Category: Uncategorized

Okay I was again doing a shoot at the Mall of America. for my agent for some people I had no idea who they were. If your on a TV show and I’m shooting video of you for another TV show on CNN or Inside Edition for archive footage, please don’t take it the wrong way I have no clue who you are. I work a lot, travel a lot and spend more time looking at weather charts and editing video then most people spend at a full time job or would care to know how much I work. But its my hobby and I love it.

Today I was doing a shoot at the MOA where their was some guys from One Tree Hill. Some girl was about ready to bitch slap me for not knowing who they were and every little detail about them. Um yeah, I go where people tell me to go and shoot what people tell me to shoot. The guy that created the show looked like he was having a blast and so did the younger guy but the other guy looked like he was upset about something.

It was pretty crazy and funny with security because their was this freaky old dude that just kept taking their picture right in front of the stage. Security was even checking on him to see what he was up to.

The other funny thing was their P.R. rep was there and she would freak out if any of the fans tried to give them a hug. Worried about lawsuits and such and I can’t blame her. All you need is one crazy fan and it becomes a nightmare.

Been working on a lot of stuff lately and I saw this quote today and thought I would pass it along.

“Mankind has a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it”

That sounds modern but it is from Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784. And people wonder why I’m such a history freak.

Been working on a lot of stuff lately and I saw this quote today and thought I would pass it along.  

“Mankind has a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it”.  

That sounds modern but it is from Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784. And people wonder why I’m such a history freak.

10/31/2006 4:00 PM – Just working on the scans and photo reviewing stuff. Here is another lost image that I brought back from the dead or the pile of lost negatives. Just thinking back over the last year and a year ago today I was in New York City doing stuff for National Geographic. Man how time goes by. Anyway, here is the lost image.

10/31/2006 5:30 AM – Working at home today to get caught up on the scans and the video archive. I have the bulk of the scans done but I’m just going back and re-scanning some stuff that I need to color correct and get to look the way I want. I have had a few people ask me about the project last week and what it was all about. I can’t say until after it is broadcast due to the investigative news aspect but I can say this, someone in Florida is screwed!!!

10/27/2006 8:30 PM – Just got home after a pretty fun day. I got a video assignment from a TV Station in Orlando to go and shoot some stuff for them in Wisconsin for the day. Man I miss this type of work. Setup lights, run cameras during the interview, shoot some B-Roll and not have to do anything with the freaking weather. And the sick thing is, these gigs can be lame sometimes but they pay very well. I just did not like them in the past since I could not go and chase storms at a moments notice. But now that I’m older and wiser, hell yeah, I’m getting back into the Midwest freelancer news video market for stations and production companies that are not from the Twin Cities. It was so freaking great to not have to go and find the story again. Just go here and shoot this.

What was this gig of? I won’t say until after the story is on the air in a few weeks but I will say this, it is F’n Huge!

10/25/2006 7:00 PM – I got the urge and I needed my dive fix and the weather was nice and sunny fall day here in Minneapolis so I went scuba diving. Man it was a little chilly at 43 feet down with the temp only at 46F but then again that was what it normally is down there. But it was a scuba dive so it was all good.

10/25/2006 12:30 PM – At home just editing the video from yesterday of which I was in the middle of some grass fires in Savage MN. Here is a video still from the stuff yesterday. I should have the video up later today. I got so close to the flames at one point that I have a little sun burn on my forehead.

10/24/2006 1:55 AM – I’m just wrapping things up before I take tomorrow / today off in the morning to go scuba dive around town. I am working on the site behind the scenes and I’m down to my last 4 rolls of film to scan on the automatic setup and 2 rolls of film to scan in that are of the Auroras. The problem with the Auroras is when I put the scanner on auto to clean up the dust and smooth out the grain, it removed all the stars when I scanned them yesterday. My hope is to get through the negs by the end of the day and just be done with this project.

What else have I been working on. I have been putting together all the numbers for the up coming price list. I should have that on line by the end of today. Yes my hurricane Katrina prices are going to be high but I have a unique product that nobody else has. I have had a couple people bitch about paying $90 per second for broadcast rights and telling me they can get Katrina footage from other chasers royalty free or for $35 per second. Fine go for it, good luck trying to find Katrina footage on Canal Street in downtown New Orleans since I was the only one there.

Another hope of mine by finally listing the private prices. When other chasers, and I know you guys read this shit for ideas, see what I charge and see what the license restrictions and how I do it, they will start charging more. I just laugh at other chasers selling Royalty Free Video packages. That is for people who are broke and in need of money. There is only one way to be successful at storm chasing and make a living at it. How can you be successful? Know what your clients need before they know what they need and provide the best product for them so that when they see it, they know you know them. How do you do that? I’m not telling you except for it all boils down to experience. But it is cool to see the saying out there now of WWKD which is What Would Kiesling Do or WIKD for What Is Kiesling Doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I started shooting photographs of lightning years ago and I would see post cards from stuff around the midwest and say it would be cool to do that with lightning. Photographers rip off each others ideas all the time and that’s just a fact of life. I heard a while back that some chasers in OK were pissed off because I made money chasing and it was all about the money and not the chase. Um no, BNVN is about bringing the pay scale up for the BNVN chasers and helping them out by opening doors that would normally get slammed in their face. If another chaser sells a tornado video for $1000 to The Weather Channel, I don’t mind that much. There keeping the pay scale up to where it is suppose to be at to make chasing profitable. But when some dumb ass wanna be chaser that has been chasing for a year or two or has the mind set that they are a bad ass cowboy from down south with the laws of the road be damned because they are with sky warn… When those idiots give away their footage for next to nothing, well, there just fucking everyone over. Because once the TV producers know that someone will work cheap, they will always expect them to work cheap. And with some of the people working the news desks, I swear they get off on trying to screw the freelancer over to get cheap video.

Some people will pay for fame by giving away their video just to get their name on TV. Um guess what, nobody cares or see’s that except maybe some friends and family. From a business point of view, getting your name on TV and giving away broadcast rights is a dumb ass move.

10/22/2006 4:50 AM , Just wrapping up stuff here this morning before I call it a night. I’m down to the last 12 rolls of film to be scanned in for the photo project. I have got a lot of the stuff that was on my plate out of the way and hope to have the last of the images scanned in by Tuesday or Wednesday. I saw that the soon to be Hurricane Paul is heading for BFE Mexico and I decided that it really is not worth it to chase that one in the middle of no where Mexico when I got a lot of stuff on the burner up here that I need to work on.

I figure once I get the negs scanned in and start working on the photo pages, I can finish up Weather Paparazzi by the first week of November then start on the new DVD project. Since I’m almost out of the Hurricane Katrina DVDs and the Hurricane Charley DVDs, I’m putting together a best of DVD that will include all of the hurricanes as well as the tornado video, lightning footage and the Aurora footage. This will look back at the whole Weather Paparazzi footage from the last 3 years. It will include a lot of never before seen footage and be pretty cool. I’m also talking to some of the guys about using their footage in it as well from the chases they joined me on.

All in all, it should be pretty cool once I’m done.

Also, here are a couple new images that I found in the scan pile. Yeah, and why did I get the nick name Lightning boy? Ha! Even though I’m still not done scanning in the new stuff, I have over 200 gigs of new scans to work with. The stock photography section is going to be huge.

10/20/2006 – I have to wonder if people are really that stupid. I just got a email bitching at me for not getting back to some college student about sending him free footage for his college project. PEOPLE, I SELL VIDEO FOR A LIVING, I AM NOT THE GOOD WILL OF VIDEO!!! If you want free video, go shoot it your self. Spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on going to different location’s, weeks away from home, busted up equipment, near death experiences and do it your self!!! If you want my work, it is my work and you pay for my work. Don’t ask me for free shit, I have bills to pay.

10/16/2006 6:00 PM, Today I have been working on finishing up the scans of all the old film to get into the computer and the get it all off to storage. It will be nice to get a lot of this stuff out of the home and into storage finally to make room and not have everything cluttered. I’m also uploading the footage from last week of the fall colors along Taylors Falls and the Michigan Snow Storm. The Michigan Snow Storm footage is up on Google but I have not embedded the link on my site yet.

10/14/2006

Back from the frozen tropical storm in Upper Michigan

I got back home from Upper Michigan yesterday and crashed as soon as I got home.

Back home after a long but fun chase. I was caught up on a lot of stuff at home and really wanted to get away for a chase since this years hurricane season pretty much sucked ass and I was getting SDS (Storm Depervation Syndrom) so I chased Upper Michigan.

