(Transcript) Rough Podcasts Ahead

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[00:00:00] Gabriel: Howdy folks, and welcome back to another episode of the Chaser Chat podcast. I am Gabriel Harber, and I’m very excited today to introduce to all of you, officially at least, because you’ve probably listened to a podcast or two of hers already, my good friend and part owner of Chaser Chat, That’s right, folks. Kay, how’s it going today?

[00:00:20] Kay: That’s me! I’m doing good. How are you?

[00:00:22] Gabriel: I am doing wonderful. Thank you very much for asking. And by the way, thank you for being flexible. We had it on the schedule to record earlier today, but had a few things come up and you were willing to move it around a little bit so we could record later. So just wanted to tip my hat to you, say thank you very much for that.

[00:00:38] Kay: Nah, it’s all good. I don’t mind.

[00:00:40] Gabriel: You better not because I’m your boss. No, I’m just kidding.

[00:00:42] Kay: I was gonna say you are technically my boss, so I can’t really complain too much.

[00:00:46] Kay: All right, before we get into your background and talking about your experience with weather and everything, which is where we normally start these podcasts, I do want to give a little bit of background to people about the whole part owner of Chaser Chat thing, because they’re wondering. What, really? This person that I’ve not connected with you before, Gaby, is actually a part owner of Chaser Chat, and I figure I owe them a little bit of an explanation at least. Most of you are probably aware that for about seven or eight months, Chaser Chat went dark at the beginning of 2024, end of 2023 ish time period, and I had a lot of stuff going on. Mainly, I was starting my own business, I got a lot busier than I thought I was going to be, and unfortunately, when you do get busy with life, stuff like Chaser Chat, which is more of a hobby for me, has to take a back seat. Needless to say, though, I was chomping at the bit to get back into Chaser Chat because it’s something that, definitely has had its ups and downs over the years in terms of how many episodes I’ve recorded and how much content I’ve put out, but it’s always been something that has been important to me. And I realized very quickly two things from having such an extended absence from Chaser Chat. First of all, My schedule wasn’t going to be getting a whole lot less chaotic. Definitely has come down a little bit since then. And also I thought that Chaser Chat, and I’ll take inspiration and give kudos to Stormfront Freaks, Phil and the whole crew over there are freaking awesome. I thought Chaser Chat could definitely become more than just Crazy Gaby talking into a microphone. I had an idea for it to become more like a podcast network with a lot of different hosts, a lot of different personalities, a lot of different types of episodes. And so I realized with both of these things in mind, the fact that my schedule wasn’t going to be getting a whole lot less chaotic. And the fact that I had these larger ambitions for Chaser Chat, that I was probably going to need to bring on somebody to help me out because It’s a lot of work to get done, especially if you’re trying to put out two to three episodes per week, manage a lot of personalities who are recording podcast episodes, doing social media, all that jazz. And it just so happened that, and Kay, you can actually correct me if I get any of this wrong, because I’m always getting stuff like this wrong when I’m talking with like my significant other. I’ll recount details from six months or a year ago and they’ll be like, No, actually, honey, it was like this. It actually happened. So if I get any of this wrong, please step in and tell me what the actual dates or times were. But I believe it was sometime during the second half of 2023 that you had been hitting me up, letting me know that you were starting a podcast yourself, correct?

[00:03:22] Kay: Yeah okay, so what happened was, last year, I kinda had the idea to start up a documentary style podcast, and I had tagged you in something stupid on Twitter, I can’t remember what it was, but I was like, there’s, first off, there’s no way that Gabriel’s gonna actually see that, cause he’s a very busy person, and you were, I think I was talking actually about how I was gonna do it once my schedule cleared up, and you were like, do it, and when you do, send it to me. And I was like, okay, cool. So my work schedule died down because I work a seasonal job, and I put out my first episode and I was like here go listen to it and then you did.

