Another night and another storm (okay, this was two nights ago now). I must admit, I like when it storms as long as I have no other plans to be outside. I grew up in Grand Island and was alive for the night of the twisters. Our house was recently built and was not livable after that night. We were on the edge of town and I remember numerous occasions where we could walk one block to the west and there were only corn fields beyond that and you could watch tornadoes that were not even close to town passing through the corn fields. I’m pretty much fearless when it comes to storms and last night was no different. I did have to run out in the middle of the storm and was of course caught in about the worst of the rain. For the most part I hid my truck in the garage and my plants in the living room and was waiting for something to happen. Seems north Lincoln got it pretty bad again but south Lincoln was just a lot of rain and wind. It seems a lot of people do not understand the reason I try to keep inside during the storms so I thought I’d explain. It is not because I’m worried about the storms, it is because I am worried about my truck. Sounds dumb to a lot of people, especially when you have insurance right. So here is a better explanation, take the money you spent on all your vehicles you’ve bought yourself and add that up. If that amount equals what I spent on this one vehicle you may be able to understand why I don’t want my vehicle hailed on or a tree blown over on top of it (Jesse, you’re not allowed to play this game). My last two SUVs have been bought with under 36 miles on the spedometer and very well taken care of. But I have insurance… have you ever seen what hail does to a vehicle? My first car got hailed on twice because I was stuck up at the lake. Both times I tried parking under trees but it never really helped. The $6000 in insurance money I made was nice but if I had to walk around with giant divits all over my face from an accident, I think my friends would feel pretty sad for me. Not to mention, why make an insurance claim when there is no need to. That drives premiums up and increases your chances of being dropped from your insurance company. Some still are going to think that is dumb, but bottom line, I take care of what I own.

Now, just to totally flip this concept around. I’ve always wanted to be a storm chaser. Every time a storm rolls in I’m outside waiting and watching. Seeing what the clouds are doing, hoping to see something breath taking. I have the camera and I have the laptop and electronics to keep me up-to-date while on the road. The problem… see paragraph one. They say you can’t out run a storm. That isn’t so much true but one of the storms last night was clocking 79 mph and that would be pretty tough to out run. There is another issue with this hobby, the price of gas. Maybe I should be like Rob and take my bike out for storm chasing. Pretty sure I wouldn’t out run any storms if that was the case. I’m pretty sure the old S-10 Blazers would be perfect for this because you can open the glass up in the back and leave the gate up. Give yourself some instant cover for your camera if need be. Really, it sounds like a lot of fun.

I decided to break the rules this week and get out the little gas grill and cook some hamburgers on the deck. I realize why they don’t want the average person with an open flame on a deck. I had a pretty decent fire going and some people just have no common sense. Add beer to that mix, and it just gets worse. I have to say, that hamburger really made me miss having a house and my grill. Maybe I’ll get to have a nice barbeque before the summer is over.