First off, the Houghton and Hancock area rocks. Everyone is super cool and I love that place. Case in point, while shooting some video on 41 right in front of the city hall, a cop came out to talk to me. I thought it would be the move along, homeland security you can’t film here B.S. Nope, it was hey man, who you shooting for, come on in and grab some coffee if your cold, where can I get a copy of the video later. Totally cool!!! The people at the coffee shop where totally cool too. Everyone there is totally cool. The whole area is so laid back, it reminded me how things were 15 years ago before all the security and terror risk fenced in b.s. stuff. What really amazed me was all the burned up embers on the lake shore. I thought they had a massive wild fire or something and some people told me “Oh no, everyone goes out on the beach to party during the summer and starts up a camp fire and camps out on the beach.” I was totally blown away. No political correct B.S and no you can’t do that for fear of global warming or that might offend someone. It was all cool up there and the country side was like just west of Denver with the hills and mountains. I can’t wait to go back up there in a couple months when they have a couple hundred inches of snow on the ground just to go play in it.

Anyways, enough with how much the U.P. of Michigan rocks.

I left Minneapolis on the 11th to chase the forecasted winter storm in Upper Michigan. The forecast was for a couple feet of snow. That did not happen. It snowed a couple inches in Houghton and up in the hills around Twin Lakes, they got over a foot of snow, the wet heavy snow. The temps did not get that cold and it was pretty amazing to see the weather change from 25 to almost 40 just in a few miles from on top of the mountains to down by the lake.

I did meet up with Rocky on Thursday just as the monster snow started. We had snow pellets falling that were worthy of calling in as pea sized hail. Here is Rocky in the tropical storm force winds and snow getting just soaked while he was checking out the monster waves.

The wave action was pretty sweet and was just like a tropical storm which is why I’m calling it a Frozen Tropical Storm.

Here is me leaning into some 48 mph winds on Friday Morning. On one side of the breakers the lake was violent but on the other side it was pretty calm.

Between snow bands the sun would come out and would clear up and make the white caps look meaner.

Here is the Ontonagon light house, the new light house since the old one is now in the middle of a paper mill ship yard.

Just outside of town I took this photo of the fall colors. Some red’s, some yellow’s, some gold’s and a lot of white. This made the Weather.com photo of the day on Thursday.

There is not a lot to see in between towns and not a lot of people until you get up to Houghton or Ontonagon since the smaller towns are just small resort towns but the scenery is great!!! I shot more video and took more photos on this trip then I did for Tropical Storm Alberto and I got better waves on the breakers.

But for those who don’t like the cold, the wind chill was brutal. I was wearing some of my scuba gear under my clothes just to stay dry and kill off the winds. In the photo of me leaning back into the wind, I’m wearing a 3.5 mil long wet suit hood to keep the wind away from freezing my ears and face. It worked pretty slick and my 5mm dive gloves were great for working the camera and keeping my hands warm without getting in the way of feeling for the controls. The water proof boots were great when the storm surge waves would move up to where I was standing and kept my feet dry. The lake was 18″ below normal with the drought so I could only imagine what the waves and surge would have been like at the normal lake depth.

All in all, it was a fun trip and even having a little chaser convergence in one of the most remote places in the United States next to the Keys. Now that I think about it, the U.P is The Key’s Of The North, only conservative.

Oh yeah, I shot several packages for the weather channel while I was up there so I was working, well, if you can call my job work.

10/11/2006 11:50 PM Eastern. I’m up in Upper Michigan to cover the winter storm. I already shot one video for The Weather Channel today and this system is just getting started. Tomorrow should be pretty intense.

No, it is not a winter storm, it is a frozen tropical storm. Here is the forecast from the National Weather Service.

1123 PM EDT WED OCT 11 2006 …FIRST WINTER STORM OF THE SEASON FOR PORTIONS OF WEST AND CENTRAL UPPER MICHIGAN…

A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED NORTHEAST OF LAKE SUPERIOR WILL CONTINUE TO INTENSIFY AS IT DRIFTS SLOWLY EAST AND NORTH THROUGH THURSDAY. POST FRONTAL LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS WILL CONTINUE TO DEVELOP OVER WESTERN AND NORTH CENTRAL UPPER MICHIGAN. WEST TO NORTHWEST WINDS TONIGHT AND THURSDAY MORNING WILL BRING THESE LAKE EFFECT SNOW SHOWERS TO LOCATIONS NORTH AND WEST OF A LINE FROM CRYSTAL FALLS TO MARQUETTE…WITH THE HEAVIEST SNOW EXPECTED ALONG THE HIGHER TERRAIN FROM IRONWOOD TO PAINESDALE. WINDS WILL BECOME MORE SOUTHWESTERLY BY THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT…FOCUSING THE HEAVIER SNOW OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN NORTH OF PAINESDALE. IN ADDITION TO THE SNOWFALL…WINDS WILL GUST TO 40 MPH AT TIMES TONIGHT AND NEAR 50 MPH AT TIMES THURSDAY AND THURSDAY NIGHT.

10/10/2006 9:00 PM Ok, been working like a dog here getting a lot of stuff caught up and now it is time to go back on the chase.   Tomorrow I am heading up to the U.P. of Michigan and chasing the winter storm.  It will be coming in with lake effect snow and big ass waves like a frozen hurricane.

10/10/2006 8:00 PM Just finished up the fall colors video for The Weather Channel. I was up shooting from Taylors Falls to Stillwater MN.

10/9/2006 03:30 AM – I pulled another all nighter, well, not really, I took a nap after dinner but yeah, I worked again right through the night cleaning up my desk. Check out the photos below from now and yesterday. I ended up filling up a large trash bag with worthless film negs and photos. All I can say is WOW, a just cleared out a lot of crap off my desk.

All the negs are sorted into what needs to be scanned and what needs to go to archive. Everything is coming along just great now. After some sleep and then getting the new windshield for my Jeep after last weeks hail storm, I plan in jumping right back into the scanning and video tap review while the scanner is doing its thing.

Looks like Wednesday I will be out playing in the snow and North Korea fired off a nuke. Its Global Warming… NOT!

10/8/2006 4:15 PM – If your looking to get an idea of the stuff that I’m working on right now, here is an image of the right side of my huge L shaped desk in my office. It is a six foot section that is covered with all of the old negatives and slides that I pulled out of the archive to organize and then file away “IN ORDER” once the images are scanned in. I don’t have to scan all of the images, just review and organize everything and then scan or re scan some of the stuff for the new photo gallery site.

I have found several images of northern lights and tornadoes that I did not even remember I had. Now I just want to get everything in order and scanned so I can finish the site ASAP.

One thing is for sure, once this project is done, it will be another huge load off my back and I can file away all this stuff in storage.

10/7/2006 4AM – Woke up early and I’m working on the photo archive. Yesterday I picked up a new scanner that will let me scan the last few years of the print and slide photography work. I could not believe how hard it was to track down a good new scanner that can scan 35mm and 120 film since everything has gone digital photography.

So what is the scoop with all of the photography stuff? Well I started editing and got a good chunk of the photographs reviewed and edited and ready for the web. Only problem, I was going to use a java script photo gallery until I read and heard a few of the horror stories about people ripping off images. So now I have to go over everything again and put the watermark on the images to prevent the internet scum bags from ripping off the images.

Is that a problem with people ripping off images and video? Hell yes!!! I have been finding my stuff on You Tube, and Yahoo Video and even on Google video of the old WMV files. So before I put the still photographs back on line, I’m watermarking everything then putting it on line. I hope to have it back up on line in the next 2 weeks.

10/4/2006 5:00 PM – Well yesterday sucked. While I was out filming the harvesting and fall colors, on my way home a late season storm fired up and I got hail cored. It was like being in the middle of a hurricane at night with stuff flying all over the place and slamming into the truck. My front window got cracked up and dents in the hood and roof are pretty nasty. If I knew there was going to be hail, I would have rented a car for the day.

10/3/2006 11:00 AM – Out to do some fall colors video and out in the area around Mankato to document people harvesting. I’m sure I will get several people jumping off their equipment to find out what I’m doing. Just shooting B-roll stock footage for today.

10/1/2006 – 2:20 AM. Currently I’m wrapping up the Aurora Chase. I’m sitting in the middle of a field somewhere north of Anoka. I was watching a pretty cool aurora display.

9/29/2006 RUSH RUSH RUSH, always rushing for last minute stuff. Today I got a call back from a production company in Los Angeles about a production they are working on and wanted it dubbed and sent within the hour but its past the cut off for the Fedex time.  Oh well…

9/28/2006 Back to working on stuff on the website.

