October 18, 2007 was a day that I will remember for quite awhile. The Storm Prediction Center had been forecasting a large Severe weather outbreak for 3 days, and Thursday the 18th is when it all came together. I took off down I-69 right after getting out of work at 1500 EDT. I was in Indiana by about 1630 (1530 local time) and got on I-80 and headed West towards South Bend. From there I got off at US-31 and headed south down to Rochestor, IN. By that time a hook was already starting to show on the radar and a Severe Thunderstorm warning was out for the storm.

I raced south on IN-25, almost being struck by lightning. The strike was very close to the truck, and very loud! I kept south on IN-25 through Fulton and Metea, IN. I was obviously going to the east of the storm towards the rear of the storm which was producing the TVS and hook echo signature on Radar. I made it south of Metea, and pulled off on one of the side roads and had a funnel cloud about 300 yards across the field from where I was. I snapped some pictures then chased it back north up IN-25 which I just came off of and snapped a couple other pictures while driving. I stopped to show some Skywarn guys the pictures and have them report the funnel cloud to their dispatch then hit the road.

I made it through Rochestor which had a bit of small branches down and some flooding, and headed east on 14 as the storm was heading east north east. I never was able to catch back up to it, and eventually had to stop in Akron, IN to fill my truck up. We headed back home and stopped in Fort Wayne, IN. I was bummed out, but still pretty excited by the chase which had just happened

Once making it back into Michigan, I learned of a lot of Tornado warnings off to my west. They were heading my way and weren't far away from where I was stationed at the time. I got out of their way as fast as possible and got up I-69 in a hurry. Once I got into range of the 145.390 repeater in Okemos I was hearing that there was a large cone shaped Tornado on the ground in Williamston and that the town of Williamston had been devestated by a large tornado. I shot up 69, got off at Lansing Rd, shot over to I-96 and then flew out to Williamston

Just before getting to the Williamston exit, there was a couple emergency vehicles (and more coming behind me) for a semi which had been overturned in the ditch. There was trees down all over the freeway. Before I even got out of my truck I knew a Tornado had to of hit. I got past the wreckage of the semi and got off at the Williamston exit. I went North on Williamston rd into the town of Williamston to find trees down, wires down, everyone out in the streets and a gas leak. The fire dept had closed off the road already by this point, but a quick show of credentials got me past the road block and into town. I parked my truck and started walking around, surveying the damage. I met up with Carl, K8YHH and we looked down some of the main streets in town, and I met up with some other HAM Radio operators and we started to assess the damage.

Another Tornado warning for Ingham County came out, and the tornado siren went off in town which was pretty spectacular since the Tornado siren had been hit by the tornado but was still standing. The storms were still about 20 minutes out, so we still surveyed damage. Once they started getting closer we took cover in downtown under an awning. Just then I got a call from my storm chaser friend Kory letting me know that we had a very strong TVS indicated by radar headed straight for us at 65mph about 5 minutes out. We took shelter in a bar, and got a laptop going with our own radar data. The hook and TVS was very well pronounced. I was looking out the front door and saw a funnel cloud pass to our south and east and eventually off to the Northeast of Williamston. I guess the tornado never did actually touch down, but there was quite a bit of a cone shape and heavy rotation with it.

Once that was pushed through the area, we continued surveying damage as that was the end of the storms. We stayed doing damage assessment until 3 am when we decided to call it a night as all of our batteries were dead and so was my inner battery. The next day we met at the Ingham County Sheriff's Department at 8am to continue damage assessments. You can view all of the pictures from the damage assessments and Williamston Tornado by going to the Lansing ARPSC Web Site.
You can also view my chase pictures from the Fulton County Indiana Funnel Cloud by going here.

As you read below, Verizon Wireless refuses to refund me the $35 in overage charges I incurred using their service. In all my attempts to jump ship, I have come to the conclusion that I am stuck with them until 11/1/08 or I pay a $175 termination fee. I may just work the overtime to pay the freaking termination fee. I cancelled my $8/month data product (text messages/mobile web) to make up the $35, and over the course of 14 months left on my contract they stand to lose $112 because of this.