[00:03:56] Gabriel: And I didn’t just listen to it right away. Remember I said, hey, “I’m still super busy right now I promise you I will listen to it though. I give you my word” and by the way, I say that to everybody because one thing as a content creator myself, who I’ve been at the bottom of the food chain. I’ve experienced some moderate success especially in my previous occupation. I’ve talked about this before, not recently, but I actually used to be a professional podcast host and livestreamer in fantasy sports and that was actually my career for about five years so I’ve experienced sort of the highs and the lows of being like the bottom person on the totem pole coming in not having a lot of Following on social media not having a lot of connections in an industry. So like one thing I am, absolutely 100 percent all about is if somebody takes the time to create content and then they reach out to me and they say ” Hey, could you check this out?” I do my absolute best to always at least listen to one episode or watch a little bit of one stream or whatever the type of content may be. And give them some like honest feedback, some of it being positive critique, some of it being some constructive criticism, whatever I might be able to offer, because I just, I know what it was like to be in that position myself. And so when you got out, when you reached out to me, instead of starting a podcast, like I every had every intention of the world, I was going to listen to it. I just didn’t know when I was going to be able to get to it. But anyways, eventually I did, I was definitely impressed-

[00:05:22] Kay: It took like two months though.

[00:05:23] Gabriel: It did. It did take me about two months to listen to it, but love that style of podcast. So there’s a podcast that used to be out called Tornado Talk. I believe Tornado Talk is online only now, text only. It doesn’t have the podcast component to it. It’s if I’m not mistaken, it’s Jennifer Naramore. Do I have that right?

[00:05:40] Kay: I don’t know off the top of my head, I’m going to be honest.

[00:05:44] Gabriel: I know that Tornado Talk itself is still active. I don’t think, at least I searched not too long ago to see if the podcast was still up on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, that sort of thing. It was not. But I used to love listening to it and it really just gave a detailed historical breakdown of various prominent severe weather events. Similar to what Carly Anna does now on her YouTube channel. And then you came out with Rough Skies Ahead, which was a podcast created in a very similar vein to both of those types of media. I enjoy that sort of media, and so I was like, this is awesome. She’s actually put a lot of effort into it. I could tell that you had definitely written a script. You weren’t just freestyling it. Not that freestyling it is necessarily a bad thing. I pretty much always freestyle. But when you’re doing something like that where you’re recounting an event, it becomes very difficult to just spitball that stuff off the top of your head. So I recognized right away that there was quite a bit of effort and time that was being put into it. And I was like, “Oh, this is cool. Like I’ll actually work this into my regular podcast rotation and I’ll listen to all the episodes as they come out.” And so that was my first experience with Kay. I was like, this is really cool. I’m glad you sent me over this content and everything. And then flash forward to where I was at a few moments ago when I was explaining how I wanted to restart Chaser Chat, but I was super busy and I wanted to expand it into something bigger than it currently is. And I thought to myself Kay is obviously an up and comer. She’s hungry. She has, she’s displayed ambition, initiative, all the things that would be valuable to me as a person who’s trying to actually turn Chaser Chat into something bigger than it is right now. Why don’t I just check and see if she’d be on board and would want to come on and maybe help out. And in exchange, I could offer her, part ownership of the podcast, whatever that ends up being, whether it’s just me eternally being in debt, or maybe it turning into something that actually turns a profit in the future. Who knows, but that is what I offered her. And that is why we are sitting here talking on this podcast right now. Do I have most of that correct, Kay?

[00:07:47] Kay: Yeah, I would say so. On my end, I was just kinda Hey, Gabe seems like a pretty cool guy. I like Chaser Chat. Chaser Chat’s made its way into my regular rotation of podcasts to listen to. I pretty much don’t ever not have some kind of background noise going on. And so when you reached out to me, I was like, I have no idea what I did to make you think and fool you into thinking that I know what I’m doing, but sure, why not?