9/27/2006 Last night I was out shooting some bad ass lightning footage and playing Weather Channel photographer in the middle of the thunderstorms. Finally a freaking thunderstorm that I can have some fun with shooting video and getting stills. I have waited all season for a storm like this and probably wont see one until next year. This season has sucked!!!

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9/24/2006 I was out shooting some auroras tonight in northern Minnesota.  It was a weak setup but worth going out after just to have some fun.

9/16/2006 I was in South Dakota chasing and got on a severe storm, or the severe storm got on me. Below is a stitched image of several photos to show you the full scale of the storm I was on and how close I was.

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9/11/2006 7:45 PM – Looks like Hurricane Florence is now long gone from Bermuda and the worst of Florence missed Bermuda by over 50 miles off shore. From my stand point, if I was chasing this, it would have been a bust. Yes some of Bermuda got damaged but it was at best a strong tropical storm event for Bermuda. Now there is Tropical Storm Gordon out in the Atlantic and another tropical wave coming off of Africa. Looking at the various different forecast models, it looks as if all of the future systems coming off Africa will just curve back out to sea and pretty much do nothing. This hurricane season looks pretty dead so now I’m working on trying finish everything up on the web and get it automated in the next few weeks.

9/10/2006 11:00 PM – Watching Hurricane Florence and wow, that storms sucks ass. Where is it? It is a cyclone but where the hell is the storm? There is almost no precipitation with this storm on radar around the eye. This storm is a joke, it won’t be the big storm that everyone is talking about in the media. The eye is 175 KM Southwest of Bermuda and there is not much of the storm that is going to hit Bermuda. I am really feeling good now about not going to Bermuda. Florence would have to take a hard turn to a heading of 035 to hit the Island but that is almost impossible now. Florence is a bust for anyone who chased it to Bermuda as the worst of Florence wont come within 75 KM of the island. And now TD7 has just formed in the wake of Florence.

But I was busy today working on the still photography stuff and here is a 8 photo stitched image of some photographs I took this summer in Devils Tower WY. Click on the image below to get full size image.

9/10/2006 11:50 AM – Five years ago today I received my commercial pilot test sign off to go and take my flight tests. Little did I know that the next day, September 11th would happen and the aviation industry would go down the toilet and the world would be at war. This morning I woke up and saw that Florence was now a weak hurricane but it looks like it will be going west of Bermuda. If this is the case, most of the worst of the storm will miss Bermuda but it all depends on when the storm takes the turn. I may be kicking myself for not going to Bermuda if this thing does take a direct hit but it was too big of a risk to take if this storm missed. Plus based on the last storm I worked for another stringer with Fabian in 2003, most of the US networks really don’t care about the storm. If it is not hitting a major area of the USA, they just don’t care unless it kills a lot of people. The old saying, if it bleeds it leads… Here is a link to the radar from Bermuda. http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/tropics/florence06/Florence… In other news, another reason I will wear an extra coat in the winter if it is cold and won’t live down south. There was a Earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico. The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A strong earthquake occurred about 250 miles (405 km) south-southwest of Apalachicola, Florida at 8:56 AM MDT, Sep 10, 2006 (10:56 AM EDT in Florida). The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available. This earthquake was felt in parts of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. No reports of damage or casualties have been received at this time.
Earthquake Details: Magnitude 6.0 (Strong)
Date-Time Sunday, September 10, 2006 at 14:56:07 (UTC)
Sunday, September 10, 2006 at 8:56:07 AM Local
Location 26.339°N, 86.568°W Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program Region GULF OF MEXICO Distances 402 km (250 miles) WSW (252°) from Anna Maria, FL 403 km (251 miles) WSW (252°) from Holmes Beach, FL 404 km (251 miles) WSW (253°) from Bradenton Beach, FL 418 km (260 miles) WSW (245°) from Clearwater, FL 529 km (329 miles) SE (139°) from New Orleans, LA Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 4 km (2.5 miles); depth fixed by location program Parameters Nst=196, Nph=196, Dmin=545 km, Rmss=1.04 sec, Gp=119°, M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=7 Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID usslav
This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Well, I need to get back to work on the site and sorting out all the photos and working on the projects at hand.

9/9/2006 6:00 AM – It looks like Bermuda will get some of tropical storm Florence but the storm is just not all that together. I am not going to risk blowing several thousand to go to Bermuda for a storm that may or may not hit the area. Bermuda is only 20 kilometers long so if it is not a direct hit, then it will be a total bust. I have already been asked by several networks if I was going and I told them no unless they want to pay for me to go even if the area did not get hit and they then said well, we were hoping you would go so we would not have to pay for anyone to go in case it missed the island. The storm is not even a hurricane as of yet. Here are a couple of the forecasts from the National Hurricane Center. The first one is from last Tuesday and it shows that Florence was suppose to be a hurricane by 8PM on Thursday. It is now 7AM EDT on Saturday (see second image) and Florence is still a tropical storm.

I know, some people will say “But Doug, your just saying that because your not going to Bermuda to chase the storm…” Um yeah sure, if you want to say that go for it but do me a favor first and learn how to forecast. That is in part how I got to where I am today but I did not go to college for it (note my commercial aviation student loans… I can fly just about any airplane if I wanted too…) So let’s look at the facts why it would be a waste of time to go. Here is a surface map pretty much right now as I write this. Look in the Atlantic and check out that Red and Blue line. That is a FRONT and it is in the way of Florence and as soon as Florence hits that front it is going to race off to towards the North and East and fall apart. The storm has not yet pulled it self together and it is about at it’s last chance to do anything before hitting the front. If you look at the next hours of forecasts from UCAR, it kind of makes me say hmmmm, anything is possible but my gut tells me that this will glance Bermuda as a weak hurricane at best or a strong tropical storm. Ether way, Bermuda is built to take the hits from strong storms so it won’t be like Katrina or Charley.

9/8/2006 8:00 PM – Just working on some stuff here for the photo section. I found this photo on my camera and I thought I would share it. I took this off my bedroom deck looking west yesterday. Even though I have to put up with a lot of bull shit, life goes on and you can always enjoy a good sun set.

9/8/2006 Was up early this morning to shoot video of the American Idol try out lines in downtown Minneapolis. I got down there and it was a total waste of time. They opened the doors up early and the only people who were outside were the freaks looking for their 10 seconds of fame on local TV.

I have a long list of B-Roll stuff I have to shoot so went over to the airport and shot some video of the new changes for a project regarding the 9/11 five year anniversary. The Airport Police and the TSA were cool with me but the airport employees, oh yeah, they were all over me for having the camera and tripod out. There are not just some eyes on you at the airport, at the Minneapolis International, everyone is watching everything!

9/7/2006 5:00 PM – Today I was out scuba diving with a new dive buddy that I met on line. We dove in Calhoun and it was pretty decent for Calhoun.

9/7/2006 5:00 AM – I did not get much sleep last night, ok, I was up all night but about to crash out for a while then go scuba diving with some new divers I met on line yesterday. This should be interesting. Anyway, I got a lot of stuff done behind the scenes on the site last night. Now I only have to work on the Winter Weather Video and general weather video pages and then all of the video will be up on line. Then the next pain in the ass project will be the still photography and the hurricane blogs. The hurricane blogs won’t be that big of a head ache as they are pretty much the same thing I had on the old Lightningboy.com site but I just have to bring them over to this site. The real pain in the ass will be the still photography stuff as I will have to go through every Fn Photo I have ever taken in the last 10 years and then pick which photos I want to include on the website and then kick the rest to the archive. Yeah it will be a serious pain in the ass but hey, at least then the site will be up to date… Well, almost… I have a pile of tapes to go through from the last 4 months, then it will be up to date. Maybe if I bust ass and the hurricanes hold off for a couple more weeks, I can have everything done in time for a major storm.

9/5/2006 2:00 PM – Well the story of my life, “this need’s to be done yesterday” should be the title of it. I just got a call from a film festival that want’s me to submit the Katrina documentary but their past the deadline and they want me to shorten it up some from the DVD. I have 6 hours of work to do in 2 to get everything to Fed Ex on time. Oh well, I better get working because I need to start getting ready for Hurricane or Tropical Storm Florence.