I tried contacting 'Customer Service' but all I was given was a supervisor who was condescending and rude. All I asked for was the $35ish in charges be removed(It didn't cost Verizon anything), however, they wouldn't. I told them I would cancel my $7.99 500 Text Messages/Mobile Web plan and they just cancelled it. So they're going to lose $120 total over $35? Verizon sucks. I will be moving my number away to another provider at the end of my contract term. I will tell all my friends to steer clear of Verizon.

In other news, I was promoted to Technical Support Supervisor at work. Go me.

I have not updated this in forever, and for that, I am sorry. I have been really busy with work and Amateur Radio. Between all of that, I haven't felt like updating my personal page. I recently took upon myself to create a web page for our Amateur radio group - The Lansing Amateur Radio Public Service Page. Everything is my own design and most of the content I made up. I'm still working on this a lot and have already sunk a lot of time into the site. Speaking of Amateur radio, I've been named AEC of Skywarn for Ingham County. That's pretty cool

I just returned from a 2 week vacation which I spent camping. Things didn't go as well as I had wanted, but I did add Kings Island and a bunch of roller coasters to my list of ridden coasters. It was also nice to get away from work for awhile as I had not gone for a vacation in well over a year

Speaking of work, I accepted a promotion back in the spring. I am a Team Leader in support. This is my first experience in a supervisory position, and I'm liking it so far. It's been hard to adjust to, but I've been really well received by my peers. We've been going through a lot of organizational changes at LiquidWeb, so it's exciting to be apart of that.

XM suspended Opie and Anthony last month, and I cancelled my service. They're back now, but I will probably be re-cancelling my service here shortly. I also am looking for a new wireless provider. Verizon Wireless in all of their infinite wisdom changed my calling plan on me without telling me. I got a new phone in November of 2006, but my calling plan was the same until February 2007 when they just randomly changed the plan on me. With this 'new plan' came no more free holidays. Well I wasn't informed of this or the fact that they changed my plan on me, and they charged me overages for Memorial Day. They refuse to take the charges off, so I will be getting a new wireless provider (but keeping my same number). I hope anyone googling for a Verizon Wireless Review finds this page and makes the decision not to buy Verizon Wireless phones.

This update is going to be short as I'm doing it while my laundry finishes off. I haven't been up to a lot lately. I've been deciding what I'm going to do when my lease is up at the end of February. I think I'll be moving to a different place with less bedrooms and a smaller monthly rental cost. I have a couple places in mind, one that is favored over the others. I figure I will go check them out after the holidays and make my decision.

I've been bummed out that Michigan isn't going to rematch with Ohio State for the national championship. I still don't understand how a team can fall twice in the rankings without losing once. I don't understand how a team that lost to an 11th place team by 10 points can go ahead of a team that lost to the #1 team by 3 points at the #1 teams home field. The BCS is always going to leave something to be desired. I just hope the Wolverines can beat USC in the Rose Bowl and end the season on a high note. Next year should be a pretty good year, and maybe they'll get a chance to prove themselves then.

I'm still procrastinating on sending out Christmas cards. Clarissa and I had our pictures taken back a few weeks ago, and just got the pictures back. I haven't been able to get my hands on them yet, and won't be able to until Christmas Day, thus my cards will have to go out after Christmas. I feel less guilty at least since I only received cards from a few people.

I've been trying to get Xen working on the machine this website is hosted on. I'd like to setup a couple of virtual environments for people so that they can have their own virtual spaces for their websites, and I don't have to worry about administering stupid pointless things like mail and Apache. I can just let them have at it.

Well it sounds like my laundry is done, so I'm going to wrap this up.

While I wasn't at work this past weekend, I spent my time at my parents house dog sitting. They went away for the weekend up north to camp, and asked me if I would dog sit. Naturally I had nothing better to do (other than work), so I said sure.

Between work and sleep, I didn't have much time to do anything else. The dog seemed happy that I was there, however, she was angry when I slept all day.

I also ran a Skywarn net last Wednesday evening which went really well. We didn't have much damage, but there was a 60MPH Measured wind gust at the Airport. All of our equipment worked, for the most part. We could use a UPS at the EOC really bad for the computer there. Other than that, I would rate things a very good success.

Kevin and Dylan have both gone home since my last 'entry' on here. That went really well, and it was nice to see them again. I had a hard time entertaining them both the time they were here due to the fact I had to work. I still think(hope?) they had a good time.

