What I did learn was that I have a lot to learn and a lot of practice ahead, so there is much room for improvement.  That said I did catch one of the brighter meteors and got one other star trail image that I liked, so I thought I would share those with you here.

You can click on the images to get a bit larger one.

Since we have had so much down time with the weather lately, this should prove to be an interesting diversion.  I’m also planning on streaming the whole thing live, as long as I can keep the laptop computer charged up anyway, which I think we have a plan for that.

They are expecting to arrive at the investigation site about 4:30pm central time, and be there all night.  Setup begins on arrival and investigation begins around 9pm.

This is only a videojournalist opportunity for me, but it is interesting subject matter and could make for a good live show.  If you want to watch, tune in any time between 5pm an 7am central time either here on my LIVE ChaseCam

If you would like to follow along, I am expecting to go live just after dark, around 6 pm Central Time or so, and will probably be going for 2 or 3 hours.  It could potentially be snowing too, and that will add to the treat!

This is for all you folks who love Christmas lights, and in particular, those that can’t get out and visit, and those in other countries that don’t participate in holiday light decorating, or maybe in the southern hemisphere where you are in summertime now!

Again, I expect to be live on the LIVE ChaseCam around 6pm Central Time in the US.

Lubbock July 4th, 2009 Fireworks

Very long day in Lubbock Saturday for the 4th of July.   My day started around 3 am.  I needed to be in Lubbock by 7 am and pick up storm chaser friend  Steve Miller down from Amarillo who was going to ride with me in the parade. My son was also up from Odessa for the events.

We arrived to queue for the parade route with the rest of the Channel 11 bunch around 8 am, and threw on some quick decorations.  Channel 11 had 4 vehicles total in the parade, one pulling a float with the anchors/reporters on it.

We streamed the crowd live as we went through the parade which took about an hour, and because we were near the front, we were able to get back around and catch the tail end of it. Steve was really getting the crowd going!  “You guys seen any tornadoes?” LOL   Then we spent a couple of hours checking out all the food and music in the 4th on Broadway celebration.

As it began to heat up, we decided to retreat to air conditioning for some rest for a few hours, then had dinner and headed out to the American Wind Power Museum where they had allowed us in to their VIP private area on the museum grounds to view the fireworks.  This area is on a hill overlooking McKenzie Park where the fireworks and other evening festivities were taking place and was an awesome place to take photography.

Before the official fireworks even began, we were treated with a good 2 hours of non-stop fireworks from people living next to the museum, and increasingly more for people arriving for the evening in the park.  Despite a large police presence, it didn’t stop tons of fireworks from being shot illegally in the city limits there. We didn’t mind at all.

As is began to get dark, the Lubbock skyline began to light up from one side to the other as everyone across town shot off their fireworks. I have never seen so many in my life!  We could then see the official show out at the country club to our north, and then finally the official show, which we streamed live on the ChaseCam here on the website.

Despite the fact we had virtually no wind and that was keeping the smoke in place, I still managed to get quite a few photos I am pleased with, and of course the video.  One lesson learned…  next year I will be putting out a remote mic so I can just get the firework sounds and not everyone talking around me too (including myself!).

The video is here below, and you can find the rest of the photos here.

Jupiter and Venus have been very bright and close together and the last couple of nights joined by the moon in a rare celestial combination.  I hope everyone got to view this at least once.

Despite only having a kit lens for my digital camera, I couldn’t resist giving some photography of this a shot.  I am rather please with what I got, even though I know with better lenses I could do so much better, as my chase partner Graham did with his better lenses tonight.

At any rate, I am encouraged because it just shows me I am learning this “new” camera better and better.  Here are a couple of the best tonight.  This is with the standard Canon EF18-55 kit lens that comes with most of the Canon Rebel XTi series.

This is one of the benefits of living in west Texas.  Endless skies and sunset!  Despite being cold it was quite enjoyable.  Be sure to click on them to get the somewhat bigger image.