9/4/2006 5:00 PM – Well it looks like TD6 is still out there and it could be the next hurricane but it won’t be until next week if at all. There is also something else brewing that I have been watching but just watching now. I have got a lot of work done on the site today. A lot of the video catalogs are now on line which is about damn time. Good news, I was starting to clean the office which needs it bad. The rest of my place is pretty much spotless since I hate having crap all over the place. I grew up with crap all over the place and I hate it. I only let my office get bad now and the rest of my home is nil. I don’t even own a dining room table, that area is EMPTY the way I like it. Minimal. Anyway, while I was cleaning the office, I found my U F Off The Best Of The Orb CD. I thought I lost that a long time ago and was bummed. The Orb is a cross between Pink Floyd and Techno House Music. It is really it’s own style and I could listen to them all day long because it is the kind of music that you can dance to but yet have on in the back ground to get a shit load of work done. And today I got a shit load of work done and hope by the time I crash out tonight that I will have most of the catalogs done.

9/3/2006 7:00 PM – Wow, yesterday was a long day!!! I ended up sleeping until noon today to get caught up on my sleep and just enjoying a nice day of relaxing and doing not much of anything for a while, until the phone rang. Yesterday I was out playing Weather Channel Photographer in the rain that moved in last night.

But before I caught the rain they wanted in Minneapolis last night, I was out chasing after the cold air funnels and thunderstorms just southwest of the metro.

The Cold air funnels would spin up and then be gone in 60 seconds. It was totally now you see it, now you don’t and if you were not in the right place at the right time you saw nothing! Now the focus is back on the tropics and the next system coming on shore. TD6 or Tropical Depression 6 has just formed in the Atlantic and I’m already on standby to cover this system if it makes landfall in the USA.

9/2/2006 6:40 AM – Ok, the sleep schedule is just Fd up now, been up all morning working on the site and watching some DVD’s. Finally watched a movie that was good. I watched Inside Man and I have to say that it was one of the better movies I have seen in years. Not too predictable and kept me from hitting fast forward so I rate it 4.5 our of 5 stars. Why not 5 for 5? If I said why, it would ruin the ending for you… Anyway, I got the stock video request form up and running and a lot of ASP stuff working on the site. It is pretty cool because now when people request footage from me, they have to fill out the stock video request forms. No more beating around the bush and trying to buy or sell a used car. It is straight forward paperwork where you take out the B.S. of trying to sell stock footage.

In other news, just looking at the latest forecasts from Dr. Gray and Colorado State. Ok, I am laughing my ass off at all of the forecasters and weather geek’s and freaks. Just about everyone was freaking out about the hurricane season from hell and were suppose to get all of these massive storms that are going to end up killing everyone due to global warming. Um, yeah, the forecast went back to being pretty much normal from Dr. Gray. Um, yeah, um were going to need to have a talk about your TPS Reports… http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2006/sep2006/ With the rate this current hurricane season is going, we may have a below average year now. If it is a below average year then a lot of weather guessers are going to have a lot of explaining to do because last May they all scared the crap out of everyone.

9/2/2006 2:30 AM – DAMN, I just woke up after a marathon day of stuff yesterday. I thought I was going to go to bed late in the morning then wake up and take care of some stuff around noon. Well, no, one thing led to another, and another and the next thing I knew it was noon and then it was 2pm then it was 6pm and I passed out on the couch watching The Weather Channel. I did not even make it to the bed because I was so damn fried from working. At least this was a good warm up for the next tropical storm or hurricane that I’m going to go out on. I got so many ideas now about different ways to do things that it will make people say WTF where did he come up with that idea. The best part about working to coordinate and produce all the stuff from the BNVN crew on Ernesto, BNVN is know as the ones to go to who get the shots because were the real deal. Speaking of the next tropical system, the GFDL and the other computer models now have a new system forming in the Atlantic next week. Looks like September hurricane season is kicking into high speed.

9/1/2006 6:00 AM – UGH, wow what a crazy 18 hours this has been. I stayed home for Ernesto because I did not think it would be that good when it hit North Carolina. BUT, the BNVN crew was there and we got some Fn Kick Ass Footage. Dan, Bill and Matt were on the case on the chase and kicked ass!!! The footage is all over The Weather Channel this morning. CNN has also picked up some of the footage and in the middle of working out some stuff with Associated Press London and then I’m off to bed. I did not get to chase the tropical storm but I did get to work on the production side of my gig which I love to do. I don’t care about being on TV or fame, yes it is fun but I love the production side of the biz. Getting all the deals in place and seeing the work on TV, that is what I love to do.

8/31/2006 1:00 PM – Wow, Ernesto is looking a lot better and now I’m pissed that I’m at home in Minneapolis but I’m going to be able to produce this video tropical video project just like old times when I let the stringers do the work and I stayed home. Bill and Matt are on the case so this is going to be a long day.

8/30/2006 11:00 PM – Just working from home today and getting a lot of stuff caught up. Everything needs a plan of attack and I have a war of work on my hands. Just trying to organize everything and get the site finished. Today I was watching Tropical DEPRESSION Ernesto and just laughing my ass off at this storm. This thing is so lame that when I talked to my buddy Brian in Sarasota, he said everyone was just pissed off that they hyped the shit out of this storm. We laughed our asses off at some footage we saw from the NASA video feeds. It was a broken sky and a windy day with some rain as they moved the Space Shuttle back out to the launch pad. Brian said he looked at the data last night and said he has seen better sea breeze setups. This storm is crap, it has always been a shitty storm and that is all it is. For those who are hyping it up trying to make it like Hurricane Katrina and wow the flooding and the winds around Lake Okeechobee, get fn real. Most of Florida will get street flooding even with a sea breeze thunderstorm. That’s like calling a dust devil a tornado you fn losers.

8/29/2006 5:00 PM CDT – A year ago today I was in the middle of the biggest natural disaster in the history of the USA shooting Hurricane Katrina video in New Orleans. Today I’m at home watching the lamest storm on radar called Ernesto or Er-Lamo or maybe Er-Busto…

Tropical storm Ernesto is a joke. I just looked on SwiftWX and the winds suck ass!!!

Here is the current weather: Miami, Miami International Airport: 5:53 PM EDT – Temperature: 81 F – Wind from: East/Northeast (060 deg) – Dewpoint: 75 F – Wind Speed: 13.8 mph (12 kts) Homestead Air Force Base: 5:55 PM EDT – Temperature: 77.0 F Wind from: East/Northeast (070 deg) Dewpoint: 77.0 F Wind Speed: 17.3 mph (15 kts) Gusting To: 27.6 mph (24 kts) Marathon, Marathon Airport: 5:53 PM EDT – Temperature: 78 F Wind from: North/Northwest (340 deg) Dewpoint: 75 F Wind Speed: 13.8 mph (12 kts) Gusting To: 20.7 mph (18 kts) Key West, Key West International Airport: 5:53 PM EDT – Temperature: 78 F Wind from: North (360 deg) Dewpoint: 73 F Wind Speed: 12.7 mph (11 kts) OK, NOW THERE IS A TROPICAL STORM JUST OFF THE COAST OF FLORIDA HERE AND THIS IS THE CURRENT CONDITIONS WHICH SUCK ASS. NOW, LET’S LOOK AT SOMEPLACE ELSE IN THE COUNTRY, OH, LIKE LET’S FROM ONE END OF THE COUNTRY TO THE OTHER END OF THE COUNTRY As we load up our SwiftWX software and bust out the mapping ruler, let’s go directly 3000 miles from Marathon Florida and we end up in… Pendleton Oregon! What is the weather like in Pendleton Oregon right now? Eastern Oregon Regional At Pendleton Airport: 3:53 PM MDT – Temperature: 79 F Wind from: West (270 deg) Dewpoint: 39 F Wind Speed: 39.1 mph (34 kts) Gusting To: 43.7 mph (38 kts) Pendleton Oregon has more Tropical storm like weather then southern Florida!!! Stupid fn media hype ruined this storm!

8/28/2006 9:00 PM – Just like I thought, Ernesto look’s like crap. It is stuck in Cuba and I think it will be stuck in Cuba for the next 24 hours. I’m just watching The Weather Channel and there just wearing out my Hurricane Katrina Video from New Orleans. They must have used a couple minutes of my Hurricane Katrina Footage tonight to feature the one year after New Orleans and Katrina video.

8/28/2006 5:00 AM – Wow, this storm looks like crap. Here is the latest radar from Cuba. Look at all of the mountains that Ernesto will have to deal with before making it into the Gulf Of Mexico. This storm is HYPE HYPE HYPE. And again the NHC forecast is saying “THE INTENSITY FORECAST REMAINS QUITE COMPLICATED DUE TO POSSIBLE LAND INTERACTIONS WITH CUBA. ” But I know they have to over hype this some because look what happened in the past with rapid development with Andrew and Katrina. But they did not have the mountains to deal with and that is what is really making me say, Hmmmmmmmm?