[00:08:10] Gabriel: I’ll tell you what, your deception is ongoing because I’m still extremely pleased at the decision that I made. In fact, I’m starting to realize that as a person who owns my own business, and now I guess you could technically consider Chaser Chat as a second business, because there are a lot of people who are associated with the project. I’m starting to realize that the best decisions, a person who’s technically management can make is to bring on awesome people. And so in terms of things that I feel most proud or happiest about with it, when it comes to decisions that I’ve made, bringing on somebody like you is actually way up the chart. So I just have to tip my hat to myself for that one, because I saw the potential in you when no one else did.

[00:08:48] Kay: I think I’m pretty great, so.

[00:08:50] Gabriel: Yeah, not too shabby at all. Okay. That is an extensive preamble. I appreciate all of you listening. I’ve been wanting to share all of that with you, but I didn’t just want to put out some dry episode where it was me monologuing, talking about that. I thought it would be a proper way to introduce Kay to all of the Chaser Chat listeners if I had her on for a full length interview, and then at the beginning, we talked about all this stuff. So moving forward for the rest of the episode, we’re going to chat about Kay, what influenced her to get into weather, some of her influences for starting Rough Skies Ahead, all that jazz and… action. Here we go. We’re on to that part of the episode now. So Kay, why don’t you go ahead and let the listeners know what is it that first inspired you or caused you to become interested in the weather? Because I know you have a diverse geography in terms of where it is you have been located and where it is you are currently located.

[00:09:41] Kay: Oh yeah. Alright flashback probably like 20 years ago. I’m 27, so we’re talking 7 year old Kay hanging out. I grew up in Colorado, and specifically I grew up in northern Colorado, so we would get tornadoes, but they weren’t ever anything that was like, super major. The worst that we ever had was actually the Windsor, Colorado EF3, which I lived in that area for. I didn’t experience it personally. I was actually about 20 minutes outside of that actual warning area. So I grew up knowing about it, but I was absolutely terrified of tornadoes and thunderstorms in general. They freaked the living hell out of me for some reason. I ended up meeting somebody right around the time I was 12, and she got really into weather and so did I because she and I were friends and we watched Storm Chasers and the more that I learned about how cool tornadoes were, the more I stopped being afraid of them and started thinking that they were really cool. And I started to get more and more interested in it. Flash forward quite a ways. My interest in weather dips and ebbs and flows quite a bit. And then I moved back-

[00:10:44] Gabriel: That’s true for most people.

[00:10:44] Kay: Yeah, it’s one of the, there’s a reason I call myself Kay of All Trades. I have so many different hobbies and interests that I can’t even keep track of all of them. Shout outs to ADHD y’all. So, for various reasons, I ended up having to move to Alabama with my parents and Alabama being in Dixie Alley, we got quite a few thunderstorms, quite a few tornadoes, things like that. And that was when my interest in weather, I would say, really dipped back into not just being something that I idly paid attention to, but something that I was actively interested in.

[00:11:15] Gabriel: Which by the way, if you’re a Dixie, you have to actively be interested in the weather. It reminds me of the old, I can’t remember if it was Lenin or Trotsky. It was one of them back in the day when they were first fomenting the idea of communism in Soviet Russia. And trust me, I’m going somewhere with this, but the quote is, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. And that’s the way I think about being in Dixie Alley, because it’s so difficult with the lack of visuals and the way those storms are just massive blobs of precipitation on radar oftentimes. It’s you may not be interested in the weather, but the weather is interested in you. So you better pick up your phone and download a radar app and find a trusty meteorologist on a local weather station that you can tune into whenever you need information.