So I thought I'd update on what we're doing with our Radio Amateur Civil Emegency Services (RACES) group this week. Every year in Lansing there is a festival called the Common Ground Festival, which is basically an outdoor venue in downtown Lansing with a bunch of bands. Each year it lasts 7 days. This year they decided they wanted to use Amateur Television to improve situational awareness of the event for all that are involved.

The Lansing Police Department and Lansing Fire Department both liked the work we did in April for the National Socialist Movement rally in giving them situational awareness during that event that they invited us back. We get an official looking badge, and get to walk around the whole event area, including backstage. Last night I was on top of one of the trailers at Common Ground with my dad and we were sending back a signal of the main crowd area. All in all it went off without many problems, and tonight should be better.

We're also hopefully getting an upgrade to our computer systems in the radio room so that our equipment for Skywarn works when we need it to. We're also possibly getting a live radar feed in the EOC as well, so I am very excited about that.

On another note, I just spent the last week at Cedar Point for the 4th of July weekend. My friend Dylan from California/Missouri (he just moved from CA to MO) is coming up to visit on Monday, and then Kevin from Texas is coming up on Saturday the 22nd. So entertaining houseguests should be a lot of fun. We'll see how well it goes.

I've been hanging in here lately... Taken a couple of trips to Cedar Point already this year, including Skyhawk Media Day on May 4. I just got back from 3 more days at the Point this week.

My job has been going pretty well for the most part, and life has been pretty good. I found out my mom's cancer is gone recently, which was very good news to hear. Still, the news on Chrissy isn't as good yet, hopefully it will get better.

I've got a VPS now at work, along with my Co-Located server (Which this site runs off of) and I'm considering running some sort of a webhosting kind of deal with the VPS at least. So my friends who may read this, and need webhosting, drop me a line. If I charge anything for it, it will be very minimal and only to help me purchase better hardware for my Co-Located server.

The weather for the most part has been dead again this year. I wish we could get a few good storms through here. It's been really boring as of late, and I haven't gotten to chase any storms really this year.

Well, I think that about wraps up this entry. Eventually I want to use some sort of software for this, but I'm too lazy to write/find some.

So I got back from my trip out west to the Great Plains and Minnesota on Thursday. I originally left Friday morning after getting out of work, and drove to Madison, WI first to meet my friend Erik. I met Erik years ago in Help Chat, and it was very nice to finally meet him.

After Madison, I drove up to the Wisconsin Dells. They look awesome, and I want to visit again sometime when I can ride Hades at Mt. Olympus. After the Dells, it was onto the Twin Cities in Minnesota. We had dinner at the Mall of America, and then I fell asleep in the hotel room from exhaustion.

Saturday included hanging out at the Mall again, riding the rides in the park, and a tour of Minneapolis/St. Paul courtesy of WMS. We went bowling at the University of Minnesota along with a visit to the Minneapolis/St. Paul (Chanhassen) National Weather Service office. Also, I took a quick swing by Valleyfair!

Sunday included going to the Detroit Red Wings vs Minnesota Wild game at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul. Monday came, and I drove to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and met up with my old friend Kelly Martinson and his wife. I stayed the night at their house in Mitchell, SD before going on to Grand Forks, ND. I stayed the night in North Dakota, and then drove back to Michigan, ending the night in Mackinac City, MI. Thursday came, and I drove home from Mackinac City to Lansing.

You can view the trip pictures here

So I think I am going to turn the main page into more of a "What's new with Ben?" kind of blog. I'll still keep my Live Journal for the more personal stuff I don't want people to read (It's a friends only blog), but I'll post here once in awhile about stuff going on in my life. Maybe I'll even install one of those new fangled Content Management systems. (Probably not, though).

So what's new with me? Most of the people reading this and actually wondering (All maybe 2 of you) probably haven't talked to me in a long while. I graduated college in May of 2005 and landed a Systems Administrator job with a local web host named Liquid Web. The job is quite enjoyable, and pays pretty well.

I also moved into my own Apartment in December of 2005. I'm enjoying life on my own. I also put a co-located machine in the datacenter at work, and that's how you're viewing this website now. I installed gallery2 on it, which should better help me manage my Picture Galleries. That's about it for an update right now, but I'm sure I'll be posting back here sooner rather than later.