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The Origin Of My Fascination With Severe Weather

I didn’t always have a fascination with weather, specifically severe weather. I used to fear it with my life. As a child, I would hide under the bed when a severe thunderstorm would move over us. Growing up in Northern Ohio, severe thunderstorms are different than those in the central plains. I rarely ever experience hail larger than pea sized and I’ve only seen a wall cloud once.

I have no idea when the transition occurred but at some point, instead of fearing the weather, I became infatuated with it. Everything I know about mother nature is self-taught. While the general public looks at the graphical forecasts, I read the forecast discussion.

While I have a deep interest in all things weather related, my favorite aspect is severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Growing up, my grandmother and step-father purchased CDs and DVDs filled with Tornado video to fuel my curiosity. Little did I know that a particular group of tornado videos would leave a lasting impact on me.

The most prevalent is the Andover, Kansas tornado of 1991. A magnificent beast that tore through everything in its path. What I vividly remember about this tornado is seeing a gigantic twister that looked like it was right behind a row of nice houses but didn’t touch them. This is the same tornado that went through McConnell AFB. It’s also the same twister responsible for the infamous video of people surviving a direct impact from a Tornado by securing themselves under an overpass.

The more I viewed clips and movies of Tornadoes, the less afraid I was of them. Now a days, I know enough to realize if a cell is going to move right over my location. While I don’t want to see destruction to any property, especially mine, there’s a part of me that wants to witness mother nature’s worst. It’s the ultimate natural high I can think of. There is a huge adrenaline rush of seeing a wall cloud in person or being within the polygon of a tornado warning. Think about it. Here comes a powerful storm and there isn’t anything you can do about it except hope for the best. You have to face mother nature head on, no ifs ands or buts.

I believe that severe thunderstorms are different depending on your location. For example, we rarely see hail above pea sized in northern Ohio. In the central plains of the US, it’s common to see hail the size of golf balls and baseballs. In Ohio, we just never seem to have the right thermodynamics to support that kind of event.

I’ve never seen a funnel cloud in person, let alone a waterspout. Part of me wants to see and experience a tornado while the other half fears it. When severe weather strikes, I know what to look for in the sky while others around me have no clue. If you live in tornado alley or even outside of it, I think it’s beneficial to learn about severe weather and what to look out for. The information could save your life.

Just once, I’d like to be in position to see an F-5 rated Twister in person rip apart an open field. It would be a moment of life I’d never forget.

I’m Not A Good Journalist

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a good journalist. For the longest time, I’ve been some random guy that has a fascination and curiosity with WordPress and have used a website to document my journey. Somehow over the years, that’s lead me to become this thing called a journalist. A title given to me by my peers, not by me. Personally, I don’t like the title of journalist but I don’t have much of a say in the matter.

When it comes to writing stories, for whatever reason I don’t do common sense journalistic things which in many aspects, are just common courtesy. For example, asking for permission to use text in a conversation as a quote attributed to that person. Or, ask someone to answer a few questions for an article and instead of using a snippet, I use their answers in the form of an interview without consulting them first.

What sucks about these kinds of mistakes I’ve made and continue to make is that deleting a post doesn’t work. Once I hit the publish button, I must deal with the consequences if I screwed up. It’s depressing and gives me a sickening feeling in my stomach to receive an email from a person I quoted in an article asking me why I didn’t tell them their words would be used in the way that I presented them. In just about every instance, they’re in the right while I’m definitely in the wrong. The only thing I can do at that point is apologize, tell them I can take the post down and that I understand if my actions have burned the bridge of communication between us.

In an effort to try to prevent myself from continuously falling into this trap, I’m writing down a list of things to do (and print) or consider when I’m involving other people into articles I write.

  1. Understand it’s my responsibility and mine alone to make sure the other party knows specifically how their words will be used.
  2. If I tell the other party I’m going to use their words in one way and in mid-stream decide to use them in another, inform the other party of the change as it’s their right. It also gives them an opportunity to allow or deny the use.
  3. Always ask for permission and never assume. Assumptions are traps and almost always lead to trouble.
  4. Just because my email signature says everything is on the record unless told otherwise, it’s not enough for a lot of people or they don’t see it.
  5. Never ever take words from private conversations and make them public through a post without explicit permission.
  6. If the post is an interview, send the person you interviewed a private review copy of the post out of courtesy before it’s published for review. Or if you end up using a lot of quotes provided by them in a post. This is probably one of the most important things to keep in mind as a final OK from them drastically reduces the chance of getting a pissed off email from them.

