My latest obsession

OK, it’s not really an obsession. More of an interest. A love interest. OK, it’s not a love interest. This is the latest Person-I-Don’t-Know-and-Will-Probably-Never-Know that I have a crush on. But, since he isn’t exactly “famous,” it seems somehow not correct to say he’s in my 5. Which, by the way, has been totally ruined for my by TMob’s relentless ad campaign of the same name. Thanks, effers.

 

Meet Reed. Reed is a tornado chaser. Here are all the reasons I can think of why Reed and I are perfect for each other:

1. Reed likes meteorology, and I’m working on a book on meteorology, complete with a tear-out cloud chart that I have torn out to confirm my cloud sightings. As a side note: “Cloud Sightings” will soon be replacing the previous “Dead Deer Count,” which, while interesting, was also slightly offensive to some of my fine readers.
2. Reed likes to chase tornadoes and is pretty much out-of-pocket for 4 months of the year. And I like a man who isn’t around too much. So that’s perfect.
3. It would not bother me one bit if my sig-o called one day and said, “Honey, I can’t go to dinner/meet you later/make it to our wedding/be there for the birth of our child because there are warm and cold fronts colliding in Podunk and I need to go film the funnel clouds dropping.” Ok, it would probably bother me a little about the wedding day, but we could always schedule it for the off-season.
4. Reed likes lizards. I like lizards.
5. Reed is admittedly not playing with a full deck. Neither am I, admittedly and obviously.

 

In all seriousness, there is a really cool documentary, Tornado Glory, that features the work of Reed and his friends. I watched it a few weeks ago thinking it was one of the Independent Lens series, which it turns out not to be, but it is definitely well-filmed and edited. There is also some footage on Reed’s web site of various storms he’s chased. He’s apparently the “bad boy” of storm chasing. (what the h-e-double does that actually mean?)

 

There was a section of the film where they were discussing how someone had asked Reed how fast he was going chasing a storm and he said something like 100, or maybe 140. I really can’t recall, but what I do recall thinking was, “well who hasn’t gone that fast a time or 2 in their lives?” And oddly enough, a day or 2 later, I found out that a lot of guys have, but hardly any chicks have. How did I find this out? Because I got a Stats book to work on and the very first example in the book is about plotting data points for “highest speed,” separated by gender. So now is when I want to hear what is the fastest YOU have ever driven? What about the fastest you’ve ever been driven? I’m a 140/150 myself.