[00:12:02] Kay: Yeah, and so it’s funny that you bring that up. So when my dad called me to cut a long story short, I had to move in with them because I was having some health issues that had come up. And so he called me and was like, Hey, this is the plan. Are you good with moving down there? I was like, that’s fine with me. The area that you’re talking about living in is not like where we’d lived in Colorado. You have to pay attention to the weather. Make sure that we have a basement or a storm cellar. And so he was like, I’m doing quite a lot of research on it. My dad was really proactive in that. And he picked the place that in the last 50 years, since we had started taking records of tornado databases, that it had maybe two and they were, I think EF0s? So they didn’t really do anything, and we moved me out there, and not even a week into it, my mom and I were huddled in the back of a Walmart during a tornado warning, with an EF2 rope tornado hanging out less than a mile away from us. So from there on, I just got really interested in weather, especially because the area that I was living in at the time was pretty heavily impacted by the 2011 Super Outbreak. People talked about that all the time while I was down there. Before I had moved away from Alabama, I was actually planning on starting to take some storm spotter classes and become spotter approved. But then, my fiancé and I decided that it would be better for our relationship, because he and I had spent two years long distance from Seattle to Alabama.

[00:13:27] Gabriel: Oh, wow.

[00:13:28] Kay: Yeah. When people tell me that they are long distance and they’re like two or three hours away, I was like, I’m a eight hour plane ride from mine. Anyway. My dad’s job had started to transfer anyway, so they were going to move back to Colorado and we both decided that it was time for me to just go ahead and move in with him, and I’ve been in Washington ever since.

[00:13:45] Gabriel: So now, the main problem that you might have to deal with in the future, and I know I brought this up when we started first talking, is the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Can’t really chase that storm. It chases you.

[00:13:57] Kay: Nope, it does. The most that I get to chase right now is the lovely Atmospheric Rivers that just drop 20 inches of rain on us.

[00:14:04] Gabriel: Yeah, absolutely. You’re by the Olympics too, right?

[00:14:07] Kay: Yeah, I am about an hour outside of Olympia.

[00:14:11] Gabriel: Absolutely beautiful up there. Every time I see a picture of the mountain ranges up there, they’re just like covered with beautiful trees, tons of different colors in the foliage. Just looks like an absolute paradise.

[00:14:22] Kay: Oh yeah, I am, I’m again from Colorado so I have to be someplace with mountains and we have the best view of Mount Rainier that I think that you can find in the state from my bedroom window. I, every day in the summer when it’s not cloudy, I can look out my window and I see the mountain just peering out ever so ominously above us because it’s a volcano and it’s a very active volcano in fact. At work, we have volcano evacuation plans, which is hilarious to me because I don’t know what to do if a volcano erupts, man.

[00:14:53] Gabriel: Don’t do whatever they did in Pompeii because that didn’t seem to work out very well.

[00:14:56] Kay: Yeah but yeah, it’s beautiful up here. We hike on a regular basis. It’s really good for me because my other passion is being outside and out in nature camping, fishing, things like that. It’s nice to be in an area that really embraces that kind of an that kind of activity.

[00:15:09] Gabriel: I know there are a number of storm chasers who actually travel to active volcanoes. Take drone footage and that sort of stuff. Definitely need to get one of them on the podcast at some point because I know it’s not technically a storm, but I think for the purposes of this podcast, we could massage the definition of storm chaser to include volcano chaser.

[00:15:27] Kay: I agree. That would be a lot of fun. Rainier, luckily, doesn’t really do anything. She just sits there and watches.

[00:15:34] Gabriel: Oh, she’s waiting though. She’s planning.

[00:15:36] Kay: Yeah fun fact about the Ring of Fire, which has a very loose definition, apparently. But in the Cascadian area with all of the, volcanoes that are existing in Washington and Oregon, everybody is predicting that Rainier is going to be the next to erupt. It’s just a matter of when and how bad.

[00:15:52] Gabriel: And to all of you listening right now, if it sounds like Kay is very passionate about sharing, about the topics that she’s interested in. She actually does this by trade outside of podcasting. And I know at the beginning of all your episodes, you mentioned this. So if you could just share that with people a little bit and maybe how it’s influenced your podcasting style and the way that you deliver Rough Skies Ahead.