Some of the things are repeated and for good measure. Many of the things I have in my list are common sense/common courtesy but damn if I ever think these things through before hitting the publish button. I feel like shit when I mess these things up and get an angry email. It also doesn’t help when the victims are people I know and interact with at WordCamps and other places. There are only so many bridges that can be burned before no one will talk to me. I need to take all this shit more seriously and treat the conversations people have with me with more respect.

If you’ve been a victim of my negligence, I sincerely apologize.

The Invigorating Smell Of Summer Night Air

It’s 2AM and I just let the dog out to do her business. It’s the beginning of August. There’s a part of the moon touching the horizon and as I take a deep breath, I can smell everything the summer night has to offer. It’s invigorating, refreshing, energizing. One of the best times of the year besides a crisp Autumn night. As always, before I get caught up in the moment, I realize the dog is done doing her business. Time to go back inside.

The Pressures Of Being A Remote Worker

photo credit: kelly.sikkema - cc

photo credit: kelly.sikkema – cc

After being a remote worker for over a year, I have a couple of things I’d like to talk about. The first is that it’s a lot tougher than I thought it would be. As a remote worker, all of the responsibility of getting the job done is on my shoulders. It’s actually an enormous amount of pressure since the measure of work is output.

The Self Guilt Trip

When I walk the dog during the evening with my wife, I’m checking the phone to see if I’m missing anything. At night in bed, I stare at the ceiling wondering what I’m going to write about the next day. When I wake up in the morning, I check Facebook, Twitter, and my email, not necessarily in that order. By the time I get out of bed, one or two hours have passed without typing a word.

Work surrounds me. Everywhere I go, work follows. Moderating comments, reading RSS feeds, chatting on Twitter, is work and can be done on the phone. When I’m not in front of the Macbook Pro or the desktop PC, I’m thinking about my job. In many aspects, I’m the boss of me and at times, my own worst enemy. I’m sure that’s a musical lyric in a song somewhere.

I’ve often read that bosses don’t want to allow their employees to work from home for fear of them not getting anything done. In my experience thus far, I think the boss has nothing to worry about because productivity rests on the shoulders of the employee. If the output isn’t there, there is no one for the employee to blame but themself.

The Reality Check Of Being A Remote Worker

Being a remote worker has been an enormous reality check. It’s hard to complain about my job because I have the freedom and ability to make it suit my life, not the other way around. If work doesn’t get done, it’s my fault. If I sleep in too late to get a full day in, it’s my fault. If I spend most of the day enjoying life instead of working, it’s my fault. If I work for 10-12 hours during the day, it’s my fault. At the end of the day, if my output is not noticeable, it’s my fault. Thus the pressures I’m constantly exerting on myself to get something done.

Lessons I’m In The Middle Of Learning

Sara Rosso, who has worked at Automattic for four years, published her list of lessons learned from working remotely. I’m in the process of learning some of those lessons myself. One of the most difficult lessons I’m learning is putting my health first before anything else. If I’m out riding a bike, the only thing I can think about is what I’m missing or could be writing at home, sitting in a chair, in front of the PC, generating output. Spacing out an hour or two a day for bike riding, exercise, etc makes me feel guilty. I know there are ways to be fit and work remotely, I’m just personally in the middle of trying to figure it out.

This post serves as a documented effort of trying to overcome the struggles I’ve encountered being a remote worker. If there is one thing I could tell people thinking about becoming one, it would be that it’s not as glamorous and kick ass as you might think. There are benefits for sure, but there is also a lot of self-reflection. Depending on how you react, so much self-reflection can either make you a better person, or constantly eat away at you. Right now, I’m in the middle.

Can Writing About WordPress Change Someone’s Life?

I write about WordPress for a living. It’s a great job, has its pros and cons like anything else in life but I’ve been able to turn some of the cons into pros lately. I don’t think of my job as anything special. I write my opinions, thoughts, and generally just cover the WordPress ecosystem. It’s not something I’d consider world-changing.

I don’t think I can change someone’s life for the better simply by writing about them, their product, or their visions. Maybe I can? It’s just that so many people have an occupation that benefits society. I wonder what my place is in the grand scheme of things. People value WordPress news, what I write, and appreciate the heads up on things I think they should know about. But does that change their life for the better? It’s not like I’m building a house for a needy family, or participating in a charity that gives people a second chance at life.