Also if you look at the NHC forecast track, now they have it hitting Miami. Tomorrow it may be going to the islands off the east coast of Florida. Honestly, if this storm misses Florida, I won’t cry about it because they have been hit way too many times and if it falls apart, it is a good wake up call for everyone that it could happen still. I still think this will be tropical storm El-Busto.

8/28/2006 2:00 AM CST – A year ago today I was out filming the Hurricane Katrina video. It was 24 hours until Katrina hit and pretty much changed my life forever. Now tropical storm Ernesto has formed southeast of Cuba and southwest of Haiti. What are my plans for chasing, I’m considering it but you also have to consider the hype factor.

1. It is the anniversary of Katrina, anything tropical is going to by hyped for ratings. OH MY GOD, ANOTHER STORM!!!
2. The forecasts earlier in the season were for serious death and destruction. This is going to be an above average hurricane season was what just about EVERYONE (except for me) was saying. They said that so many storms were going to hit, it was going to be just like last year, were all going to die, global warming is going to kill us all…
3. This year’s history of storms. Um yeah right but what happened to Alberto, oh yeah, Alberto sucked ass. Then we had tropical storm Beryl or as I liked to call it Tropical Storm Barely that hit pretty much nothing off the coast of Massachusetts. I was all hyped up for a possible Hurricane Chris or Tropical Storm Chris and guess what, oh yeah, Tropical System Chris died. Then Debbie was suppose to be the next big one to hit the east coast and it became a fish storm which means it only hit out at sea and hit the fish.

Now we have Ernesto and I personally think Ernesto will be El-Busto. Why? I was reading Dr. Jeff Masters blog on Weather Underground tonight and he had some great images from Google Earth of the west coast of Haiti. Western Haiti is Mountains and it is going to kill Ernesto. The Hurricane Center upgraded Ernesto to a Hurricane then they downgraded it back to a Tropical Storm. I personally think this will hit Florida as a Tropical Depression at best.

Here was what the 11:00 PM NHC forecast said. THE INTENSITY FORECAST IS GREATLY COMPLICATED BY LAND INTERACTIONS WITH CUBA. SHOULD ERNESTO NOT REGAIN MUCH ORGANIZATION BEFORE REACHING CUBA…IT IS POSSIBLE THAT NOT A LOT WILL BE LEFT OF THE CYCLONE WHEN IT EMERGES INTO THE FLORIDA STRAITS. In English, this storm is dead. HOWEVER…THE UPPER-LEVEL WINDS REMAIN CONDUCIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT…AND THE OFFICIAL FORECAST WILL ASSUME A VIGOROUS RESTRENGTHENING OVERNIGHT TONIGHT AND A SUBSTANTIAL CYCLONE SURVIVING THE PASSAGE OVER CUBA. IN THIS THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS CLOSE TO THE GFDL GUIDANCE…BUT WELL ABOVE THE SHIPS MODEL. In English, they are covering their ass in case the storm re fires after it comes off of Cuba. I really don’t think it is going to be much of anything now because as I write this, it is 3:00 AM Eastern which is well past the overnight hours that NHC talks about and the storm looks like crap. The storm, it is pretty much the red and yellow on the IR Satellite image below. Where is the eye? Where is the well formed spiral bands? Where is the storm?

I see Ernesto as being a rain event only. But then again, Katrina was a shitty little storm when it started out off the east coast of Florida. Why am I so negative about this storm? When I was out in San Francisco, this system was on track to hit Mexico and southern Texas. Then the computer models had it going into Houston and then into the New Orleans area. Yesterday morning, they had it going up the same path as Ivan and Dennis into the panhandle of Florida. Yesterday afternoon all the computer models had it hitting Tampa. Now it is barely going to make Fort Myers and by tonight, it might just be dead in 24 hours because of Cuba. The computer models just keep moving around and nothing looks good from model run to model run. Think I’m talking out of my ass? Well look at the forecast history on NHC. Click Here For NHC Forecast Archive Page About Ernesto

If this was on the western edge of Cuba where it is pretty flat, I would say Florida and the Gulf Coast is screwed but honestly, I like the hype to remind people that it is hurricane season and that people have to pay attention to the weather but the over hype, well, that is a little much but as a TV Producer, I have to remember that it was one year ago today I was setting up for Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Update, it is 3:30 AM and here is another sat image. Still looks like crap to me. That brownish stuff to the north is dry air. Um yeah, this thing may die in the next 48 hours.

8/27/2006 6:00 AM CST – Just going to bed here, Current TV network is running the Katrina footage and the 5 part series today. Damn this looks freaking cool and I can’t wait to see what the view feed back is going to be like. In other media news, it looks like every Katrina special on the planet in the next three days is going to be using my footage in it. From all the shows on Discovery Network, The Weather Channel, HBO, NHK, and so on will be using the footage. Now I just have to get a few of the people to start paying me for the footage… Monday I will be playing bill collector.

8/25/2006 It’s 7:00 AM and I’m now back in Minneapolis. It’s time to get some sleep and take it easy for the day. It was interesting sitting next to what was left of the band Soul Asylum on the flight. I thought those guys broke up years ago.

8/24/2006 11:00 PM Pacific Time – The Weather Paparazzi series about Hurricane Katrina is now almost done. I finished up the last of the post production stuff today at the network and oh boy does it kick ass!!! They reedited everything and now I look like the freaking Jack Bauer of severe weather!!! Note to self, loose 40 pounds ASAP to look better on camera… And speaking of on camera, here is me on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had a few hours to kill after we wrapped up everything before I drove back to the airport so I went out and played rapid tourist. See as much as I could in 2 hour’s then go back to the airport. I just could not get over how cold this town is because when I think of California, I think of it being warm and sunny, but not San Francisco. The cold Pacific waters keep this town chilly but it is all good. The fog was a trip too, if I ever want to shoot a lo of fog video, I know just where to go.

I might have missed the storm’s back home today but I got the chance and the trip of a life time to launch the Weather Paparazzi series. Chase one storm and catch a tornado or chase my dream’s and make them come true.

8/23/2006 11:15 PM Pacific Time. – Well, I had fun today working on a ton of stuff for the tv show project and spent most of the day locked up in a audio booth doing voice over’s for the 5 different parts. Just got back to the hotel after a 12 hour day but it was cool. I took this shot of the Bay Bridge tonight. My hotel is right on the water and the view is pretty cool.

I’m really liking this town since it is pretty laid back and the people are pretty friendly. It sure beats the hell out of New York City and how rude everyone was when I was out checking out the city last year.

8/23/2006 2:00 AM Pacific Time. I’m in the city by the bay, so close to the bay I can be in it in 2 minutes. Staying in Downtown San Francisco and right down the road is the Bay Bridge just outside my hotel window. Going to get some sleep before I stop by the office in the morning.

8/22/2006 9:30 AM – Went to the dentist this morning and got the last of the worked I needed done. From now one I’m avoiding drinking soda and eating junk food on the road without having a tooth brush handy. All in all it was not bad but there was this really cute dental assistant working on me so it was all good 🙂 Time to get packing and get everything ready to be torn apart by airport security for the flight to San Francisco.

8/21/2006 11:30 PM – Wow, what an insane day. I was expecting to be able to relax and take it easy but nope, this afternoon everything went from relaxing at home to crazy. First a producer for a huge national talk radio show got back to me after several of my friends kept bugging me to contact the show about my Katrina footage. I was surprised how fast they got back to me. I sent them the Katrina DVD’s to check out. Not sure if anything will happen with them but who knows. I just got done working out and I sat down to start working on the website again tonight when the TV producers in San Francisco called and want me to fly out tomorrow to do a bunch of stuff in studio for a couple of day’s for the Weather Paparazzi series about Katrina. So I will be leaving for California tomorrow, this should be pretty cool. So I’ll be updating from San Francisco next. I just hope Tropical Depression 4 or anything else explode while I’m on the other side of the country. But I did joke with Bill tonight and he said I could always drive south into Mexico and chase the Pacific storms if the move back towards the Baja Mexico area.

8/20/2006 6:00 AM – Yesterday I went out working on an underwater video project. I got in almost three hours of dive time up at the old mine pits in Crosby, MN. This place is great for diving because the water is crystal clear. It was almost like diving in the tropics, except for the COLD water below 25 feet. If you have ever watched South Park and saw the show where they go to the Veal Farm… Yeah I was like Cartman scuba diving with all the Small Mouth Bass. “Ohhhh, this one looks delicious with some lemon and butter… Can I have a free sample ” Scuba diving at Crosby was a blast. I want to go back up and get some more stock footage.