[00:16:16] Kay: Yeah, so I am a Certified Interpretive Guide, which is the fancy way of saying that I am certified to be able to educate the public and give educational programs. So if you go to, say, a zoo or an aquarium, the people who are walking around and teaching people about the animals or guiding people on nature walks, that’s what I do professionally. And that’s pretty heavily impacted the way that I do my documentary style items. I actually used to do content creation for gaming once upon a time. And it was all over the place. I did a lot of Let’s Plays, but as far as the way that I do Rough Skies Ahead now, I format the way that I do my podcast episodes the same way that I format the way that I do my programs for work. And actually the very first Rough Skies Ahead episode is an elongated version of the program that I created to get my certification.

[00:17:11] Gabriel: Oh wow, I didn’t know that.

[00:17:12] Kay: Yeah, I gave a- I had to give a 10 minute program last October. And so I had to actually cut quite a bit of what you hear in the Rough Skies Ahead podcast out. But I weaved that in as like the foundation for what my first Rough Skies Ahead episode would be. And so everything that you hear from me on Rough Skies Ahead is literally an educational program that I have been trained to know how to do.

[00:17:35] Gabriel: That is really cool. I was aware of the interpretive guide thing, and I don’t know if you’d shared with me before about that first episode, or if this is the first time you’ve talked to me about it. But either way, that’s really cool that you were actually able to integrate your passion for the weather into your actual professional career like that.

[00:17:52] Kay: Yeah, it was not something that I ever expected. My, my life has taken me on a very roundabout, crazy journey. And I’m just along for the ride at this point in time.

[00:18:04] Gabriel: So besides starting the podcast because of the skills that you have with your day job, how long had you been thinking about doing it? Because it’s no small endeavor when you decide, especially from scratch, to start a podcast. So I’m guessing it’s not something that, it was just a Sunday afternoon and you’re like, let’s go ahead and do this. And then you got the ball rolling. A lot of people will actually have it in mind for months or sometimes even years. Is that something that you’d wanted to do for a long time?

[00:18:30] Kay: So I mentioned this earlier I used to do content creation that was had absolutely nothing to do with weather, I used to do gaming content on YouTube. I would do Let’s Plays and I would do game reviews specifically related to Sonic the Hedgehog content, so if you are listening to this and you happen to have been subscribed to me and you recognize my voice, what’s up everybody? Various reasons, I ended up stopping doing that. It was becoming too much on my mental health to be able to handle, ’cause at the time that I was uploading regularly, I actually was in a car accident and sustained a traumatic brain injury and had to relearn to talk.

[00:19:02] Gabriel: Well you did a really good job at it.

[00:19:04] Kay: Yeah. You would not believe the kind of stutter that I had listening to me speak right now. It still comes up every once in a while, but usually when I’m really tired or stressed or have to lead too many programs at work. So I stopped creating that, but the itch to create stuff never really stopped. I’m an artist and a creative at heart. So I’m either drawing, painting, writing, playing music, something along those lines. So I swapped actually over to doing Twitch streams and playing games or painting. And then as I started getting into what I do now for my day job, as my career, the idea of figuring out a way to create something that has to do with weather, because I live somewhere that weather doesn’t really happen too much, was starting to become more and more prominent. The issue was it was coming up as an idea right around May. And I work at a zoo, which May into September is the peak season for us. We get very busy. So I was like, there’s no way I can do this right now with all the stuff that I’m doing for my day job. I put it on the back burner. And at the time I was thinking of how I was going to do it, and it ended up being just the perfect opportunity and the perfect way that things lined up for me to be able to get my certification and use that as the foundation to be able to make my podcast.

[00:20:17] Gabriel: It’s really interesting when you said that weather doesn’t really happen there, and this was a way for you to make weather happen. Seems like it’s almost a way for you to be involved in the community, even though you can’t physically be on the ground part of the storm chasing community.