Perhaps changing someone’s life is too extreme of a desire. Instead, I’d like to know that because of my work, they are more successful than they would be without it. If I became a millionaire, I’m that guy that would continue to eat at Applebees, Fridays or Longhorns and talk to the servers. Find out what pain points they have in life and if financial aid would be the biggest help, give it to them with a fat tip. I’d be so giving with my money, I’d probably end up broke again while others benefited. That’s just who I am.

WordPress may be just software made up of code that runs on servers, but it’s the backbone of so many sites. Sites that are trying to change lives and make an impact for so many people on this planet.

So in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think what I do for a living is earth shattering, life changing stuff. But I love it when someone tells me face to face at a WordCamp that because of what I do or a post I’ve written, they’ve been more successful whether it’s financially or the exposure opened up new doors. Those are the times I’m reminded that even a young man in the buckeye state can make a positive impact on people’s lives that he may never cross paths with.

 

Best Friends Mom Passes Away

The other night, I was startled to discover at 5 AM that my best friends mother had passed away at the age of 80. Just a few days ago, she went into the hospital because she was having chest pains and once the heart specialist put a camera into the valves around her heart, they discovered that all of them were around 80-90% blocked. The doctor couldn’t believe that she was still alive and walked into his office. They were to perform immediate heart surgery but postponed it for a few days because they discovered that she had weaker than normal lungs. Early Monday morning, she went in for surgery. The surgery went well as it involved taking veins from her foot and using those for a heart bypass. She was under the knife for six hours. Once it was over, she was groggy but conscious enough to speak a few words. During that night in recovery, while everything seemed ok, the world lost a great woman. The doctors tried for 30 minutes to bring her back but to no avail. As of now, no one knows what happened and the doctors are flabbergasted as to her death.

I’ve been trying to help support him through this troubled time in his life and it’s even more troubling to know that the house he lived in with his mother will now be silent with only himself to occupy it. I believe that for him, the silence will be deafening. She was quite a quilter and now he begins the process of celebrating her life and performing the necessary tasks of cleaning up (organizing, donating, and throwing items away) after a family members passing.

You know, you go through life and no matter what, you can’t seem to get away from death. Life moves at a fast pace but deaths of family members and friends or people that you have connections with act as stop signs. Times to stop and reflect on life, both theirs and your own.

Living On A Thin Shell

bluempI was listening to an episode of Coast To Coast AM the other night when they had on Professor William Forstchen who talked about the implications of an Electromagnetic Pulse Attack. Besides going into detail on how EMP’s are produced, the interesting thing is the issue that goes far beyond EMP and that is the current infrastructure of technology across the world. While I can’t see any country launching an EMP against another especially the U.S. for fear of being turned into glass, I do worry about an EMP coming from the sun. It’s happened before (Carrington Event) and it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. If a large X class solar flare is aimed directly towards the earth, the electromagnetic pulse produced could wipe out all modern electronics as we know them. This would set the entire planet back into the stone age.

This is another situation I can put on my list of things that could affect the entire planet where there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. We can go to war with each other, countries can disagree and fight amongst each other for reasons beyond my comprehension, but no one on this planet can do anything about a large meteor crashing into the planet or a massive EMP produced by the sun overtaking our electronics. I think it would be awesome if the entire planet lived on a line of thought where there are things that are above and beyond earth and human beings. While we are worried about one country going to war with another, we should be focusing on what is happening outside of earths atmosphere, to protect the natural wonder that so far, we have not discovered in any other part of the galaxy. I have a sense that events that could take place that come from beyond earths atmosphere are the only ones that can truly unite civilization. The day where taking over this country or that country doesn’t matter when something from beyond can turn everything into a moot point.

There is a part of me that wouldn’t mind seeing one of these EMP’s happening or a large meteor come crashing into the earth just because I think it would be a wake up call that while we live our own little lives on this blue ball, there is something bigger at work that we could all strive to understand and be part of.

Hello? Can Anyone Hear Me?

Hey there. Long time no see! If you’re reading this post on the actual site, you’ll see I’ve gone through a bit of a redesign. Also check out the new domain name! Spiffy eh? I plan on getting back to my roots and publishing what I want to publish instead of obeying an audience. I’ve had alot of things on my chest but have had no where to publish them. Jeffro2pt0.com built an audience expecting WordPress stuff, icons, news, with a mix of personal stuff. Now, Jeffc.me will be all about me. No barriers, no constraints, just saying what I want, when I want.

So what I’m wondering is, can anyone hear me? Are you still around?