Today will be a full day for me. I will be getting started before dawn up to Lubbock to meet up with some of the KCBD team, gonna decorate my chase vehicle which is going to drive in the parade along with Steve Miller TX and his chase vehicle representing NewChannel 11 in full storm chaser gear.

The parade is in downtown Lubbock and starts at 9 a.m. Central time. I am doing something a little out of the ordinary, and will be streaming video from the dash from inside the parade. Over 150,000 spectators are expected at the parade, and you can ride along with us and see what it’s like to ride in a fairly big parade on the LIVE ChaseCam. Again, it starts at 9 a.m. Central, but I will probably fire it up once we get in the staging area so you can see some of the behind the scenes stuff.

Not sure what all I will be doing during the day, but in the evening a free concert featuring Mac Davis will be held in the park prior to the fireworks. The plan right now, assuming I can get a fairly secure staging position and someone to watch the laptop, is to stream the fireworks, which I expect will start sometime between 9 and 10 p.m. Central when it starts getting dark. I would start watching for the LIVE cam to actually go live sometime around 8 p.m. Central. Hopefully I can bring you guys a pretty good fireworks show for those that stayed in tonight. I am going to try real hard anyway.  If I can tag into some broadband, I’ll also be trying to send audio as well as the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

By all means, leave a comment and let me know if your going to be watching or if you did watch!

Mother nature threw a few lemons at us the other day sending the main jet to the north and the subtropical jet to the south and leaving us stuck in between with no upper level support to get our dryline storms fired off. As we mentioned, we went after those storms developing there, but they never did much and we never could really catch it. Was just moving too fast.

So we decided to do like we always do and make the best of it with a side trip for some photography. We ended up in Alvord, TX. A small down northwest of Ft. Worth where my parents grew up. My dad is buried there, along with both sets of grandparents. This is the first time I have been back there in a very long time. Took the chance to take many pictures around down, and of the headstones. Little changes over the years in a town like that.

Graham got some really cool pics there, especially of main street…all 2 blocks of it. Practically looks the same as it did decades ago. Once he gets through tweaking them I’ll see about posting a couple.

We then headed to nearby Decatur, which is much larger and had some places to eat. But first we stopped off downtown to take some pictures of their very unique and historic courthouse. I was getting some lessons from Graham on using my new Canon Rebel XTI camera and night photography. Here are some of my first night shots and first attempts and post work on a photo. Lemonade from lemons…

In rare form, I unplugged from most of the world for a change and headed down to Lake Alan Henry this weekend when Steve Miller called me up on a spur-of-the-moment fishing trip. This was the first trip to this lake for both of us. He has summed up the trip well in his blog so you can read more about that there. Steve is a great fisherman with plenty of experience. Me on the other hand, I am lucky if I ever catch anything, I just like to get out there for the peace and quiet and feed the fish expensive bait. This was a chance for Steve to teach me a thing or two about artificial bait fishing. I caught my first ever bass fish (2 smaller ones) and a couple of crazy perch, but it was fun! Steve did quite a bit better on the bass than I did however.

We also got in a lot of great hiking and exploring some back roads and hiking trails and found some really cool hidden away spots. One of our favorites was this huge cliff that dropped almost straight down into the water. I don’t know how high it was, but it was definitely HIGH! This is a view of it from the side…

And this was the view…STRAIGHT DOWN! Would have gotten a nasty scratch from falling off that!

We also saw a good sized rattle snake Steve has pics of over on his blog and in general had a nice relaxing time, despite the 300+ boats coming and going resulting in a huge traffic jam at the boat dock requiring Lubbock Police to sort it out. Despite the huge crowd, almost everyone was well behaved and we were able to hike back in to some area where most people didn’t tread. The nice thing too was we were able to scout out some great fishing spots from the shore that we want to take advantage of on a weekend that isn’t a holiday and less people around. There are also some GREAT primitive camping sites that are spaced out enough among the ample vegetation to give you plenty of privacy. I am looking forward to another trip there despite my attempted recovery today from Ultra Violet Radiation Poisoning!