[00:20:35] Kay: Yeah, I would say so. It served that dual purpose. The people in the weather community always seemed like they were really nice people, and I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with a couple of people on Twitter. But living somewhere like Washington, like I said earlier, the most you’re really going to get is a lot of rain. You might be able to chase a snowstorm, but that’s about it. And even if cool weather things do happen, it’s usually on the eastern side, and I am on the very far western side of Washington. So it was a way to be able to scratch the itch of having weather stuff happen, but not being in a place where you can have weather stuff happen.

[00:21:09] Gabriel: That being said, do you still plan on storm chasing at some point in the future? Because this is Chaser Chat, so I would be remiss if I didn’t, if I didn’t prod you a little bit on that.

[00:21:17] Kay: All right. So I’m going to preface this when I say this, and I’m going to say my dear, lovely father, if you’re listening, I am sorry. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. I have already gone storm chasing this year and it was in June while I was dog sitting for my parents. And to be clear, I didn’t plan on it. It just happened. There, I was supposed to be-

[00:21:37] Gabriel: That’s right. That’s right. I remember now. I’m so sorry. I remember it. That was your first storm chase too, right?

[00:21:44] Kay: It was my first storm chase. So at the start of the year, I actually took the Girls Who Chase seminar on storm chasing and their safety and whatnot. And I happened to be in an area where there was… honestly looking at it on the radar. It was a mess, but it went tornado warned. And I happened to just be in the right area. And I was like, I am already on the Southwestern side of it. I’m not going to see anything, but I’m going to at least go see what’s going on. And so I drove 20 minutes from where I was, and took a look around, and it turned out that the thunderstorm, while it didn’t drop a tornado… it did have a land spout about five minutes from my location. I just couldn’t see it. So I have officially already gone storm chasing. It is something that I would really like to do more of in the future because it was a ball, but I need to learn more about the skills that are needed. And I need to go on a storm chasing tour where I can shadow somebody who knows more about what they’re doing than me.

[00:22:39] Kay: Hey everyone, Kay here from Rough Skies Ahead and Chaser Chat. I wanted to give a quick shout out to the new Chaser Chat YouTube page, where you can find all your favorite episodes uploaded in video form with a transcription to follow along with. The link is in the podcast description.

[00:22:56] Gabriel: You’re probably wearing clothes right now, and I know you like listening to podcasts. Why not combine the two and support the show? Head over to chaserchat. com or click the link in the podcast description, and you’ll find all sorts of items like t shirts, hoodies, beanies, ball caps, coffee mugs, and more.

[00:23:14] And if none of that sounds good, at least buy a freaking sticker. It’s only three bucks. Visit the merch store today and support the podcast by going to chaserchat. com or clicking the link in the podcast description.

[00:23:26] Gabriel: Two things. First of all, I did say earlier that I was going to forget stuff. So I do apologize, but I’m not too sorry, that I forgot you had actually already been out storm chasing because I do remember when you and I first started chatting, you had told me that you hadn’t been storm chasing yet that you really wanted to in the future. So I just hadn’t updated my mental model yet, but that’s right. You did go storm chasing I remember I believe we were actually texting a little bit during it, right?

[00:23:50] Kay: Yeah, I sent you a couple of pictures of just the dark clouds that I was staring at. There wasn’t even any hail, honestly. It was just pouring, absolutely dumping rain. It was very high precipitation for a Colorado storm, which I don’t, I again lived in Colorado most of my life. I had never seen a storm drop that much rain. So that’s probably why I couldn’t see anything was walked out by the rain bands. But yeah, I sent you some pictures, sent you an article about the-

[00:24:15] Gabriel: I’m a horrible friend, by the way.

[00:24:18] Kay: Yeah, you’re terrible. How dare you? And I say storm chase in the loosest sense of the words. Because there’s probably actual like professional storm chasers who are listening to this and they’re like, Oh my God, she calls herself a storm chaser. I just don’t live in an area where there’s places that I can storm chase and it sucks. I told my Fiance that if we ever do move outside of Washington I would like to move somewhere where I am within like a 12 hour drive of a storm chasing location. And he’s I don’t know if I like that idea. Cause that would mean moving somewhere into the Midwest or Colorado specifically. And he’s not a fan of either of those ideas.

