First try at star trails and, well, I dunno.............

Headed out last night after work to get some pics of the cool crescent moon. Apparently moonset was much quicker than I was expecting so instead I headed up a couple miles north of Stacy, MN to do my first try at star trails. Pretty clear night, figured why not since I was ready to take pics and didnt want to go home empty handed. I did this forgetting that my E520 is an entry level DSLR, I forgot that I have to hold the shutter release button down when on bulb setting, unlike my Nikon N65 film SLR which I press once, come back and press it open to end the exposure, and dont have to sit there holding it the entire time. Anyway, I managed. I think my max exposure time even for bulb is 480 sec. (8 minutes). Not sure if that is the norm or not, but would've liked to get some 15 minute exposures. Not sure whether that would be good on the camera/lens or not though. A little chilly, nearly froze my hands off holding the shutter button down. Got one decent pic for my first try after a decent times post-processing.


On a different note, wanted to go back to a couple things in my last entry. Not gonna beat a dead horse...Just want to apologize to Rich and everyone at F5 for anything that has come up the last couple days. I still do not regret what I did, but yes there was a better way to do it. I just gotta remember you only get caught up in as much chaser drama as you let yourself get in to. I'd rather shut up and keep F5 around than do anything like that again and lose it.

The connotations that come with TVN

Arrggg, I really don't want to write this with it being the beginning of storm season. I would rather focus my time and energy on that than sit here and get pissed off while writing this entry but I feel it is necessary to clear the air on somethings. So...
As I wrote here on my blog about a month ago I am now streaming for tornadovideos.net. Right off the bat, I want to make one thing clear: TVN contacted ME, I did not beg to stream or be associated with them (don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to be with TVN). Prior to them contacting me about streaming through them this year I had no desired to stream. I was not begging them to let me become a part of their organization, and I in NO WAY joined because of Reed's involvement with them. I joined them because after hearing what they offer it sounded like a good deicision. Now that I have joined TVN it seems that people think that anything I argue about is because I have magically gained this huge ego simply because I stream for TVN. If I dont stream for TVN, no ego, but now that I stream for TVN, I have an ego. No TVN, no ego; TVN, HUGE ego. I do not get that. While I dont have any specific examples and no one has explicitly said anything like that, I can't help but get the sense that is what people are thinking. Maybe they don't think that specifically about me, but I know there are at least a few people who think that about TVN streamers in general, and that now includes me. Most of this lately has been happening at F5, which is weird because the majority of the people there know me personally or have at least seen me post enough to know that I am not that kind of a person. Have I gotten a bigger ego since I started chasing? Sure. Who doesn't. It comes with being more confident about what you're doing, and needless to say I feel that I am certainly a much better chaser now than when I started. You want to consider that a huge ego and think the only reason I am with TVN or chase now is because of Reed and money, go for it. If that's what you think you're not the person I want to associate myself with anyway.
Also, there have been a couple other issues that have come up this week that I want to clear the air about. I bit my tounge at F5, I dont want to be the person to piss all over the forum. Instead, it came out on FB. I do not regret a single word I said. The reason I said what I said is simple. A chaser (out of respect for their privacy we will call them chaser A) felt the need to hold everyone's hand and try to get them to all be nice. While this is fine, what this person said is common knowledge, but continued to overstate the obvious. On Monay Chaser A posted tips on how to communicate better and how to report better in light of some things that happened earlier on Monday. This was a long post that 99% of the people on F5 know and is stuff that is taught in Skywarn classes or posted in the "Rules" section at F5. These kinds of posts continued until yesterday with Chaser A overstating the obvious, and I felt that it was keeping the experienced chasers from posting and bringing down the quality of the forum. On top of that it was pissing me off having a new chaser trying to teach me how to chase and acting like he was saving the day. We'll just say that kind of crap pisses me off to no end. So a different chaser posts a status update yesterday. I post a couple of comments on it semi mocking chaser A. Chaser A then posts a comment with, and I quote "... I felt the reporting piece was needed so we don't have a bitchfest everytime there's a questionable report whether it's from JDH or someone else." Maybe it's just me and I apologize if it is, but to me that sounds like "You're welcome I came in and saved the day." Nah ah, nope, that crap DOES NOT fly with me. If you actually did something to help out, I would be grateful. But nothing posted by Chaser A was of any real value and certainly nothing that no everyone at F5 doesn't already know. So I comment back with, and I quote "Yes (Chaser A) you saved the day. I applaud you for your heroism." I won't go in to what others said since it's not really relevant to this entry. Instead, I want to explain that I did not say this because I am now streaming for TVN and I want to reinforce the statement that I have no bigger ego now that I did before I agreed to stream with TVN. I would feel the same about Chaser A regardless of whether I decided to stream with TVN or not. Lets not forget a couple months ago when I was battling MIDSCAR. That was an arguement, and guess what?!? I WAS NOT WITH TVN THEN!! Nobody had any problem with what I was doing, in fact people were AGREEING with me. Now I get in to an arguement AFTER I SIGN UP WITH TVN and people have a problem with me arguing with someone? I do not get that. Like I said my opinion about Chaser A would be the same whether or not I was with TVN. I'm going to stop writing, I'm getting too pissed off thinking that people actually think my personality has all of a sudden changed now that I'm with TVN. Come on people, you know me better than that.

It's that season again! 4/5/10 Chase FCST

Finally a real setup. Models have been all over the place with the system that is expected to come through the plains tomorrow. However, I'm taking the latest run more to heart. The GFS and WRF have finally come to somewhat of an agreement for tomorrow afternoon. While neither models completely erode CINH before 00z, both show a large of significantly weakened inhibition over southeast Nebraska, southwest Iowa, and northwest Missouri. Everything looks to be in place for a decent setup IF (and I stress IF) we can get precip/clouds to clear out of the target area soon enough allowing sufficient destablization during the day. Models show at least 1500 j/kg of MLCAPE across the area mentioned above with a great amount of shear along and north of a warm front that is expected to move north in to southern/central Iowa tomorrow afternoon. Gonna want to stay close to that front as I dont know what the triggering mechanism will be further south. Since Iowa/Nebraska are closer than Missouri I'm content with just playing the warm front action. The downside if the storms fire is they will be hauling ass. Storms today were moving at 45-50 mph and I expect those same speeds tomorrow. For now the current target is Clarinda, IA.

EDIT: Didnt feel it was worth writing up a new post. Target is still Clarinda, IA. Also wanted let everyone know I will be streaming later today. Be sure to check it out at tornadovideos.net/live