Tuesday, July 17, 2007

A Dangerous Hobby

I've taken up a new hobby over the last few months that I thought I would share with everyone. I've taken up storm chasing. For those who don't know storm chasing is the hobby where instead of moving away from storms I follow them to try and get as close as I can to the action and maybe try to get some good pictures of the action. In the tornado alley of North Texas this can get pretty hairy. If you've ever watched the movie Twister then you know what I'm talking about.

There are different types of storm chasers. Just like everything else different things appeal to different people. Some times geography, etc. come into play as well. Some people follow hurricanes, some tornados, some people even look for tsunamis and hail storms. We're all basically the same though. We accept the inherent danger in what we do and forge ahead because of our passion.

I recently asked Q to help me to get some of my pictures from my chsing off of my phone and onto the computer so that I can share them with you, my extended blog family. He has obliged and now I will share a couple with you. Enjoy.

This first one was a picture I took a couple of months ago. After we were hit by what seemed to be the 100th rain of the summer. I don't think the picture truly conveys the immense size of what I was facing or how fully formed it was. That's one of the challenges of storm chasing though, so I'm still proud of what I got.

The second picture was taken while I was in hot pursuit. As you can see the local law enforcement was trying to keep people away for their own safety. This bad boy ranked as an F-4 class rainbow and it's amazing that I was able to get this close to it.