Thirteen Below

I opened my browser minutes ago and my home page opened up.  It’s the Borealis Webcam Multiview of their web cams scattered about Anchorage, Alaska.  The current temperature at 3:53 a.m. local time just happened to be -13 F, which is also the coldest temperature I have had the pleasure to enjoy.

Enjoy?  Well sure.  I was a teenager and it was a great adventure.  You may disagree if you have lived where it’s regularly colder.  Especially if you’ve had to endure plugging in your car to keep the oil a semi liquid, or shoveling snow for an hour just so you can get out of the driveway only to have the snowplow come by and block your drive again.  That does sound frustrating.

But my story is different.  I was 16 years old and we took a Winter road trip to Grandpa Jones’ ranch in John Day, Oregon.  Shoveling snow was not part of my life.  We were visiting from the Willamette Valley were the rare snow doesn’t stick around long and temperatures rarely fall below the teens above zero.

It was already cold when we left Canby.  In the 20s maybe and so my brothers and sisters and I were dressed warmly as we piled into the van.  It was an evening/night drive to eastern Oregon.  My first clue that this trip was going to be different was when we got into the mountains and ice started forming on the inside of the van windows!  Yes, Dad had the heat on, but it was near zero outside.  We stopped to go to the bathroom in the woods (you can do that in Oregon.  Lots of trees :-) and the wind blew through my jeans like I wasn’t wearing any!  First lesson.  Wear thermals when it’s nothing degrees outside.

We arrived in John Day and went to bed.  The next morning it was get out of bed and feed the cows.  No shower or breakfast first.  The cows get fed at daybreak, which also happens to be the coldest time of the day, even in John Day.  It was perfectly calm and clear and thermometer read -13 F.  A personal best for me that stands to this day.

I bundled up the best I could and I was made to wear a handkerchief over my mouth and nose so I wouldn’t “frost my lungs.”  I doubted then (and now) that that was a real danger at that temperature, but I don’t remember arguing.  Maybe I rolled my eyes.  You know how teenagers are.

I stepped outside into the squeaky snow and man it was cold!  I just gotten up, so there was not much blood circulating in my body yet.  Thankfully it was perfectly still so the wind chill was also -13 (unless you started walking fast).

We got to work.  We loaded the trailer with hay and Grandpa drove the tractor while we peeled flakes off for the cows to enjoy.  The cold was making my nose run and as I inhaled my snot (sorry about the visual) froze in my nose!  It’s like someone crammed cardboard up there!  The condensation from my breath turned the handkerchief into ice.  It was also forcing moisture to exit near my eyes and one of my eyes actually froze shut!  I had to take off a glove and melt the ice off of my eyelashes so I could open my eye again.  (I knew that handkerchief was a silly idea)  Crazy.

We were done before I knew it.  The cows were fed and we went inside to warm up and have a hearty breakfast our own selves.  That afternoon it got up to a toasty 10 degrees.  With sunshine icicles were growing and we went sledding and sliding into, and through, one of the frozen ditches.  FUN!  The whole visit was fun.  Later that Winter I got to return and my Uncle and I hiked up into the John Day Mountains and surprised a bunch of deer.  We also almost got lost in a snow squall, but that’s another story.

I love cold and snow.  Always have.  It’s beautiful and fun.  Of course, I’ve never had to plug in my car or shovel my way to work either…

Passionately Christian

Yesterday I wrote a little bit of why I am a “Passionate Conservative.”  I could have gone on, but I don’t have hours to write and you don’t have hours to read.  Bottom line is I believe that Conservative Principles when applied in a Representative Republic give individuals the best chance to be the best they can be.  As individuals prosper, the entire society is lifted up.  Indeed the results have been dramatic for the entire planet!

This morning I want to talk a little bit about why I am passionately Christian.  Bottom line is Jesus gave up Heaven so God could have a friendship with me and you!  In other words, God died so that when you die you don’t have to really die!  You can live with Him forever!

The only requirement to qualify for Heaven?  Believe in your heart that Christ died in your place and paid for your sins and on the third day rose from the dead.  Believe that in your heart and confess it with your mouth.  That’s it!  Romans 10:9 & 10.  You then exchange your earthly sin for His absolute righteousness.

Now as simple as that sounds, we all resist.  Well, most of us.  I do know a couple of wonderful people who have been Christians as long as they remember, but for most of us we decided that “having fun” in our youth was more important then being called “Jesus Freaks.”  Of course the fun lead to heartache and sometimes disease.  While we might be “good people” we are all pretty selfish by nature.  Of course God was still drawing us to Him and eventually we responded and accepted His wonderful gift of salvation.  If you haven’t and are alive enough to read this then there is still time.

