High Plains Drifter

Over the past few days, I have added some new photo albums to the Gallery from recent storm chases — Sep 19th, 28th, 29th (all in western Kansas).  Check them out!  I’m pretty much wrapping up processing images from this year, although I still have a few more image galleries to add from back in May that have been sitting in my "queue" to be processed but haven’t gotten around to them.  After I get those processed, I’ll be making a "Best of.." album from all of this year’s storm photography, so stay tuned for that. 

I’ve finally converted my long-lasting "mesomike" e-mail address from Hotmail (MSN) to Gmail (Google).  I was getting sick of all the increasing spam, plus the fact that since I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my primary means of checking my Cox e-mail, I can add this new Gmail account to Thunderbird.  I’m trying to get away from anything "Microsoft Internet" as I can, and Hotmail is tied in with MSN… and since Microsoft’s primary e-mail client is Outlook, you can only setup Hotmail accounts (external from browsers) with MS Outlook.  So there ya have it.  Mozilla and Google pretty much reign the internet these days… I should have changed my "mesomike" e-mail a long time ago.  Soo… my updated "mesomike" address is now

mesomike@gmail.com

Please make note of this!  It’s updated on my frontpage.

I haven’t updated in a couple weeks.  What’s new on Underthemeso since the last news item was posted:  The final 2 days of the late-June chase trip are uploaded which completes my online photography gallery for that trip.   I’ve also added the June 12th Colorado storm chase photography gallery as well.  These three galleries are easily accessed through the menu bar above by clicking on either "Latest Images!" or "Chase 2007". 

Over the past couple weeks, nothing much has been going on around here.  I have gone on one impromptu mid-late evening chase north of Dodge City on August 7th.  So, in terms of new images to add, I have some photos from 3 different dates to upload still (July 9, July 11, August 7).  Those will be small albums with not much to process, so I can get these uploaded pretty quickly (probably after I get back from the High Plains Conference next week).  Believe it or not, I still have images from May and even earlier than that that I still have to upload.  If there’s one constant, it’s that I’m always processing photos!  Never a dull moment at the computer that’s for sure.  Anyway, that’s about it for now… will give another update when deemed necessary or I feel like writing again

I have 3 new image galleries since my last news post.  I’ve uploaded Days 6 & 7 from my late June Chase Trip as well as images from my June 19th chase in Southwest Kansas — an incredible HP supercell!  Click "Latest Images!" above. In other news… I’m in the process of changing a few subtle things on the site.  In my gallery, I’m using new custom-made frames for my albums and images, I kinda like the new look myself   Also, I’m upgrading my blog to the latest WordPress version (2.2.1).  I’m hoping to somehow integrate my blog posts to my underthemeso.com frontpage instead of using this "news" feature.  It seems redundant to post to the news page and also the blog… try to kill two birds with one stone  

I have four new albums of images within my "Late June Chase Trip" album.  These albums contain images from chases on June 21, 22, 24, 25 — including Bassett, NE supercell… Chadron, NE supercell… Roundup/Forsyth, MT supercell… and the incredible LP Supercell that rolled east-southeast from Lightning Flat to Colony, WY.  I still have a few more albums to upload from the latter half of the chase trip, but these days were less spectacular for storms. 

…after 3 consecutive bust days.  Sorry I didn’t update my
whereabouts the past few days… combination of not having my computer
and pretty much ZERO activity storm-wise.  It was fun to meet up
with and hang out with my good friends Jim Leonard and Mike Theiss
along with Brad Riley and their 4 guests with Cyclone Tours.  It
was good to see how a chase tour group is operated (even though Cyclone
Tours is small) and to get the chasing perspective from people who
don’t chase on a regular basis and this being their first or second
time at it.  Unfortunately, with little in the way of photogenic
storms while I was out with them, the 4 tour guests didn’t to see the
ultimate prize from the chase (a tornado or a beautifully sculpted
supercell updraft), but they certainly did get to see what chasing is
all about, that’s for sure.  I may post more details later, but
right now I need to catch up on some more sleep before going into my
first day back at work this afternoon.

Well this is impromptu.  Jim "Papa Cyclone" Leonard called me this evening asking about the next couple days in the Dakotas.  I’ve decided to join Jim, Mike Thiess and the Cyclone Tours for a couple of days in the Dakotas.  The pattern looks marginal for supercells, but I can’t pass up an opportunity to spend more time with friends and storms in the Dakotas.  I’ll be tagging along with Jim Leonard Wednesday and Thursday (7-8th).  I’m due back to work on the 9th.  If the pattern looks too good to pass up on the 9th, I may try to extend my vacation an extra day.  We’ll see.  My laptop computer is heading to New York (800tech.com) to be serviced, and it should be back next week.  By next week, I should begin post-work of all the photographs since May 23rd.   By the way, I have a new cell phone (with a new provider), but my number is still the same, for those who know it.

I chased yesterday in Colorado, and I have a few of these photographs on my gallery page at this link:  http://www.underthemeso.com/gallery2/stormchase/chase06/2006jun05/

I doubt I’ll be able to update the blog on a regular basis since I won’t have my laptop computer, but I’ll try

Well I successfully got this new Blog up. Wow, what a powerful PHP code WordPress is. A lot of the little doodads, bells, and whistles that come with this I’m still figuring out. It took me half the evening just to get the friggin presentation/style the way I want it… and I still have work to do. There is this import feature that transfered all my Blogger stuff over here, which I wasn’t even aware of until I started clicking around in the admin options. Sweet! Anyhoo, I’ll try to write a little more often now that I’m not blogging on some foreign site and I have complete control with how I want this styled. I like it so far… stay tuned

-Mike