8/18/2006 2:00 PM – I know I said I was going to take a break but the creative mo jo is flowing for the new TV series. I just started working on the next project “The Forgotten Hurricane Of 2005, Hurricane Dennis, Rita, and Wilma”. I got so much footage from those storms that it’s going to be another bad ass project once I edit it all together. I really want to tell everyone more about the TV project but I can’t until it is set for broadcast since my loser competition reads this blog for ideas since they don’t have a creative bone in their body as well as not knowing how to shoot video. I just was reading on line about the new movie coming out on HBO. Spike Lee produced a film about Hurricane Katrina for HBO and it came out this week. He used a bunch of my footage in his project and I have to order up HBO to check it out.

Click here to read the review of Spike Lee’s Katrina Project.

To read more about Spike Lee’s project, here is the page on HBO.com Click here to read about the project on HBO’s website.

8/17/2006 9PM – After several weeks of work, the five part series about Hurricane Katrina is finished. Editing video is easy, editing audio into a video is a total pain in the ass. The response back from the beta testing team from SwiftWX who previewed the different parts was wow.

Now the hard drive is shipped off to San Francisco and it is time to get back to working on the web site before I start the next project about Hurricane Rita. Oh, and for good audio in a video project. For every minute of audio, plan on a half hour of video editing to balance out the audio channels… Also today, I showed a friend at The Weather Channel the project and the first thing that she asked, “Whose Truck Were You Driving?” it was pretty funny that was the first thing she asked me. We also talked about the over forecasted Hurricane Season. At least it is over forecasted right now since not much has happened but Hurricane Katrina was not until August 29th and between Dennis and Katrina, not much happened in the USA for the hurricanes so there is still time.

I must say that I think all the forecasts about this season being a killer to make last season look like nothing is pretty funny since nothing is happening in the Atlantic. Everything is in the Pacific. I think if a major hurricane hits this season, it might be going to our 50th state because this is my forecast for this season. THE POTENTIAL FOR THIS SEASONS STORMS IN THE ATLANTIC TO DEVELOP INTO A TROPICAL DEPRESSION HAS DIMINISHED CONSIDERABLY…

8/15/2006 6AM – It was another all nighter as I have been busting ass to get the last of the different parts of the TV show project done. I’m doing so much on this thing solo that it’s not even funny but oh man, this thing is going to be bad ass!!! I’m still watching the tropics but right now I think it is all going to be junk for the next 2 weeks.

8/09/2006 9pm – I went out today, way out, into western MN where I was in the sun and away from any kind of back ground noise that would mess up the audio for the stuff I had to redo for the TV show.

On my way back home on Highway 12, when I stopped by my grandparents graves to see them in the small town of Murdock. I drove around the town that I have not been in for years but remember it when I was a child. I saw a sign that sent chills down my spine.

It was a road sign that said Orleans and Kenner. Um, Hello…

Yeah so, it’s just a road sign, why is that so shocking. Okay, um yeah. The house in the back ground… That was my Grandparents home before they passed away. Now I know who told me to stay in Kenner and go to New Orleans for Katrina.

8/06/2006 – I went and chased yesterday in the Mod Risk or I should call it Mod Bust. Yesterday was a total waste of time and none of the forecasts were on target. I chased the mod risk pretty much on the slight chance of something but this is the season of lame weather.

8/03/2006 11:00 PM – Back home after a busy day goofing off. Looks like Tropical Storm Chris is not going to hit Florida and I’m already planning on going to South Texas next week or maybe even Mexico. I will have to talk to the Mexican Consulate in St. Paul tomorrow to get the scoop on the chase. The track is going over Cuba and that should kill it off but once in the warm Gulf of Mexico Waters, it could explode into a major storm.

8/2/2006 10:30 AM – Well, that teaches me for not chasing every storm near me. Last evening there was a tornado in Southern MN. After the last 3 months of failed storms and hype about all the big tornado watches that end up being duds where nothing happens, a major tornado hits in southern MN.

It was not even forecasted for tornadoes, just a flood watch. I swear, someone has messed with the computer models for the weather this year and everything is way off.

In other news, I did get a lot done yesterday with the video editing and plan on spending all day today now editing the TV project together. I am planning on doing the last of the interview and voice over stuff today and tomorrow then getting the rough cut to the network by Monday.

Why Monday, well Katrina Anniversary is at the end of this month and that is the opening piece for this project and I need to get it wrapped up NOW, because I may be on the ground on Saturday in Florida chasing Hurricane Chris video.

Right now Tropical Storm Chris could go just about anywhere and do anything. My fear is that it does the same thing as Hurricane Rita and just grows into a monster in the Gulf. If you follow my blog a lot, you will know that I was diving down in the Gulf last month and the water temps were 85F at 85 Feet Under Water. Last year Katrina hit Florida as a minor Cat One but still did a lot of damage. Then Katrina hit the Gulf and exploded into history.

Right now, my plans for chasing Chris are on hold until I know more about the projected track and then get into the area a couple days before. The storm is still 5 days from maybe hitting the Florida Keys and one computer model which had it going to south Florida now shows it falling apart over Cuba. The bottom line, nobody knows where any storm will go.

If I could predict the future I would not be doing freelance video for a living, I would be on Wall Street. So, I can only wait and see what happens while getting a lot of work done on the TV project and just ignoring the phone and not turning on the TV and just focusing on the work. Because one thing is for sure. As soon as I get this project done, I will have a lot more coin in my pocket. And if everyone likes the project, hopefully a whole lot more of these projects for the network down the road.

8/1/2006 1:00 PM – Last night I stayed up late waiting for the storms but they were iffy at best but I was able to chase from my bedroom deck and living room deck. I got a couple decent bolts for stock but nothing I felt like staying up to feed to TWC. Plus, I had to see the dentist again this morning to finish up some stuff.

In Other News… Tropical Storm Chris formed overnight and may hit South Florida. I’m already gearing up for a Tropical Storm Chris video chase. Maybe it will end up being a Hurricane Chris Video chase.

7/31/2006 4:00 AM – Today I got in 63 Minutes of bottom time diving with Dave. I brought the Shrimp with again and all the fish went insane. We must have had a thousand around us at one point. I found that if I take the tails off and then mash the meat up a little, they really go insane because even the little ones can get in on the scraps. One thing is for sure, the fish are no longer afraid of scuba divers. After the shrimp was gone they kept following us around. We did find the underwater dive platform in the lake so it was a good dive and the best part was that I did not even need to wear a wet suit. Just swimming trunks and a t-shirt along with the gear. The best part was that I really got some good bottom time in while feeding the fish. I found that I was not using my BCD when I should have to keep me at 12 feet and I was kicking a lot to hover which used up a lot of air. Next time I am going to just work on my BCD usage and learn to hover more. One thing was certain, after I got done I was worn out with breathing on the tank for an hour. I went home and fell asleep for 8 hours. But I have an early start to the day to finish up the latest project.

7/27/2006 10:30 PM – Today was another busy day. I was working on getting thing’s in order for the TV show pilot and then I went diving. I brought my camera with to practice working underwater. I also brought some freezer burned shrimp I had at home with to feed the fish. Oh wow, they went nuts. I must have had a thousand fish around me at one point in the lake. They were even coming up and eating out of my hand. It was fun.

Here are a couple of screen video caps.

Up close and personal saying FEED ME.

7/26/2006 11:30 PM – I went diving today at a new place that is actually right by home. The dive shop had a fun dive get together at Lac Lavon lake in Burnsville. The visibility was great and the fish were very friendly. I am planning to go back there soon with the video camera and film the fish as there were hundreds of them all around us. Here is my dive profile from the dive computer from tonight.

7/25/2006 3:00 AM – Yeah, I tried getting on a normal schedule but as fate would have it, no dice tonight… I was running out to drop off some videos to blockbuster when I saw a lightning storm to my south by maybe 10 miles. I had my camera gear with and laptop so I said hmmm, lets check it out. I got down just south of Farmington and the lightning was lame and I checked SwiftWX Radar and I saw a storm right by my home and thought I messed up so I went home. On my way home, I saw smoke and I saw fire. I got on a massive pole barn fire that was a four alarm fire in Lakeville, MN.