For me it started in Sunday School at the First Conservative Baptist Church of Canby.  I was maybe 8 or 9 and our Sunday School Teacher was showing me in the Bible that God talked about springs in the bottom of the ocean.  Springs that scientists were just barely discovering thousands of years later.  That was enough for me to accept Jesus into my heart.  I still remember the joy I felt as I prayed and in my minds eye I saw light bursting from my heart!  It was pretty cool.

But.  I eventually stopped going to church and eventually started living more and more for my own desires.  That included increasing drug and alcohol use as a teenager and young adult.  I even shared a drug needle to inject some cocaine into my arm.  I only tried it 2 or 3 times in a one week period when I was about 20 years old, but I ended up paying a high price for the temporary rush the cocaine gave me.

I found out much later that I had Hepatitis C.  The worse kind too.  It was also about that time that God drew me back to him.  I started going to church, got baptized and started reading my Bible.  During worship at church I would cry out to God and also actually cry as He was healing my heart.  The folks around me at church probably thought I was a troubled man, but I didn’t care.  God was working while I was in His presence.

It was during one of those times that I heard God say in my heart about my Hepatitis C, “I’m going to take this from you.”  It was a word I clung to during the difficult one year of combination drug therapy.  I lost a lot of weight and some hair.  Food lost it’s flavor and I had suicidal thoughts.  All side effects of the drugs, but I hung on because I had God’s promise!

Sure enough, after a year of treatments I was Hepatitis C free!  And still am today.  That was 10 years ago.  Since then I have left my TV career and have served in a few ministries.  Mission Odessa, Family Life Radio and Teen Challenge of Arizona along with some churches along the way.  I don’t know if I will stay working in ministries as a job the rest of my life, but I do plan on ministering the rest of my life!  God has shown me a lot in His Word and through experiences with Him that I have to share.  It’s too important.  I don’t always live as I should and God doesn’t just give me what I want, but I know that He is always with me and He always gets me through.

If you want more evidence that God is who He says He is, check out this blog entry from a couple of years ago.  Stars really do sing, just like God said they do thousands of years ago!

If you don’t know Jesus and you are still alive, it’s not too late.  To say that it is awesome to know the God who created the Universe as a personal friend and Father is an understatement!

Weather, Man!

Man do I love weather.  It has been a passion and an obsession since I can remember.  It truly is how God made me.  Of course I have a very strong political and “religious” bent too.  I joke that my favorite subjects to discuss are politics and religion and that’s why God gave me such a passion for weather.  So I can relate to people with without offending them.  :-)

My weather fascination started very early.  My folks tell me that I was always talking about it even as a very young child.  I have early memories of unusual weather events when I was a wee lad in Los Angeles.  Severe Thunderstorms one afternoon and ice in the puddles at school one morning.  I was born in L.A. but we moved to Oregon when I was 8.

Growing up in Oregon was great for a weather freak like me.  Numerous storms coming off the ocean and in the 70s that meant lots of surprises in the actual weather compared to the forecast.  Fluctuating snow levels in the Cascades, east winds into Portland combining with overrunning warm air bringing epic ice storms, but not to our house :-( and I could go on about the different weather phenomenon I got to witness first hand.

I had the TV weather down.  KOIN would have the weather on first so I would watch that.  Then I’d switch over to KGW and catch most of their forecast.  Then it was over to KATU to watch the tail end of their weather.  This was especially important on the rare nights when the snow level had a chance to come down to the Willamette Valley Floor.  I remember many a frustrating evening watching it rain while I would stare at the thermometer stuck at 36 degrees trying to will it to come down.

So obviously I was going to go to school to study Meteorology.  I had it all planned out.  Go to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and get a BS in Meteorology and minor in Communications.  They had a TV station on campus.  I had a great score on my ACT and was even accepted into their advanced math program.  I was set.  One big problem.  My drug problem.  I still had some growing up to do and I blew my chance to go to school.

The story doesn’t end there however!  I ended up moving to Roswell, NM a few years later.  At 21 years old I took what I could carry and bought a bus ticket and started re-pursuing my dream to be on Radio and TV.  Math and Science were always my favorite subjects in school so naturally I went into broadcasting.

I got a part time radio gig in the early Summer of 1984.  That turned into a full time radio gig.  First overnights and then evenings and then Music Director.  After two years I jumped over to TV as a Master Control Operator, directing news cut-ins and also voicing, shooting and editing commercials.  From there it was into the News Department at another station as a news photog, then a reporter who shot his own stuff and also backing up the weatherman and then finally the weatherman!

