Monday, May 31, 2004
A rainbow on my way to Slater.
The storm that I sat up on the hill and watch move in.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
practicing my aim with my camera, I really need it after the tornado film.
I was getting paid to take pictures of the moon. I have a wonderful job. Very boring at times.
sunset
towering cumbulus clouds
storm over Slater
storm over Slater
"It's the wonder of nature baby!!!!"
Anyone who knows where that quote came from is cool. :)
Allrighty. So there was a major severe storm outbreak in northern Nebraska/Kansas/Missouri yesterday. Needless to say I went chasing in it. After about an hour on the road after I picked up Kyle, the storms started becoming severe. We were about 45-50 miles away from a severe thunderstorm in which Doppler radar had indicated a possible tornado in. We headed off for it. They issued a tornado warning for the Atchison County in Kansas, we were there. The storm trailed over the state line to Missouri; in Buchanan County we followed it on route 59. At this time we had found a radio station 105.5 FM that had a person out in the field near Dekalb, MO watching the weather. The guy was reporting three funnels in the sky, all of which were touching down. At this point we were about 5 miles from this area. We took 116 through this little town called Rushville; there was a hill of trees blocking our view of the town of Dekalb. I said something along the lines of "it's going to be right over that hill” As soon as we got over the hill, I saw my first tornado. It was a crappy looking thing, but it was a tornado. It was stringing across the sky and down to the ground, total awesomeness. I started to cry of happiness, and freaked out and couldn't operate the video camera very well. The video I got was very crappy, but you can tell that there is a tornado in parts of it, if not because I'm freaking out saying TORNADO, because you can actually see somewhat of a white funnel. We came across an area where there were many storm spotters, and people out looking at the storm. The News Channel 9 chopper was flying around the area also, one of the spectators said that there was a large tornado on the ground but a tree was blocking our view. Maybe that was the tornado that channel 9 was showing from the chopper once we got back to Kyle's house??? I don’t know. Soon after that we came across an area that a tornado had touched down and ripped apart a house, trees, and other things. I have some awesome video of this. The grass, which was like three feet tall on the side of the road, was completely flattened down. Amazing. A little after all of this we caught up with the KC news channel 5 chase van on a hill. Kyle overheard them saying that their boss wanted them to move down 169, and he was like dude come one lets go. Sadly enough, we ended up following them for a bit. I felt really bad following them, as I know that they don't like it, but hey I'm a Meteorology major, and a trained storm spotter, so really I can't say we WERE following them since we were there on our own terms and they HAPPENED to be in the same area as us. But anyway we lost them, only to find them a little later at some gas station. At this point our chase day was pretty much over since the sun had began to set and darkness was overtaking the land. On our way back to the city we heard a report of a mile wide tornado up in the area that we were chasing most of the day. Craziness. Also on our way back I happened to see a large ferris wheel going, Kyle freaked out and we HAD to go see it closer. Something about he hadn't seen a carnival in forever. We drove up to it then turned around and headed back for the city. Interesting huh. We got back to his house and watched Bryan Busby's weather report on the storm that had the tornado in it. It was a massive thunderstorm. I had a nice peaceful ride home after I had called almost everyone in my phone book and told them the news. What a great day.
Today I woke up to the phone ringing by my mother, as usual, when the phone rings and I'm sleeping I ignored it. Then about 10 minutes later Lora called me. ARG! So I decided to get up and answer it since it was probably going to keep ringing. Good thing I suppose. After I talked to Lora a few minutes, I called my mother back to see what was up. She was like you should look outside. Turns out there was a severe thunderstorm about 15 miles north of town. ARG! So I ran around the house and brushed my hair, put in my contacts, grabbed my camera and was out the door in a few minutes. I decided to run up north east of the storm and head up to Slater, hey gas is like 1.89 there so I figured I’d fill up while I was there. I got north of Slater and found a nice hill to set up on and take some pictures. (the pictures above this post) The storm was trying to organize into a supercell except it didn’t have enough energy so it kept falling apart. Poor thing. I still got some nice pictures of it. So I sat there for probably 15 minutes just watching it pass over the land. Then the screeching warning sound came across the radio. Tornado Warning for Pettis County. ARG!!! At this point I was getting fed up with my storm I was watching because it was weakening quickly. So I decided to head back to town and head south towards the tornadic storm. So much for getting gas in Slater. I got about 10 miles north of Sedalia and turned of onto an eastern blacktop to get behind the storm. It was moving at about 50 miles an hour, and I was going about 30. It got away from me and I gave up for the day, I had to be at work in a few hours.
