So it has been a bittersweet last few days.
It was the 4th of July, my birthday, NASCAR is back on and warm weather. Been pretty good 🙂
Now the sad part 🙁 I know a few people that has passed away in the last few days ;(
I won’t say the names, for privacy reasons. But god has a few more angels on his shoulders now.
I found a badass song, take a listen to it.
The bad is pretty damn good as well!
So it is technically my birthday now. Needless to say like every year on my birthday, I take the day off from RS. So do not expect much posting for the next 24-48 hours.
Hopefully everyone had a good 4th of July! Kinda weird for me, because I enjoy going to the downtown fireworks. But this year it was canceled. So what we did was drive around town to watch people setting them off. We got to see some pretty good ones. We also went and watched the speedway fireworks. Those were pretty good. We also watched Macy’s 4th of July on TV.
So here it is Friday morning on July 3rd 2020 at 3:36 am as I write this.
You are probably asking yourself, what is going on in my head at 3:36am. If not, then you probably are now, LOL. But back on topic. I am sitting here and as crazy as it sounds, I just realized how messed up July 4th is going to be this year. You know we think about things, and we don’t really “think” about them until that one time, then it hits us. And that is what happened. We all have been told that July 4th events have been canceled due to Covid-19. So we were all aware of it, but I guess it kinda went in one ear and out the other. Until just a few minutes ago…
I just realized my favorite holiday of the year, July 4th is canceled. As is holy cow, there will be nothing going on this year. Here it is July 3rd and normally every year I am planning and thinking about the parade and laying out on the lawn at Davis Park looking up at the fireworks. Kinda planning out the days events. But as I sit here this year, instead of planning tomm. events I am just realizing how this years July 4th is going to be like. We all know that weather plays a role in the events. This year is different. A virus called Covid-19 ruined the plans this year. Who would of ever dreamed a virus would be cancelling July 4th??? My whole lifetime that has never happened… But yet here we all sit on July 3rd at 3:44 am now 2020, and knowing tomm. July 4th events will not happen. Crazy…
July 4th is always about celebrating our Freedom. Spending time with our loved ones. Eating good food. Listening to our favorite songs on the radio. Laying out in the sun. Did I mention eating good food, lol. And going downtown to watch the parade. Then going over to Davis Park to listen to the music and laying out on the Davis Park lawn with hundreds of others as we watch the fireworks display. Then the long dreaded traffic jam as we head home. Now that is July 4th!
What are we going to do this year???
So much to catch up on here. I am going to keep this brief though, just quick blurbs and random thoughts. So if I do miss anything, I apologize ahead of time!
Long overdue blog…
So as many of you know I have been pretty busy the last few weeks.
I been doing a lot of RS stuff. As you know I remain unbiased and try bringing all sides of a story.
So, things have been keeping me pretty busy these days.
That is still no excuses as to why I haven’t blogged. Yes, it plays a big part because I haven’t had much free time. But overall, it is not an excuse. I just have been busy and not a lot of time to blog.
We have had some warm weather recently 🙂 I been trying to enjoy that! Sure beats the cold and snow!
I found out they canceled the local fireworks for the 4th of July. I am really bummed about that!
I hope everyone has been doing good! Hoping the Covid-19 stuff will be over with soon…
I am going to pop off here. I wanted to say hi to everyone. Hope all is well!
So I finally grabbed my gps and brought it inside and was looking at the data from the storm chase on May 23rd 2020.
Just a quick recap: On May 23rd 2020 severe weather hit our area. It produced a few tornadoes. The one cell I had chased from SW of Winnebago until up near Rockton. The cell was pretty intense but it couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to drop or not. At one point, it did look like the funnel touched the ground. But i was not able to confirm it due to it becoming rain wrapped.
I was told about a cell south of me that produced a tornado and the initial reports to me were saying a large tornado on the ground with debris.
So I had to make a quick decision. Keep following this cell near Rockton or chase the one with reports of a large tornado on the ground. So, I made a mistake and chose to go after the reports of the large tornado on the ground near Chana that was going to be heading into Winnebago County. From the reports that were being told to me, it sounded like that would have been the better cell at that moment. So I went to go chase the Chana cell. Big mistake…………………………
Shortly after I stopped chasing the rotating wall cloud near Rockton/South Beloit area, it ended up dropping a tornado!
Talk about a kick to the nuts, LOL. I had chased that cell for awhile, then it finally produced just a short time after I had left it. 🙁
That cell to the South I went to chase, ended up being a huge bust when I got to it. Nothing but heavy heavy heavy rain! Couldn’t see anything at all.
So, back on topic now. I pulled up the data from my GPS and was looking at the data. Yes, I am a few days late, LOL. It is pretty interesting to see the data from the storm chase. I am going to see if I can upload it here somehow or if I have to manually input it. If I have to manually input the data into my website, it might take a little more longer. I should know here in a second….
K, well scratch that. I guess it is going to be a few. Because I can’t export it to here. So it appears I will be doing it manually 🙁 LOL
Dang, i was hoping it would do it automatically, lol. Maybe I should of held off on posting this, until I can upload the data, LOL.
On side note though, my friend Kelly was able to film the Chana tornado. She was chasing that cell and was able to film it!
Congrats Kelly and Erik!
Also the NWS said the Chana tornado was an EF-1 tornado. I am not sure on the rating of the other tornadoes in the area.
I was told there were 7 tornadoes overall, I just read on the NWS site.
May 23rd 2020 Storm Chase
The NWS predicted some severe weather was possible for our area later in the day. I honestly did not think much of it.
Because the last time I looked at the models, it did not impress me much.
So I did not think much was going to happen in our area. I guess I was wrong………..
Bill (KC9OJP) started up a Winnebago County SKYWARN activation net.
(Listen to the audio below!)
I might write up a detailed article about this chase, so look forward to that later on sometime.
Below are several videos and photos. Wish I could recover my content from my cell phone.
My cell phone got soaked and ended up being fried. So I lost all my photos and videos from the storm.
I was able to recover some, but not the good footage 🙁
Watch the videos in HD if possible
Winnebago County SKYWARN activation net audio
So I tried to recover my data from that SD card from my previous post.
I was hoping it had recorded some dash camera footage of some deer that were crossing the roadway.
Come to find out, I was able to recover the data that was on there. BUT…………
Literally about 10 seconds before seeing the deer, is when the sd card went corrupt.
So it did not even save that footage at all, so it ended up being nothing to recover.
But with all bad things, always comes good stuff.
I was able to buy bigger and better SD card for the camera now. 🙂
I put it to the test, and working great now!
I am using my SJ5000 camera as my dash camera now. 😉
Good morning everyone!
I was using my gopro as a dash camera to see how well it does. Well I was traveling down the road and 3 deer jumped out in front of my vehicle.
I had to slam on the brakes, to avoid hitting them. I was doing 5 under. I never speed these days. Thankfully I was doing my usual 5 under the speed limit!
3 Deer jumped out in front of me! Thankfully, I was able to stop and let them cross the road. I was thinking damn that was pretty close.
Then i got to thinking I am recording with my gopro and thought that would be some cool footage.
So I get back home and the damn sd card is corrupt, grrrrrrrrr! And the messed up part about it all, the gopro had just stopped recording its last file not even 15 seconds before the deer crossed!
So I literally missed the deer, and literally missed the deer on the gopro, because the sd card got corrupt.
Now it is time to go looking for a new card. Man, that sucks!