Lots of detail left out in the above story, but God helped make a way for me when I had messed up and didn’t choose the easier way.  After another 8 or 9 years on the morning show in Lubbock, Texas as a weatherman, news anchor and feature reporter my life took another turn.  Through it all I have never ever never stopped loving and studying the weather.

Now here I am in Tucson, Arizona.  I have a web site and morning weather web show dedicated to my weather passion.  I just can’t help but share whether the audience is big or small.  When you have a chance, check out the site.  TucsonWeather.us and tune in to “Coffee and a Forecast” every morning (yes, weekends too) at 5:50 Tucson time for the live recording.  Or you can just catch up with it later when I post it on the site and in the Facebook group Tucson Weather.

Whether it is mud in the Pacific Northwest, Baseball sized hail in Lubbock, or Monsoon storms with amazing lightning in Tucson, I love weather.  I especially love snow and cold!  But that is another blog entry (or two).

Of course I have other passions and other web sites that support those.  There is also a lot of detail left out of the above story.  All fodder for future blog entries.  I better post this and get to work.  “Coffee and a Forecast” airs in less then an hour. :-)

Make it Real

I had this idea when I was posting YouTube videos on Facebook.  Every song brought me back somewhere.   Different stages, times, events, people in my life.

Songs have that power.  To transport you back to whatever or whomever.  Probably only the sense of smell is a more powerful memory prompter.

So, here is my first entry.  Scorpions, “Make it Real”

 

I was traveling across the Arizona desert, almost to my destination of Roswell, NM when someone on the bus asked me if I wanted to trade.  My Queen, “News of the World” cassette for his Scorpions, “Animal Magnetism” cassette.  I am still fully convinced I got the better end of that deal!

I started listening and I heard “Make it Real” and it really spoke to my heart.  See, I had left Oregon with only the possessions I could carry to pursue a dream of broadcasting.  I was gonna make it real for reals!  I had taken my last check, sold a typewriter my Mom had given me and bought a one way ticket to Roswell, NM.

Just a week before my friend and I were fishing.  He was gonna go to Roswell and wanted to know if I wanted to go.  I had never heard of it.  No one had as far as I knew!  It was before the alien stuff was widely known.  I asked him how big it was and if they had any radio and TV stations.  50,000 people and yes, both radio and TV.  I was in!

At the time I was a part time dishwasher barely making my rent.  A promising student in school, I smoked too much pot to realize that I could actually go to college.  I did know, however, that I could start a radio and TV career with a little talent in a small market.  And that is what I aimed to do.

Off on an adventure, as 21 year olds are prone to do.  It worked out just as planned.  However, with all plans, it didn’t look or unfold the way I pictured it.  So many life lessons along the way.  The subject of so many other songs.

I did get a job a few months later as a part time DJ.  That led to a full time gig and eventually, Music Director.  Then into TV and finally a weatherman.

Now I am faced again with a dream, or a hint of one.  Will I sell out and chase it like I did way back in 1984?  It feels different.  I have a car payment and debt and I’m old.  Then there is the dream part.   What is it I want to do when I grow up since I have already reached those goals of DJ and Weatherman?

I’m gonna play the song again and see if the song helps me to find the courage to really be what I think God wants me to be. I made it real once, maybe God wants to make it real in my life again!

Fun at the Yuma Fun Factory

I Ate an Eel

Yeah.  I know!  Who knew that would ever happen?!

When I was a kid in Oregon and swimming in the Mollala River, running into eels wasn’t a good thing.  Not because they were dangerous, they were just kinda gross.

Flash forward 30 years to this afternoon.  Pastor Steve invited me to lunch and suggested sushi.  I’ve had sushi once in my life and that was just this past Summer.  I’m not even sure that counts.  It was sushi that you buy at the grocery store complete withe wrapped in plastic packaging.  Still, it was pretty good!  I do like just about everything, so I was willing to try sushi for real.

We met at Kampai Sushi located on the NE corner of Oracle and Orange Grove.  Pastor Steve had some good suggestions as did the waitress.  We ended up getting a platter that included two “rolls” and 9 chef’s choice pieces.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I didn’t tell my pastor this, but when I saw “rolls” on the menu, I was thinking, you know… rolls.  Like bread!

Anyway, we had a “volcano” roll and a “playboy” roll.  They both had crab meat, so I figured it was gonna be good!  It was!  Pastor helped me figure out the chop sticks (I wasn’t a complete rookie, but the pointers helped) and the wasabee and we were off.  The rolls were awesome!  The pieces were varying degrees of good to really good.  The shrimp was my favorite.  The eel, well, that was my least favorite.  A little bit slimy and very soft meat.

