Just got back in from my 3 day chase to IL, IA, and MO, and will keep this update short. This current system should slam a cold front across the gulf of mexico, scouring any moisture available for the time being. The 18Z GFS painted a picture of trough after trough smashing into the west coast coming up in the next couple weeks, so it is likely I will be back out chasing soon!

I will be posting chase recounts of the last 3 days plus plenty of videos including a possible funnel/scud funnel last night along I-80 in Iowa.

The reason I wanted to post a blog entry is for something I had mentioned earlier in my Chaser Convention blog. This week is Tornado Week on The Weather Channel, and a couple of pieces of my interview have been featured.

No time to post a full chase account tonight, as I'll be chasing tomorrow and Tuesday as well. Tomorrow looks like a good warm front play in Iowa or Illinois. I will have more updates on my Twitter throughout the day, and also action on my Live Chase Cam.

Here is my video today from near Macomb, IL

Over the past couple of month I have acquired a couple new toys for storm chasing in 2010. The first toy, and the toy I am most excited about, I just acquired this week - A brand new HD camcorder.

After a lot of research, and talking to Steve Miller OK, I decided to go with the full 1080p camera he owns, the Panasonic HDC-HS300. It came with a 120GB hard drive and ability to use SDHC cards to record to.

So far I've taken a couple of videos. The first real test was a new time lapse of my drive to work.

Speaking of my drive to work, it changed here recently as I am now renting a house instead of living in my apartment with Oak Park. So, instead of this commute, I now have the one above.

The pictures and videos that came in from the tornadoes yesterday in Western Oklahoma are nothing short of amazing. Congrats to everyone that scored.

The most amazing video came from Andy Gabrielson who got close to the tornado as it went through Hammon, OK. You can see structures being destroyed, and lots of debris flying through the air. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of this video in shows for years to come.

I went through GEMPAK, and pulled a model sounding for Hammon, OK at about the same time as the tornado yesterday:

There is absolutely no way I could have chased yesterday, even if I was in Oklahoma. I have been sick this past weekend and into today, and have been slowly trying to get better. I was way too sick to spend any amount of time in a car chasing tornadoes yesterday. I am still insanely jealous, and wish I could have been there, but overall any disappointment falls on the fact that I sat at home sick than anything else.

I know this is a week late, but it has taken about that long to recover from the huge party that was the Chaser Convention in Denver, Colorado. I am also in the middle of moving, so I haven't had a chance to update the blog with the pictures from Denver.

We (Andrew Glenn and I) started our journey off from Lansing on Thursday the 11th. Our flights were out of Chicago-Midway, which is about 200 miles away. We had originally planned on parking in Adam Lucios neighborhood, but ended up just parking in the economy lots due to all of the snow and crazy Chicago people with their parking spots. Our flight to Denver was eventless, and David Drummond was waiting in Denver to pick us up when we landed.

Once we got to the hotel, we hung out with Steve, Kendra, Hans, Bob, Adam, Danny, Jessica and everyone else. It was nice meeting Kendra and Jessica, who I hadn't previously met. Eventually David, Andrew and I went to a Mexican restaurant across the street and had a delicious dinner. Eventually we all made our way down town to meet up with some other chasers at Old Chicago.

I have been working on seeking alternative housing here in Lansing for the past couple of months because the current apartment complex I live in, Oak Park, has been completely unwilling to work with me on my lease. I didn't want to sign a new 1 year lease because I am not sure I will be sticking around to the Lansing area, and their requirements to break the lease were completely archaic. They required 60 days notice, and if I read the lease correctly, almost 4 months worth of rent.

They told me "Well you can transfer it to any other AIMCO property" which is great, but they don't have any AIMCO properties in Oklahoma.

Month to month would have cost me somewhere near $1100 rent per month before utilities for my small ~800 square foot 1 bedroom townhouse. No thank you. The shortest lease I could have signed was either 6 or 9 months, and I'm pretty sure it was the latter.

I gave notice to sufficiently be out in time for the end of my lease, which is February 28th.

Fast forward to today, and I come home and find this 2 page (front and back) letter from the apartment complex. What a way to maintain a welcoming community.

Page 1
Page 2

So I finally took the plunge, after almost 4 years, and purchased a new PC tonight. This is the most I've ever spent on a computer, and I didn't even get a monitor or keyboard!

I've needed something better than my AMD Athlon 3200 to edit video on for awhile, so I invested in a pretty high-end CPU Intensive system. The specs are listed below:

• Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
• ASUS P7P55D-E Pro LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
• GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
• Antec BP550 Plus 550W Power Supply and a cheap case
• 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
• LITE-ON SATA CD/DVD Burner
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

All in all, I'm out over 800 bucks on it. It'll be well worth it, however. The speed I'll be able to edit video alone should be a major plus.

I'll be putting my current computer into the case I purchased, and will still have that computer. I'll do hand me downs to the rest of my computers and most likely shed the last one to a good home.

Thank goodness for tax season, and unexpected money. Without both, I wouldn't have been able to get such a sweet system.

I have been working quite hard on my website for the past couple of months, but very much so in the last 2 weeks. I have worked hard on getting things ready for the new chase season, and going through and updating pages that hadn't been updated in a couple of years.

I also came up with a new template for my chase accounts. I think these are much better laid out than previous chase accounts were, which were essentially in a blog format.

I have all of my past chases listed on my Chase Accounts page. Feel free to give them a click, and let me know if you like my new chase account layout. Ultimately, I would like them to all be as cool as my June 5th Chase Account, but not every chase gets to be that awesome.

In other news, I have been enjoying my new Motorola Droid phone. I haven't found many downfalls yet, other than it's lack of being able to tether without rooting the phone. These are all features that consumers want, I wish Verizon would just listen and stop trying to Nickel and Dime their customers to death.

With that said, if anyone is interested in my HTC Touch Pro, I have listed it on Craigslist.

I am testing out my new Motorola Droid phone on Verizon Wireless. I have the capability now to update my blog directly from my phone. This will be good during chase season.

More on the phone soon!

Sent from my Motorola Droid phone.

This is a bit of a delayed update (3 weeks) as I just haven't had a lot of motivation to post this blog post. I've also been busy with the actual layout, look and some technical aspects of the site including revamping the gallery. I am working hard to get my website ready and better for the 2010 chase season. One of the new features this year will be blog thumbnails/images.

During my visit to Texas and Oklahoma, I decided it would be a good time to go meet my friend Michael who lives in San Antonio. This was for two reasons - One it would be very warm in San Antonio and Two - Michigan State was playing Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl. I hate Michigan State (even if I live in Lansing) and am a big Michigan fan, so this seemed like a great time for me and Michael (who is also a Michigan fan) to wear Michigan stuff to the stadium and have a good time.