The fire was started by the lightning from all the reports I was hearing and the lightning was pretty intense in that area for a few minutes. And the owners said it was a machine shed where they stored hay and equipment. There was no power hooked up so everyone is thinking it was the storm. And there was no animals in the barn but the barn was 100 feet by 200 feet so it was huge. Now it is time to get some sleep after I take a shower and wash off all the smoke smell.

Here is the lightning footage that I shot before the fire.

7/24/2006 4:30 PM – Sweet, with gas at $3.10 a gallon, I got really lucky as the storms are coming to me today and I can just work from home. I shot this photo about 45 minutes ago from my living room deck. I love storm chasing on foot!!! That cell fired up and burned out over Minneapolis but it was fun to watch it go up and I got some bad ass time lapse footage of it. Click on the image below to see the full size image.

7/24/2006 6:00 AM – After getting 12 hour’s of sleep, I am back on a normal sleep schedule for now but I know that will not last long… Looking at the NHC forecasts and the computer models, there is still something brewing down in the Gulf Of Mexico that may hit Texas and there is still Hurricane Daniel and Tropical Storm Emilia. Hurricane Daniel looks like it may head towards Hawaii but as a tropical storm. I might go if it looks like it will come in as a Hurricane or strong tropical storm. Right now it looks to be slowing down some in it’s forward track so it is just a waiting game. Tropical storm Emilia is just going to be off the Baja coast and not going to be making landfall anywhere so I’m not planning on that chase. I know the the hurricane hype from last year has everyone in the media going nuts but I had a talk with an old friend that retired out of the media business and he always clears the confusion. He said, just wait because it is still early in the season. Ok, time to get some coffee and make breakfast and do my forecasting for the day. It may be a chase day but right now it looks to be in Wisconsin. Hill’s And Tree’s… Or as I like to call it, stay home and play video games because you can see the forest for the tree’s but you can’t see through the forest. Oh yeah, look’s like I picked a good time to sleep for 12 hour’s because SEC is reporting that the CME that blew off the sun last week never hit earth so there were no auroras last night.

7/21/2006 Working on the site today and I did get a lot of coding stuff done. I should have some more catalogs done. I In other news, Spaceweather.com is reporting a possible aurora chase in tomorrow. Look’s like a CME was hurled off the sun the other day and may be heading for earth. If the sky is clear, I may head up north to try and view it but the smoke from all the wild fires may be too much for it.

7/20/2006 Recovering after a long day of storm chasing yesterday.

7/19/2006 Having this mobile hard drive with me to edit and update the site in the field is sweet. Right now I am driving home from a great night of storm chasing. The day sucked since the cap held and even with the tornado watch in Iowa, it was a total bust.

As I was driving home the storms fired. Oh boy did they fire up. I have a ton of lightning footage to look through and even got some video style I have been wanting for years and finally got it using my .05 fish eye lens. The .05 is for the underwater housing and when used out of the water it really distorts the image since it is so wide. Well, I did not care for this since I pointed the camera to the sky and got the crawlers. 

Also ended up almost getting cooked a couple times when the storms first started out since the lightning was so intense. Here is one of the images from tonight. I have a bunch of images to go through from tonight. If I recall correctly, this is the first time I have shot lightning with my Nikon D70s. Man has this years storm season sucked!!!

Here is the video from this chase

7/19/2006 4am (still damn early) Ok, just been up all night long working on the web site. Now that I got the damn images in order, I can actually get some work done on it. I got some more catalogs up.

About to get some sleep before today’s chase but I looked at the latest NHC forecast on Tropical Storm Beryl. This thing is going to be a fish storm!!! Fish storm as in it will only annoy the fish and not be that big of an impact on the north east coast line. The storm is not forecasted to become a hurricane and it is not forecasted to make land until New Foundland. It will be a big news in the media on a slow news week but that is about it. I also just looked at the latest GFDL forecast and it has the storm being a non storm as it get’s sucked up by the front pushing into the east coast today and tomorrow.

7/19/2006 Very Early Morning (2am).  Just woke up and saw that Tropical Storm Beryl is not doing much and looks to be moving off shore more then it will be much of a factor to the east coast. But it could change and I could be wrong. Right now NHC does not even show the track making landfall. Now the big story for today is the severe storms. Today there is a mod risk for much of southern Minnesota. I will be out storm chasing today. Could be a chance of seeing a tornado today so right now, Tropical Storm Beryl is really a non factor for me today but that could change.

7/16/2006 Did not even leave the house today to go shoot some lightning video.  I shot this footage from the deck as a small storm put on a light show.

7/5/2006 Working from home today and shot a pretty cool time lapse sunset video from the deck.  The footage speed is 4000 times faster then normal to show the setting sun and the twilight after the sunset.

7/3/2006 I’m back in Minneapolis now. Ah, home sweet home and I did not get bent on this trip. After looking at my dive log I was a little freaked out about flying home today but the flight was 25 hours from my last dive. The area of the wreck were I was diving was 110 feet max but Brian brought me over to a part of the wreck where I got down to 114 feet and the dive computer freaked out on me. I went past my 110 foot dive limit and we got caught in a bait ball on the way up so the ascent rate started to get out of control until I dumped the BC.

The bait ball is a large group of fish swimming around like a tornado in the water with a large Jew Fish in the middle using the small fish as bait to eat the larger fish that try to eat the smaller fish. The small fish swarm around the Jew Fish for safety but they saw Brian and I must have thought we were Jew Fish and blinded us by swimming around us. The Jew Fish in the bait ball looked at us and was like hey what are you doing in my bait ball.

I’m home now and my dive computer said I was good to go. Now I am actually planning my next trip to go back diving and shooting video after the next hurricane. I want to see what the effect of a hurricane would be on the dive sites.  Below is a screen cap from my dive computer showing the depth of the last time on the wreck.

7/2/2006 I’m back on dry land. Wow what a great vacation. It was only about a decade over due!!! No cell phone, no internet, nothing but relaxing and scuba diving. Back at the hotel in Fort Myers relaxing for the night to decompress after diving the Baja California ship wreck at 110 feet under water. Below is a vid cap of some of the footage I shot. Brian shot a lot of great stuff while I was still trying to get familiar with the under water video equipment.

The underwater video housing for my PD-170 is freaking like trying to move a 55 gallon drum under water. The best part of the trip was that we found some bottles and glass dishes to take home from the Baja wreck that was sunk in WWII by a German U Boat. I’ll upload video when I get a chance but now I just want to rest.

Oh yeah, this is going to be a brutal hurricane season. The average temp around the Dry Tortugas at 85 feet under water was 85F. The crew said that the normal temps for that depth where we were diving should have been in the lower 70s that deep. The photo below shows at 84 feet it was 85 degrees.

6/29/2006 Back in Florida today, again. Not for any hurricanes but for a underwater scuba video project for the upcoming TV project. Brian is going to help out with some of the camera work for this but I’ll be out diving the wrecks and stuff with him on the Ultimate Getaway out of Fort Myers. We have a 12 hour boat ride to get started on and I’ll finally have some time to get back to working on the web page with NO Cell Phone, Email, or anything else to interrupt me while I’m working. Wow, that will be a vacation.

6/28/2006 I got the call I have been waiting on for the last week. I got the go ahead to start production on my own Weather Paparazzi Television project. I can’t say much about it now but it is set to start production ASAP!!! Kind of a Discovery Channel Survivor Man meets Storm Chasing / Storm Stories on TWC meets Jack Ass… If I’m producing the video, it’s going to be hella cool!!! This is going to be pretty cool because I get to write, direct, shoot and produce it.

6/27/2006 Shot some time lapse footage today of the setting today.

6/26/2006 Edited the rain foot video from the other day.

6/25/2006 Where have I been? Well been busy working on the site, the new video biz that I will talk about later, storm chasing the local storms and scuba diving. I got several new dives in last week and I got the official permission from the City of Minneapolis Park Board to scuba dive without a permit. Last week a Minneapolis Motorcycle cop came up to me and told me I was breaking the law by Scuba Diving without a permit. Turn’s out there is no such permit and he was an idiot. I also talked to the Park Police who said that Minneapolis Police don’t have jurisdiction on the water. It is DNR, County Water Patrol and Park Police for stuff in the water. Today we went diving in Calhoun and the vis sucked. We dove too late in the day so everything was green but we still got in two dives. Here are some vid caps from 6/24/06 dives.

After I went diving I then went storm chasing. I got into some big hail near Elko and south of Cannon Falls MN.

6/23/2006 Went storm chasing today in SW Minnesota. I saw a sweet rain foot and some cool storms

6/16/2006 Back home and back into a great storm. Today I got some jumping man hole covers.

