Peaceful Sky Scenes Close Out A Relaxing Summer Week

July 24, 2009 – The end of the week closed out with some peaceful cloud scenes along my trails. I returned to the lake after a week in Miami, with hazy skies from the Sahara dust that traveled across the Atlantic. I was greeted mid-week with deep blue Florida skies once again, with relaxing cumulus clouds painting summer the sky.

The afternoon thunderstorms kept their distance from me this week, and roamed mostly over Central Florida and the Southern Florida Everglades region. There was a few towering cumulus scenes where sea breeze boundaries came together, but warmer and drier air aloft kept these from becoming typical July lightning storms within my location. No Storm Chasing for me the last 8 days, but I have spent time monitoring the tropics and severe storms across the United States. A very mellow week of take it easy.

Lazy Slow Summer Mornings

I started each morning with a delicious ice coffee, my daily rounds of blogs and news, and enjoying reading and conversing with fellow Weather enthusiasts, Filmmakers, Photographers, Videographers, and Floridians on Twitter.

Enjoyed Talking Storm Chasing and Hurricanes

I also had fun as a returned guest on the Live Barometer Bob Show last night, along with fellow friend and Veteran Storm Chaser Jim Leonard. You can listen to the Podcast of the show here.

Dinner and A Movie At Home

Tonight Kersten and I plan to relax, rent a movie, and stay home grilling some burgers while enjoying the South Florida summer evening. Hope everyone’s week went well, and the weekend goes the same.

Florida Mourning Dove Sets Up Nest In Our Flower Box

June 28, 2009 – Over the last week or so, we’ve had a little visitor setup camp on our front patio deck. This Florida Mourning Dove decided she liked our flower box about 6 feet from our front door. There is a lot of foot traffic right by this flower box, but she seems to be very relaxed, and not threatened by our daily in and out of the house.

Kersten, JJ, and I have gotten fairly close just to watch, and she has allowed me to take several pictures and video of her over the last two days. There are two eggs in her nest, and she stays put through heavy Florida afternoon thunderstorms. The male comes by every now and then, at least when we are outside watching, and sits near the other end of the box. Yeah I know, the box needs to be cleaned out, and I need to plant some new flowers. At least my lawn and Coconut Palms (picture coming) look picture perfect.

I’ll keep you all posted with a follow-up post once the eggs hatch, which I have read online is about two weeks from when she sets up shop. We’ll have to see how she is with us all walking by once she has her little family in that nest maybe by next week….more to come!

Received My Pitchmen Sticker – Discovery Channel Series

Update – Sunday June 28, 2009 - With great sadness, Billy Mays from Discovery Channel’s Pitchmen show has died. It’s unfortunate that he had to die so young. My condolences to Billy Mays III and his whole family, and to everyone with the Pitchmen crew in Tampa and at Discovery. Billy will be greatly missed.

First off I wanted to say that I’m a huge fan of the Discovery Channel series Pitchmen. Kersten and I look forward to each Wednesday night to see what new inventor will be trying to pitch a new product to Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan. It’s a great show and a funny one at that too. The chemistry between Billy and Sully is great, and also seeing the products being setup for a infomercial along with the results. The behind the scene of the whole process is really interesting and makes a good hour of TV. I’d love to get to see one of these production shoots in person. It looks like a fun time on the set and just watching them work their magic with a new product.

Over last weekend Young Billy Mays, who is very friendly and active on Twitter, sent out a Tweet saying send a Self Address Envelope to their production address in Tampa and receive a free Pitchmen sticker. Well, I couldn’t pass up that offer. Who doesn’t like a free sticker, especially from a cool TV show and group of guys. So over the weekend I sent mine out and yesterday I received my awesome Pitchmen sticker! I was sifting through my snail mail, and came across my envelope with a Sullivan Production label. Alright it’s here!

A big thanks to Young Billy May, Bill Mays, and Anthony Sullivan for the cool sticker and fast reply. Be sure to catch the show on Wednesdays at 10p ET on the Discovery Channel. I feel like I’m pitching the show! LOL!

Spur of The Moment Getaway Florida Sunrise Pictures

June 12, 2009 – Kersten surprised me on Wednesday afternoon, by saying she wanted to just getaway for the night on the beach. She made arrangements for JJ to stay with my mother, and by 4:30pm, we’re off to the Ft Lauderdale region for a overnight getaway from the house.

Sure we didn’t travel far from home, but sometimes even just getting out of the house for a overnight in a nice hotel on the beach works out just great for some relaxing and alone time. Even though I brought my notebook, HD camera and some other gear, it was really just in case we came across any weather worth shooting, but nothing ever came out of the bags besides for the sunrise pictures. It was a nice warm tropical evening on the Atlantic Ocean as we checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel Resort beachside in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

We had dinner at a nice mom and pop Italian restaurant beachside with live music and outdoor dinning in view of the very glassy smooth Atlantic waters. I was born and raised in Broward County and have lived in South Florida my entire life, but I still felt miles away from home on a vacation. It was really nice and very welcomed. After dinner we headed back to the hotel after stopping to pick up some late night snacks. Kersten had a few drinks at the hotel bar while I was completely stuffed from my dinner and had no room for any drinks. LOL!

The night was great with watching HD movies on the large HD TV’s in the suites, snacking on food and looking out over the waters from the fourth floor facing the Atlantic waters. There was no checking email, texting, Twittering, nowcasting for Storm Chasers out in the Plains and being obsessive over forecast computer models into the wee hours of the morning. Just relaxing and having fun.

