the networks, I was staying up way past the point of being insane sleep deprivation and still had to do some phone interviews.  Neva said I sound good but very tired on TV but hey, I was up all night and into the next day.  It was pretty funny while I was doing the interview for The Weather Channel because I called it a frozen tropical storm and it was just like a tropical chase since I was now sitting in my hotel room, in the dark without power since the storm knocked out the power.  I did have one of my powerful LED lights with that I use for scuba diving.  That lit the room up pretty good while I waited around for the sun to rise.

All in all, it was a great chase but the down side of this chase was that I made the mistake of not bringing along a lot of paper towels to keep things dry and was using some hand towels.  Yeah, fabric softener and camera lenses don’t like each other…  And I forgot to bring along some food from home.  Nothing special but anything would have been better then the food I ate… I had McCrap for two meals yesterday and today I feel like I have a McHangover with a massive headache from lack of sleep and eating bad. 

Ok, not much sleep but the laptop has been rebuilt and is ready to go.

I’m just checking the weather obs and this is just in from Mason City Iowa.  There reporting a wind gust of 49 miles per hour.  That’s strong tropical storm force winds.

Mason City Municipal Airport Lat: 43.16   Lon: -93.33   Elev: 1194 Last Update on Apr 10, 12:53 pm CDT

Light Rain Fog/Mist and Windy 37°F (3°C) Humidity: 89 % Wind Speed: E 30 G 49 MPH Barometer: 29.62″ (1003.4 mb) Dewpoint: 34°F (1°C) Wind Chill: 24°F (-4°C) Visibility: 2.50 mi.

Right now I’m on standby to head to Duluth for this setup but since the weather is not going to hit up there until tonight and tomorrow, it may hit Minneapolis today and then Duluth tomorrow.  Also as promised, I’m also importing the photos from the last 2 weeks to get things caught up there before it gets anymore out of control.Oh and before I forget, I was the guest speaker with Adam Frederick, KIMT-TV Chief Meteorologist and long time storm chaser http://www.severewx.com/.  We gave a speech at the Midwest Journalism Conference that was held on March 28th and 29th.  Adam gave a great talk about severe weather forecasting and in my book, one of the best Skywarn Training for the media to show the reporters and news directors. I gave a talk about what it is like in the field while chasing all the different weather and the hazards in chasing.  

Well, that’s pretty much an update for now. Oh and yes, the laptop is up and running just fine as I’m typing on it.  The rain just started here so I have to get ready to head up north for the Blizzard.

Sorry for the delay on the updates and stuff but had a little issue with my laptop the other day.  The new parts should be here this morning and I should have that rebuilt again and then it’s back on the road to cover the blizzard.

What happened to the laptop?  It’s a problem with the Dell 5150 series with the motherboards and the power supply setup where their touchy to say the least.  I tried out an old power supply I had in the closet and it blew the board.  So with most of the stuff on the laptop hard drive that I was going to post, it’s in a pile of parts right now and I’m working on the desk top at home.

But I will be waiting on this chase for new parts for my laptop which are in route to me and I pray will be here in the morning in just a few hours.  Lucky I know where to get a replacement and how to repair it myself.  Seems like I’m doing a lot of repairs myself these days.  Last weekend I was at Nevas and brought my tools up to work on my truck.  I got the new front breaks in and she helped me out with it.  The total cost for new front breaks and rotors was around $160 which is about $400 cheaper if I would have brought the truck into the shop.  Now when I touch the breaks, the truck stops fast and it’s ready for this chase season.  The sad part is the money I saved on the breaks went into the laptop.

So right now I’m working on the back end of the new BNVN website tonight while our crews are working on the storms in Texas.  The new site with the custom php setup is looking sweet.  Anyways d now onto the weather.  Ok, this winter weather is not giving up and I’m having one last winter blast.  Looks like I will be heading up towards Duluth tomorrow for the Blizzard.  Yes Blizzard.  A couple of years ago I was chasing tornadoes in Kansas on April 10th but this year I will be chasing a blizzard. 

Ok, back on line after a mad marathon of video editing all the flooding footage into stock video catalogs.  Turned eight hours of raw HD into just over three hours of edited down stock video.   It took a long time to edit all the footage and it’s been interesting to say the least because one of my computers failed in the middle of all the editing. It was the new Lenovo R500 that died.  Well it did not really die, it just started overheating to the point where the processor would reach up to the 80C temp and shut the computer off.

The computer is still under the one year warranty period and I thought I was going to be without a computer for a few weeks at best when I sent it in on Monday for service.  To my surprise, I got the laptop back today from Lenovo and after a few encoding tests, it is fixed.  The max temp while encoding on both cores was just 59C and everything seems to be working just fine.  I will have to give IBM and Lenovo credit for fixing the computer faster then I ever dreamed they could.  I remember when I had issues with my older Dell laptop, it took weeks to get things repaired.

So if anyone is wondering about the Lenovo laptops, I can say their repair work is insane fast. 

Still working on stuff now for the new website and getting things in order for the spring chase next month if I’m not stuck up in Fargo for the flooding.  The new forecasts for the Red River are saying it might flood just as high but then it might not.  It will be interesting to see what happens over the next seven days. 

I should be getting all the photos from the Red River Valley flooding trip on line in the next few days and then back to working on the other website stuff for BNVN.  Lots of stuff to do and little time to work on it while the weather is active.

Today I got a rude awakening from Neva who pretty much kicked me out of the house to go shoot photos and video of the bus crash that she woke up hearing about on the news.  So I’m pretty tired right now and all I can say is that it was pretty bad scene with lots of people hurt and one killed.  The cause of the crash is under investigation by the State Troopers.

Here is the video.

I saw this on the way home from Neva’s place today.  I laughed my ass off and had to turn around and drive back and photograph it and shoot some video of this for stock. 

It’s about time that someone with money makes a statement about the b.s. that is called global warming.  I remember we were all suppose to go into the next ice age back in the 1970s and now it’s the left saying were all going to die from warming.

Oh, Global Warming Tax.  How can you tax something you can’t prove and what is the plan to stop global warming?  I dare anyone to tell me what is the solution and where do we want to go to get to some point where the global warming is stopped?  Nobody will tell me where this is all going and what the end goal is because they just want to tax and spend the money but when will it be enough? 

And what about all the pollution created by making bio fuels?  Oh, nobody wants to talk about that.  When the global warming tree hugging crowd will agree to building two dozen new nuke power plants around the United States, Drilling in Alaska for oil to get off the supplies of buying from people that hate us along with some serious efforts to create hydrogen powered cars which is need the nuke plants for the energy to make the hydrogen, then maybe I’ll listen when you get a serious plan.  But don’t say were all going to die and then be spin less on how to fix it without just taxing money to buy votes with b.s. programs that feel good.

I went out chasing today in the winter storm and got some Nascar like footage with cars fish tailing and even one spinning out right in front of me

Here is the video.

Today was a crazy day in general.  Lot’s of stuff to do which is a good thing but still a balancing act to say the least. 

Since the ENG or electronic news side of BNVN took a back seat to the stock video business, I’m still working on trying to keep a happy medium.  Before I could even get out the door, I had to take care of several stock video fires with over-sea’s clients and one client that is in the middle of post production on a movie.   

My friend Aaron just sent me this video. This is hella funny. Ok I really gotta get back to work here now but this is hella funny!