6/15/2006 Early this morning I left Tallahassee Florida for Atlanta to fly home. On the way to the airport I stopped by The Weather Channel to say hi to all the people who I get to talk to all the time on the phone but don’t get to see since my I live in Minneapolis. It was cool to see how they redid all the studio’s and added the new studio for Weekend View. Now I’m back home in the Twin Cities reviewing all the footage we shot during Tropical Storm Alberto.

6/14/2006 Recovering in Tallahassee from the chase and being up for so long.  I’m posting all the info on the chase to the dedicated blog page

6/13/2006 Today the storm shifted back to the North East at the last chance and the eye went over Steinhatchee FL.

6/13/2006 In Tallahassee for Tropical Storm Alberto video, or maybe it will be Hurricane Alberto Video. I’m not sure yet. The eye of the storm is about 30 miles due south of me and is moving north.

6/10/2006 Sorry, been crazy busy working on 5 different projects at once and have not had time to update the blog but I’m still around and still alive. I am busting ass to get home to get ready for the possible hurricane chase next week. Where have I been and what have I been up to? For the past three days I have been out storm chasing.

I just needed to get out and clear my head and just do what I do best, Severe Storms Photojournalism. So why most chasers have been banging their head against the wall trying to see anything, I went out for three days and saw everything I wanted to see.

Starting on 6/7/2006, I was in South Dakota and got on some hail producers and good lightning severe storms.

6/8/2009 I got on some major flash flooding. I was following a severe storm through the foot hills of Montana and found Briscoe Creek. Briscoe Creek which is part of the Tongue River is normally a little to nothing creek according to the locals, but today, it grew to 100 yards across in a massive flash flooding event. Brandenberg Montana is just north of Ashland Montana off of Highway 212 and Tongue River Road in Rosebud County. The large storms trained over the same area and created the flash flooding event that pretty much destroyed the farm next to the road. 

6/9/2006 I had a near perfect chase day. Started the chase off in Sheridan WY and watched some storms along the mountains then went over to Devils Tower to kill some time while I waited for the storms.

Then when I was ready to chase, I looked at the data on the laptop an saw that the storms were kicking up to my southwest. Knowing that the road network out there kind of blows for having lots of chase options, I was actually in pretty good position for this storm.

This is from the east looking back south west since there was only on road to chase on.

Some of the higher winds as I got into the storm. and below is a screen shot of the radar and my position using SwiftWX weather software. You can see I was right in the thick of things for the best storm of the day.

Here is the video from this chase.

My plan for the day was that if the storms sucked, I would go see Devils Tower then go see Mt. Rushmore. Well the storms did not suck and I got to do all three. The best part of this chase was not the storms, it was the Buffalo’s. I was in Custer National Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota to just check them out since I have never been there. Most storm chasers make stupid jokes about the movie twister and “We Got Cows” Well The Weather Paparazzi won’t settle for bull crap, I got a herd of Buffalo that were spooked by the weather stampeding across highway at the park entrance.

I setup my camera in between waves of Buffalo and was able to get some insane footage of them coming right up to the video camera as I was back in the Jeep. I talked to the park ranger at the entrance to find out if that is an everyday thing and she said she has never seen that happen since she started working there.

6/5/2006 Out storm chasing in Eastern South Dakota today. Got on the tornado warned storm then it died. Did not see much. All the action looked to be back in Minneapolis for lightning. Oh well, I did get some cute photos of some puppies.

I have a lot of catching up to do here on my personal site.  It was down while we were moving servers and got pretty much kept getting shoved to the back burner while my time has been pulled away helping with Laura and work in general. 

Yes, the site and my personal time have been pretty much off line and off the grid for months.  So let’s get you caught up.  Say Hello World to Laura

Laura was born in February and Neva and I are very lucky to have this happy and healthy bundle of joy that is now four months old. I never could imagine myself as a father before this and now I can’t imagine life without Laura in it.  She has my blue eyes and Neva’s good looks 🙂

But it has not all been a happy go lucky time.  Less then a week after Laura was born, Gustav left us due to his cancer.  I can say I miss the little fur-ball every day.  He had a unique personality.

But Gustav was able to make it to meet Laura before the cancer got the best of him.

So yes it has been an insanely stressful spring with the lack of sleep from the joys of being a new dad at the age of 45, losing Gustav and trying to run everything during one of the more intense spring seasons in years.  It’s had some ups and downs.  Now after taking some time away from focusing on StormChasingVideo.com earlier this spring to focus on the family.  Now I have everything settled and finally getting a few hours of sleep a day now that Laura is finally sleeping through the night and I have been able to double up my focus on StormChasingVideo.com and we have had a ton of exciting changes, upgrades and new partnerships. 

Right now is pretty much one of the more exciting time’s for me. 

5/29/2006 Was out on a local chase today and got in a hail storm in Goodhue County, MN.

5/29/2006 This morning I was out shooting video for TWC’s morning show. 

5/28/2006 Still working on the site and still Scuba Diving. Actually I have been getting in a lot of dives. I have more dives in the month of May then I have storm chases. This years chase season has really sucked but it is ok because I have a lot of other projects and the diving. It was pretty fun today and I got 2 dives in at Calhoun. The last dive I made it down to 44 Feet and the water temp was 46F. That was freaking cold considering that the air temp was 96F with record high temps in the Twin Cities today. Ahhhh, no storms to chase, oh well. There are lakes to dive!

5/26/2006 Out playing Weather Channel photographer today. It’s hot in Minneapolis so it was time to hit the beach around Harriet. Working a lot on the web site updates. Lots of behind the scenes stuff on the HTML side of thing and making the ASP pages for the site.

5/25/2006 Got some sweet lightning last night at the Air Lake airport in Lakeville, MN as several Helicopters were waiting out the storm.  I was able to get some lightning flashes with the choppers on the ground and as they took off right over me.

5/17/2006 I was out shooting video for TWC today. 

5/14/2006 Back to working and getting stuff caught up and dropping bad habits. I guess it is fitting that today is a turning point in my life with leaving another bad habit as this is the anniversary of when I quit smoking. What is the other bad habit? Something else that has been stressing me out for the last few months… The good news, while waiting around in limbo, I have once again focused my energy on the web project. This week I will be finishing up site. I should have a good chunk of it done in the next coming days. Why have I not showed it off yet? Its huge and I want to release it all at the same time since I have a ton of other chasers copying everything I do. How can I say that? Simple, when my agents at Conus get phone calls from my competition asking how they can get on board with them, people are copying me, trying to duplicate what I do, how I do business and even the style of shots. So I have to keep the competition guessing but when the new site is released, it is going to make everyone say WTF, it’s huge!

5/12/2006 Out shooting rain video for The Weather Channel again today.

5/11/2006 Did some time lapse video yesterday. 

5/10/2006 Out shooting video for The Weather Channel today.

5/9/2006 Today we are suppose to get some more storms but I’m going to be working on code for the new site and taking care of a lot of stuff that is sitting on my desk to get done.

5/8/2006 Ok, spent the day editing and updating stuff while watching the weather. There were some pop up severe thunderstorms around Minneapolis but it was too hard to chase in and see anything worth shooting so I took a break and shot some stock footage. I did get all of the New Orleans aftermath photographs on line. All of the photographs are on the Hurricane Katrina Blog page. Click on the Nine Months Later link on that site.

5/7/2006 Back in Minneapolis.

5/6/2006 I went back out to the 9th Ward of New Orleans and Arabia area to document the devastation. I’m sorry but the east side of New Orleans is done. Nothing has changed since the storm. I will put the photos up when I get back to Minneapolis.

5/5/2006 Oh my god, the 9th Ward is gone. It is trashed. Gone. Houses in the road, houses on top of cars, houses on top of houses. It is all but dead with a few squatters living in some of the houses but it is dead. Here are some of the photos I took today. The photographs and new video are only one tenth of one percent of what is here to photograph of the aftermath. Damage is everywhere still and debris is just laying in the street. Some people have take the duty of stepping up to the plate and fixing stuff but a lot of it looks just as it did a month after Katrina I did go back to reshoot the Hellp Photo and shoot a lot of additional footage. All of the photos are now on my Hurricane Katrina Blog page. Go there to see all the aftermath photographs.

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5/4/2006 Yeah I know, it has been a while since I updated the blog but only because I have been busy. I’m in New Orleans, LA to do a bunch of Interviews and DVD promo stuff. I was out this afternoon shooting video for The Weather Channel on Canal Street and in the Quarter and this place still looks thrashed. Tomorrow I will be out shooting video in the 9th Ward.