[00:24:57] Gabriel: Colorado is like the Mecca for storm chasing hubs. Every person that I talk to that either lives in Denver or has visited Denver or that area there abouts basically cannot sing the praises enough about how perfect of a location it is if you want to be a storm chaser.

[00:25:13] Kay: Yeah, and that’s what I keep telling my fiance. He’s not completely opposed to it to give him some credit here. He just is very picky about locations because he wants things to be within like a reasonable distance to him. He lived in Seattle for a long time, so that kind of gave him a lot of conveniences that he’s finding it annoying to live without. And that’s fair, and that’s understandable. But I would like to go and start storm chasing as a hobby, at least, once or twice a year when I feel like there’s a good setup. And Colorado, from what I have spoken to, and I have personally experienced, because of the geography of it doesn’t get super bad tornadoes, except for the one that I mentioned earlier. And when you do, they’re very photogenic, and they are usually low precipitation, so they’re very visible. And the terrain, especially on eastern Colorado, it’s very similar to Kansas, there’s not any trees, it’s all shrubs and tall grass and corn.

[00:26:08] Gabriel: Yeah, I saw a tornado out there a few summers ago near Akron, Colorado. Absolutely beautiful area. Nothing for miles and miles and miles.

[00:26:16] Kay: It’s from what I actually asked list of asked this of Skip during the Girls Who Chase seminar, people were asking what the best like beginner location is for brand new storm chasers, and Colorado is one of the places that he mentioned for all of those reasons. Plus the road networks are a lot better, I feel like.

[00:26:33] Gabriel: And the nice thing about storm chasing too, even though I know there’s the whole never stop chasing meme, that’s not true for most people. Most people don’t live near, or at least a lot of people don’t live near storm chasing central. They’re not near Tornado Alley. And they just go out once or twice a year for a chasecation. And so even if that ends up being your interaction with storm chasing the way that you choose to enjoy it. Then I think that’s perfectly in line with what most people will experience, going out to the Plains for a week or two, once or twice a year. Chasing whatever happens to pop off and then going back to wherever it is you’re from to resume civilian life.

[00:27:10] Kay: Yeah. And that’s probably what’s going to end up happening for me long term. The other thing that I would need to figure out too, is finding a chase partner that I can trust to be on the road with me, because I’m unopposed to chasing on my own. But managing, keeping an eye on the radar, finding the right roads and everything, even just for the one chase that I went on this year, was a lot to have to manage. And I would much rather focus on trying to keep myself in a safe spot than anything else. So finding somebody that I can help take a little bit of the weight off of my shoulders would be nice.

[00:27:42] Gabriel: And I don’t know how much it costs, but I know that Trey Greenwood from Convective Chronicles YouTube channel, he runs Storm Chasing Tours and everybody that I’ve spoken with who has been a part of those has spoken very highly of them. So just a an idea for you and you know I can shill Trey a little bit here since everybody knows we are a Convective Chronicles Stan podcast.

[00:28:07] Kay: Can confirm. Confective Chronicles is wonderful. I can speak on Rough Skies Ahead, too. Yeah, the couple of storm chasing companies that I was looking at, I looked at Reed’s, and I also looked at Brandon Ivey’s. There was another tour company that I can’t remember the name of now that I looked at, but decided against. I was leaning closer to Brandon Ivey’s tour company, but it’s still a long ways off. I would like to go on an actual, proper, Plains storm chase before I turn 30. But we’ll see how that works out.

[00:28:32] Gabriel: Before we close out the podcast I want to talk a little bit about gaming.

[00:28:36] Kay: Oh boy.

[00:28:37] Gabriel: Talk about Sonic in particular.

[00:28:40] I’m gonna give you a quick fun fact before we do this, alright? The entire reason that my fiancé and I met in the first place was thanks to Sonic the Hedgehog.