I got home and washed my car and noticed I had lost my tail pipe somewhere while I was chasing today. And also that I have another paint chip on my hood. UGH. Anyway, I went inside to take a shower and turned on the radio and all I could get was people talking about all the storm warnings in southern Missouri. Too bad I had to go to work tonight.
So I went to work, they were excited I got to see a tornado finally. I showed them the video of the tornado. We were slow as usual and we were hanging out in the back of Dominos outside. Kevin was making fun of my car, since I had like 5 radios, 3 cameras, like 10 maps, and a cooler in the back. He was like “you chase in that?” talking about my Focus. LOL Anyway, I ended up taking some pictures of the moon and shooting some video of the inside of Dominos. Very interesting.
All in all the last few days have been great. I feel somewhat complete now that I have seen a tornado. :)
Allrighty. So there was a major severe storm outbreak in northern Nebraska/Kansas/Missouri yesterday. Needless to say I went chasing in it. After about an hour on the road after I picked up Kyle, the storms started becoming severe. We were about 45-50 miles away from a severe thunderstorm in which Doppler radar had indicated a possible tornado in. We headed off for it. They issued a tornado warning for the Atchison County in Kansas, we were there. The storm trailed over the state line to Missouri; in Buchanan County we followed it on route 59. At this time we had found a radio station 105.5 FM that had a person out in the field near Dekalb, MO watching the weather. The guy was reporting three funnels in the sky, all of which were touching down. At this point we were about 5 miles from this area. We took 116 through this little town called Rushville; there was a hill of trees blocking our view of the town of Dekalb. I said something along the lines of "it's going to be right over that hill” As soon as we got over the hill, I saw my first tornado. It was a crappy looking thing, but it was a tornado. It was stringing across the sky and down to the ground, total awesomeness. I started to cry of happiness, and freaked out and couldn't operate the video camera very well. The video I got was very crappy, but you can tell that there is a tornado in parts of it, if not because I'm freaking out saying TORNADO, because you can actually see somewhat of a white funnel. We came across an area where there were many storm spotters, and people out looking at the storm. The News Channel 9 chopper was flying around the area also, one of the spectators said that there was a large tornado on the ground but a tree was blocking our view. Maybe that was the tornado that channel 9 was showing from the chopper once we got back to Kyle's house??? I don’t know. Soon after that we came across an area that a tornado had touched down and ripped apart a house, trees, and other things. I have some awesome video of this. The grass, which was like three feet tall on the side of the road, was completely flattened down. Amazing. A little after all of this we caught up with the KC news channel 5 chase van on a hill. Kyle overheard them saying that their boss wanted them to move down 169, and he was like dude come one lets go. Sadly enough, we ended up following them for a bit. I felt really bad following them, as I know that they don't like it, but hey I'm a Meteorology major, and a trained storm spotter, so really I can't say we WERE following them since we were there on our own terms and they HAPPENED to be in the same area as us. But anyway we lost them, only to find them a little later at some gas station. At this point our chase day was pretty much over since the sun had began to set and darkness was overtaking the land. On our way back to the city we heard a report of a mile wide tornado up in the area that we were chasing most of the day. Craziness. Also on our way back I happened to see a large ferris wheel going, Kyle freaked out and we HAD to go see it closer. Something about he hadn't seen a carnival in forever. We drove up to it then turned around and headed back for the city. Interesting huh. We got back to his house and watched Bryan Busby's weather report on the storm that had the tornado in it. It was a massive thunderstorm. I had a nice peaceful ride home after I had called almost everyone in my phone book and told them the news. What a great day.
Today I woke up to the phone ringing by my mother, as usual, when the phone rings and I'm sleeping I ignored it. Then about 10 minutes later Lora called me. ARG! So I decided to get up and answer it since it was probably going to keep ringing. Good thing I suppose. After I talked to Lora a few minutes, I called my mother back to see what was up. She was like you should look outside. Turns out there was a severe thunderstorm about 15 miles north of town. ARG! So I ran around the house and brushed my hair, put in my contacts, grabbed my camera and was out the door in a few minutes. I decided to run up north east of the storm and head up to Slater, hey gas is like 1.89 there so I figured I’d fill up while I was there. I got north of Slater and found a nice hill to set up on and take some pictures. (the pictures above this post) The storm was trying to organize into a supercell except it didn’t have enough energy so it kept falling apart. Poor thing. I still got some nice pictures of it. So I sat there for probably 15 minutes just watching it pass over the land. Then the screeching warning sound came across the radio. Tornado Warning for Pettis County. ARG!!! At this point I was getting fed up with my storm I was watching because it was weakening quickly. So I decided to head back to town and head south towards the tornadic storm. So much for getting gas in Slater. I got about 10 miles north of Sedalia and turned of onto an eastern blacktop to get behind the storm. It was moving at about 50 miles an hour, and I was going about 30. It got away from me and I gave up for the day, I had to be at work in a few hours.