The rolls were so good we ordered an encore that had soft shell crab.  mmmmm!  Next time (and there WILL be a next time) I will skip the eel.  The eel sauce, on the other hand was pretty tasty.

Tucson Weather – Blizzardo! Above 8,000 Feet

Tucson Weather: Cloudy and windy with a chance of an isolated shower or two this afternoon.  High in the upper 50s.  Rain tonight with winds gusting over 30 mph.  Low in the upper 40s.  Showers tomorrow morning with some clearing by afternoon.  Windy and cooler.  Winds gusting over 30 with a high in the low 50s.

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This is one of those mornings where I am up early and my excitement for the incoming storm has me looking up the latest information and staying up!  I’ll probably catch a nap before work.

I’m also up early enough to read in the National Weather Service forecast discussion about the Blizzard Warning being issued for the Catalina/Pinaleno and White Mountains for tonight above 8,000 feet before the warning actually comes out probably around 4:30 this morning.

The Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for tonight through tomorrow morning above 6,000 feet.  The added component of stronger winds above 8,000 feet has prompted the Blizzard Warning, which the weather service calls, “rare” around these parts.

As the storm gets closer more is known about the storm,  The expected snowfall amounts have been tweaked a little.  In the Catalina’s expecting about a foot of snow above 8,000 feet, 12-14 inches in the Pinaleno’s and perhaps over 18 inches in the White’s.  The snow will be heavy at times with snowfall rates of 2 inches per hour.  Combine that with 40-50 mph winds you have yourself a blizzard!  (mmmm blizzard)

Down here in the valley, expecting between a half inch to an inch of rain mainly tonight and tomorrow.  Winds could gust over 35 mph.  Kinda reminds me of Oregon!  Unfortunately, winds will be out of the southwest and west, so no driving rain against my north facing window like when I was a kid.  I miss that sound.

Self Discipline

I was in Yuma this past weekend visiting my sister Martina.  She lives in Oregon.  Oregon City to be more exact.  She and her husband and her two kids drove 21 hours straight to visit my Dad in Yuma for Spring Break.  This is a very cool arrangement.  My brothers and sisters travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to see Dad and I drive 225 miles to visit them all.  Everybody wins, especially me!  Well, especially Dad, but me too :-)

My sister Tina has a GREAT sense of humor!  How do I know this?  Well, she gets me.  And I get her.  Every time we are together we laugh and it’s fun.  We were looking at some of my videos and she asked me to play the one you see below.  She thinks it’s the funniest thing!  That’s because she gets it.  I’m hoping you do too, but judging from what some of my other friends have said, it could go either way.

Global Warming Stopped!!!

Used with permission from Lynn Kadwell, Copyright Lynn Kadwell

This was taken in the midst of the biggest snow in 40 years in Western Oregon.   I thought it might be fun to come up with some fun captions:

“Global Warming Defeated by Oregon Resident!”
“Global Warming is a Snow Job”
“Sign of the Times”

iTunes vs. Amazon mp3 Downloads

A few months back I went to Yuma to visit my Dad.  My sister Karin was visiting from Oregon along with her kids.  We had a BLAST!

One of the fun things we did was put together a DVD.  My MacBook Pro has wonderful software for editing video and audio and burning a professional DVD with iDVD.  It’s great!

After we shot our interviews and edited it all down it was time for the credits.  We needed some closing music.  No problem!  I have a zillion (or maybe a few hundred) of my favorite songs in iTunes!  Awesome.  Imagine my surprise and utter disappointment (I’m exagerarting here for slight comedic affect) when most of my songs were REJECTED by Final Cut Express.  Every song that I downloaded from iTunes was not accepted.  I had a handful of tunes I could use that I had imported from CDs that I owned.  We ended up using some Hall & Oates song I had from “The Wedding Singer” CD.  (don’t judge me!)

Ever since this somewhat tragic event (OK.  Mildly unfortunate maybe) I have switched tactics.  I can find all of the same music at exactly the same price and quality at Amazon.com!  Best part is, I can use the tunes in movies and videos, even iTunes and it’s no problem!

Well.  If I have some music on a video that I upload to say, YouTube or GodTube, and the artist tells me to cease and desist?  I will.  But, for videos for my own personal use and distribution among my friends and family?  No problemo!

That’s why Amazon.com beats iTunes for music.

Now.  iTunes is amazing for Podcasts!  My favorite Pastor, Pastor Duane Sheriff has a must listen too Podcast in audio, or if you prefer, video.  All of his sermons are uploaded the same day, I believe.  Listen and be blessed!

Of course, you can download thousands of God inspired messages at the ministry web site, or subscribe to his podcast:  www.dsheriff.org

See ya on YouTube and Facebook :-)

Mike

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