Blue tornados

Closer Call Last night was an interesting night to say the least.  In the morning folks were talking about the potential for serious storms, but in Oklahoma we tend to take that with a grain of salt.  From the months of March through June pretty much every week there is some severe thunderstorm either hitting or looming on the horizon.  Living in “Tornado Alley” gives you a strange relationship with the weather.  It is something you fear at least a little, but also something that you get used to.  There are close calls and then there are close calls so when you hear a storm is a few miles away, you get to the point of being able to look at a map… knowing the general topography and deciding that will never make it to me and going on about your business.  Last night was not really one of those nights, because the storm in question was a bit of a sidewinder.  At first it looked like it would miss the suburb of Tulsa that I live in, so … [Read more...] about Life in Tornado Alley

This past goes down as one of the more bizarre weekends in a long while.  Those of you who listen to AggroChat are waking up realizing there was no new podcast episode and this is due to some extenuating circumstances.  Saturday for the most part was a pretty chill day, and I had settled into my office to prepare to record.  I was just literally about to start trying to cobble together some semblance of show notes… when I had a knock on the door.  My wife was on the phone with my mother in law and she had been in a wreck out on the turnpike.  Granted this is 9 pm and there was a massive storm bearing down on us, so while my wife offered to go pick her up alone…  I didn’t really want her going out there completely alone especially considering that we knew it would mean a two hour plus long round trip to take her mom home eventually.  I gave my apologies to the AggroChat crew and threw some actual outside style clothing on… … [Read more...] about Why No New AggroChat

Garden Guardian Yesterday was an interesting day for a bunch of reasons… not the least of which was the massive gale force storm that blew through downtown Tulsa.  Over lunch yesterday I decided to go for a walk in Woodward Park in a vague attempt to catch some new Pokemon.  Unfortunately the entire time I was there it seemed as though the servers were acting up horribly.  The park is littered with a dozen or so stops, and most of them were not loading for me when I attempted to spin them.  So I roamed around a bit in the 94 degree heat and humidity and finally wound my way around to the Linneaus garden where I met the adorable cat above.  I am guessing it belongs to someone in the neighborhood behind the park because it is very much obviously a pet… and obviously one that has been tagged to roam freely.  This is also where I encountered what I believe were my first geohackers.  Pokemon Go has had a few unofficial releases as folks have … [Read more...] about Real Life “Mons”

I am getting a later than normal start this Saturday morning.  Quite honestly I am pretty groggy because it was another “watch the skies” night.  I really did not sleep well at all, for the most part I kept getting woken up by a new round of tornado warnings from about 11pm onwards.  At some point during the night the danger passed and it shifted to infomercials.  I know this because I dreamt about some magical drug that can cook food in only minutes…  I feel as though I maybe got a few things mixed up. Tornado Alley For the most part last night was one big near miss.  The storms hit all around the Tulsa area where I live, and instead gave the areas where both of our parents live pure havoc.  Most of the night was watching concerned while texting back and forth with my dad about what was coming towards them.  At one point there were two tornados, on either side of highway 169 roughly 10 miles from my parents house.  But … [Read more...] about Kyclops Kombat

I made an attempt to write this post earlier… but my internet at home seemed to be having issues due to the storm and WordPress ate the entire thing (even though I thought it had saved a draft…  not sure what I think of the latest version). The last twenty four hours have been exceptionally strange to live through.  First you have to understand that I have lived in the area known as “Tornado Alley” for my entire life, growing up an hour north of Tulsa and living in the Tulsa area since 1999.  We largely take Tornados with a grain of salt, and while most of the cells that do pass overhead produce a Tornado at some point… the likelihood that you are going to get hit seems fairly small in the grand scheme of things and the prep work you go into seems often times for naught. Yesterday however was a different beast entirely from what we are used to.  We had been hearing for days that we were going to get bad storms… but given that it … [Read more...] about Bugout Bags and Hidey Holes