I got home and washed my car and noticed I had lost my tail pipe somewhere while I was chasing today. And also that I have another paint chip on my hood. UGH. Anyway, I went inside to take a shower and turned on the radio and all I could get was people talking about all the storm warnings in southern Missouri. Too bad I had to go to work tonight.
So I went to work, they were excited I got to see a tornado finally. I showed them the video of the tornado. We were slow as usual and we were hanging out in the back of Dominos outside. Kevin was making fun of my car, since I had like 5 radios, 3 cameras, like 10 maps, and a cooler in the back. He was like “you chase in that?” talking about my Focus. LOL Anyway, I ended up taking some pictures of the moon and shooting some video of the inside of Dominos. Very interesting.
All in all the last few days have been great. I feel somewhat complete now that I have seen a tornado. :)
Saturday, May 29, 2004
more clouds again
i think i was obessed with seeing the chase van, what do you think??
me in front of the storm
more clouds
clouds
awesome chase van, i want one...any donations?
Here we caught up with the chase team from KC news channel 5
This is the storm we chased that we found the tornado in.
Thursday, May 27, 2004
What happens when the medicine quits working???
It was a nice day, sorta.
Tonight was the Moody Blues concert. I really wish that they would have had a full orchestra behind them, but they didn't. I enjoyed spending time with my mother, and seeing The Moody Blues in concert. They can really rock, for some old guys. :) It was really funny, my mom was like, wow most of the men here have receding hair lines and all the women have dyed their hair. I didn't really notice until I looked, it was weird but I guess that's what happens. If that's what I have to deal with to get to go to a classic rock concert, I'll be fine. Allthough, I do think my zoloft has quit working.
I have been really irritated the last few days and there is no reason for me to be irritated at all. I thought I was going to go nuts on people at the concert tonight. Maybe it's just to much time alone or something. I think I'm still going to make an appointment with the doctor and see what she says, anyway I'm almost out and need to get more.
I'm really surprised that the cats are downstairs with me tonight, since my mom is sleeping upstairs. They ran right to her when she came in the door this afternoon. Boo started meowing at her, I'm glad that they like her since that's where they will be going again this fall. I think they all enjoy each others company. That's good.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day, not much is planned. Except, seeing The Day After Tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be sold out. Knowing my unstableness right now, that would be BADDDDDD. Anyway, here's for a good day tomorrow in the life of Nikki.
Tonight was the Moody Blues concert. I really wish that they would have had a full orchestra behind them, but they didn't. I enjoyed spending time with my mother, and seeing The Moody Blues in concert. They can really rock, for some old guys. :) It was really funny, my mom was like, wow most of the men here have receding hair lines and all the women have dyed their hair. I didn't really notice until I looked, it was weird but I guess that's what happens. If that's what I have to deal with to get to go to a classic rock concert, I'll be fine. Allthough, I do think my zoloft has quit working.
I have been really irritated the last few days and there is no reason for me to be irritated at all. I thought I was going to go nuts on people at the concert tonight. Maybe it's just to much time alone or something. I think I'm still going to make an appointment with the doctor and see what she says, anyway I'm almost out and need to get more.
I'm really surprised that the cats are downstairs with me tonight, since my mom is sleeping upstairs. They ran right to her when she came in the door this afternoon. Boo started meowing at her, I'm glad that they like her since that's where they will be going again this fall. I think they all enjoy each others company. That's good.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day, not much is planned. Except, seeing The Day After Tomorrow. Hopefully it won't be sold out. Knowing my unstableness right now, that would be BADDDDDD. Anyway, here's for a good day tomorrow in the life of Nikki.
"There's a place, beyond these shadows, of this dreary road I tread." Styx, More Love For the Money
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Another day in paradise... Or maybe far from it.
What a waste of a day.