We awoke Thursday morning to a fantastic sunrise as seen in the following pictures. The ocean waters were almost like glass with the reflection of the rising warm sun on a mid June morning. I quickly grabbed my camera and starting shooting video and pictures of the very cool sunrise shortly around 6:30am. By 7:45am, we were off to have a really impressive cook to order breakfast and buffet. The food was great and so was the view. Again I felt so far from home and I shoot video around these parts several times a month. It just was nice to getaway from the daily grind, pattern, and routine. All in all a great 24 hours away from the house and now back to blogging, Twittering, editing video and dealing with all the email from the last 24 hours. LOL! I’m sure we’ll be doing one of these spur of the moment getaways again real soon. Enjoy the pictures!

Memorial Day Weekend ‘09 On The Grill Between The Storms

Despite the numerous showers and thunderstorms this Memorial Day Weekend here in South Florida, we were able to squeeze in some delicious grilling. Kersten and I worked on making some homemade Shish Kabob’s for the grill, along with some Ballpark hotdogs. Throw in some Macaroni Salad, and then some Boston Cream Pie for dessert, and it made for a excellent kickoff to summer 2009.

Boca Raton Florida Heavy Rains – TWC Video Package

Thursday was yet another active day, especially in the morning across Southeastern Palm Beach County and Northeast Broward County rain-wise. I was on the road early shooting rain video for TWC, and by 8:30am, I was shooting heavy thunderstorm rains from Pompano Beach to Lighthouse Point northward to Boca Raton, Florida. Several inches of rain fell and some isolated locations picked up 3-4 inches, like in eastern Boca Raton along the I-95 corridor. I filmed flooded roads along Glade Rd and Powerline Rd east to I-95. Also some locations along A1A in Lighthouse Point. The following video segment above is currently airing on The Weather Channel as of 5/21 – 5/22/2009.

Non-Tropical Low Brings Welcome Heavy Rains To Florida

The combination of a upper-level low centered over all of Florida, and a weak surface non-tropical low off the southwest Florida coast, has continued to bring heavy rains and gusty winds. On Tuesday I was out shooting video, as seen in the above video (also airing on The Weather Channel today), heavy rains fell across Southern Florida once again. Training showers and storms moved over the Okeechobee City region and Lake Okeechobee, where it has been extremely dry all Spring.

Further north into Central and North Florida, where the pressure gradient is much tighter, they experienced 40-50mph winds at east coast beaches with continuous rains moving inland in the deep flow. This whole slow moving system is expected to continue to bring drought relief rains and rough beach conditions at least into late Thursday.

Florida Sea Breeze Thunderstorm Convection Time Lapse

Looking at the calendar and knowing how bad I want to be out in the Great Plains storm chasing the severe storm season, I had to settle for some Florida sea breeze boundary thunderstorms instead. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Florida storms and am happy the wet season is trying it’s best to crank up finally after severe drought conditions. It just would be nice to be chasing “rotating convection” that sustains itself for longer than 30 minutes. A nice honking Supercell thunderstorm out on the rolling Plains would make a great day.

The east coast sea breeze boundary quickly rush inland today as the easterlies became much deeper. The boundary converged with the Lake Okeechobee breeze boundary. This set off moderate convection and several thunderstorms developed. Lightning associated with these storms started several new wildfires in Martin County, FL. I spent about 2 hours shooting the frames for the time lapse. At one point, a weak wall cloud developed out over Lake Okeechobee as a outflow boundary intercepted the storm out over the water. It was unfortunately short-lived. This was the 4th day in a row we have received measurable rainfall and that there has been a active sea breeze boundary with thunderstorms. It’s a nice change. More on the way this weekend.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Launch Video – Hubble Mission 2009

I attended the 2:01pm ET launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on May 11, 2009 . I was located just south of the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida along the Banana River causeway bridge. This is the Shuttle mission to the Hubble Telescope to upgrade and repair. This was my view from the south, along with beautiful east coast sea breeze thunderstorms on the drive back home. Enjoy the video stream.

Two Weeks Post-Kidney Transplant Video Update

Well, here I am two weeks post-Kidney Transplant and feeling good. The last two weeks have had their good days and some sore days, but mostly good days. There is no pain, just soreness on my right lower side where the surgery was done. The only bothersome thing is some of the side affects from the very strong rejection drugs. They can be hard on the belly at times. I’m getting use to them a little, and the coming weeks and months, the doctors will be lowering the doses.

I have been fairly active walking around outside and three times a week trips to the doctors for weekly blood work. I have been working on some of the older websites and a new one for a business idea coming later this summer. Speaking of summer, I’m really looking forward to being able to travel once again without having to make plans for treatments. I’m free to roam like I use to and just need to make sure I always have my meds with me. I plan to return to chasing like so many years in the past, including the upcoming 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season which begins in about 5 weeks. I can drive in about two weeks as I’m healing fast, and let me tell you, I need to get out of the house soon on my own without having someone drive me. It gets a little nuts after awhile.

So, trying to keep busy and also at the same time taking it easy to recovery. There is a High Risk for severe storms and tornadoes today over western Oklahoma and south-central Kansas. I will be arm-chasing today’s big weather event via radar and satellite imagery, and contacts with Storm Chasers out on the road in the target area. Anything to keep my mind busy, plus I love to watch storm events like this even if I can’t be there. More updates to coming as my recovery from Easter day Kidney Transplant.

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