Ok I did get a lot done today. First thing, I took my car to the shop to get an oil change, and the transmission looked at. The guy said they drove my car and it didn't do any of its wackiness, that figures. He said that they reprogrammed the computer and we would see what that did. If it didn't get better then we would change the transmission fluid/oil or something, none the less, get the transmission serviced. Now I don't really know much about cars, except how to drive them, fill up the tank, fill up the windshield wiper fluid, and change windshield wiper blades. Oh and I can't forget washing my car, I know how to do that. But anyway, I know that getting the transmission serviced is gonna cost about 140 dollars. It's recommended at 30,000 miles, and my car has like 29,736 miles or something close to that. Also, I'm going to need to get new tires! Wow, what craziness. Anyway after I took my car in I WALKED clear from the ford lot to my house. That's about 10 city blocks, I was afraid it was going to pour on my parade, but it didn't. Not that I'm afraid of the rain or anything. :) Thank god Christina called me later on and I bummed a ride back to the ford lot to pick up my car.
When I got my car back it didn't kick and rev up crazily anymore, I was happy. After a quick trip to Wal Mart to buy the new Avril CD, I decided to go out and take a look at the sky since there was some cool lookin storm clouds off to the south. I had to be at the tanning place at 1:30, and it was 12:00 so I had an hour and a half to kill. I got out to the country and got lost. Ok well not that lost, that's pretty much impossible anymore for me around here. But it was a nice drive, got my car all nice and DIRTY. The new Avril CD is really good, I got burnt out on her first CD, I really liked it at first, and its good to listen to every now and then. But I really really like her new CD. It's not really as poppy as "let go" was. She has really grown as a musician/artist. I recommend it! :)
I decided to give my car a wash later in the day, as I was outside getting the garden hose arcoss the fence I seen Jackie pull up in the driveway. She stayed for about 30 minutes and told me about her "vacation" to her moms out in New Jersey. She wanted to know if I was going to band tonight, I was like yep, why wouldn't I go! I told her I would take her if she wanted me to.
Band was fun. I'm really out of shape with my embouchure, its horrible! I should be working on that right now but nooooooo I'm here typing away. We played a few marches and an overture and I was ready to die. All the articulation in the marches like to kill me! to ta to to ta hehehe.
Ok I did get a lot done today. First thing, I took my car to the shop to get an oil change, and the transmission looked at. The guy said they drove my car and it didn't do any of its wackiness, that figures. He said that they reprogrammed the computer and we would see what that did. If it didn't get better then we would change the transmission fluid/oil or something, none the less, get the transmission serviced. Now I don't really know much about cars, except how to drive them, fill up the tank, fill up the windshield wiper fluid, and change windshield wiper blades. Oh and I can't forget washing my car, I know how to do that. But anyway, I know that getting the transmission serviced is gonna cost about 140 dollars. It's recommended at 30,000 miles, and my car has like 29,736 miles or something close to that. Also, I'm going to need to get new tires! Wow, what craziness. Anyway after I took my car in I WALKED clear from the ford lot to my house. That's about 10 city blocks, I was afraid it was going to pour on my parade, but it didn't. Not that I'm afraid of the rain or anything. :) Thank god Christina called me later on and I bummed a ride back to the ford lot to pick up my car.
When I got my car back it didn't kick and rev up crazily anymore, I was happy. After a quick trip to Wal Mart to buy the new Avril CD, I decided to go out and take a look at the sky since there was some cool lookin storm clouds off to the south. I had to be at the tanning place at 1:30, and it was 12:00 so I had an hour and a half to kill. I got out to the country and got lost. Ok well not that lost, that's pretty much impossible anymore for me around here. But it was a nice drive, got my car all nice and DIRTY. The new Avril CD is really good, I got burnt out on her first CD, I really liked it at first, and its good to listen to every now and then. But I really really like her new CD. It's not really as poppy as "let go" was. She has really grown as a musician/artist. I recommend it! :)
I decided to give my car a wash later in the day, as I was outside getting the garden hose arcoss the fence I seen Jackie pull up in the driveway. She stayed for about 30 minutes and told me about her "vacation" to her moms out in New Jersey. She wanted to know if I was going to band tonight, I was like yep, why wouldn't I go! I told her I would take her if she wanted me to.
Band was fun. I'm really out of shape with my embouchure, its horrible! I should be working on that right now but nooooooo I'm here typing away. We played a few marches and an overture and I was ready to die. All the articulation in the marches like to kill me! to ta to to ta hehehe.
Monday, May 24, 2004
It may not be obvious, but all of those hail stones are baseball/softball size.