[00:28:49] Gabriel: No way.

[00:28:50] Kay: I kid you not. He is a Twitch streamer. He’s Twitch streams about six months out of the year usually in the cooler months when it’s not so stupidly hot outside. And, what was it, five, six years ago at this point in time, I had happened to be watching Twitch, and pulled up his stream and started talking, and he was playing Shadow the Hedgehog. He was doing a 100% run of Shadow the Hedgehog. And, he and I just started talking, and we didn’t stop talking. And our first date was to the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie. He flew out from Seattle to Huntsville, Alabama to take me to it.

[00:29:23] Gabriel: And they say romance is dead.

[00:29:24] Kay: I know, right?

[00:29:25] Gabriel: That is actually like pretty hardcore romantic. I had no idea. I’m learning about this for the first time now. That’s actually really freaking cool.

[00:29:33] Kay: I gotta keep my cards close to my chest here so I have some actually interesting things to talk about. But yeah-

[00:29:37] Gabriel: I want someone to fly out to Columbus to take me to a movie. Jeez!

[00:29:42] Kay: Noted. We’ll make sure to take you out to a movie if I ever make it to Ohio.

[00:29:47] Gabriel: Yeah, any of you ladies who just casually flirt with me on Twitter like up your game, you know this-

[00:29:52] Kay: Hey, man, Gabe’s a decent guy. I would take him to a movie.

[00:29:56] Gabriel: Yeah. It doesn’t even have to be Sonic. You can take me to whatever movie you like. It’s the thought that counts.

[00:30:00] Kay: Definitely got to take him to a Sonic the Hedgehog movie. That’s how it works, right? Because, I’m engaged, I’m about to get married now, and he took me to see Sonic the Hedgehog, so it’s good luck.

[00:30:08] Gabriel: Have you watched that video that I sent you back when I first realized that you were into Sonic? Have you watched it yet?

[00:30:14] Kay: Oh God, yes.

[00:30:15] Gabriel: Okay , so it’s Running Up That Hill by, what’s her name? Kate Bush.

[00:30:21] Kay: Yeah.

[00:30:22] Gabriel: Is that her name? And I could just, I’m not going to describe it, but all of you who are listening, just go on YouTube and search Running Up That Hill Sonic. Trust me, you’re going to be happy that you did.

[00:30:33] Kay: It is a treat we’ll say it that way.

[00:30:37] Gabriel: When Knuckles starts twerking, that’s my favorite part.

[00:30:40] Kay: Videos like that are why Sonic fans have such a bad reputation on the internet.

[00:30:44] Gabriel: My brother, my little brother, is absolutely obsessed with Sonic. I don’t know if I told you that, did I?

[00:30:52] Kay: You didn’t, no.

[00:30:53] Gabriel: Okay, so he’s been obsessed with Sonic since he was very little. Played all the Dreamcast games, all the GameCube games. He actually collects Sonic stuff, especially like vintage Sonic stuff. He was just talking to me yesterday, because he’s also my powerlifting buddy. We lift together. And we were reminiscing about the good old days, and he was talking about how, I think he said, what was it, yeah, the GameCube. He used to collect all the Chaos. Does that ring a bell?

[00:31:20] Kay: Oh yeah. So, fun, fun facts about Kay. Kay is a very hardcore gamer, like she said. I did, used to do Let’s Plays and gaming reviews. And top two games of all time, in my opinion, are Sonic Adventure 2, which is one of the games that you are talking about, and Fallout New Vegas.

[00:31:40] Gabriel: Yep, that was the one he was talking about. He was like, I really need to, he was like, I really need to play through Sonic Adventure 2 again. And he was telling me about how once you beat it, you actually unlock the ability to just play through any level at will, whenever you’d like to. And he was also telling me about the spoiler alert, which by the way, it’s been like 15 years. If you get it spoiled, I’m sorry. He was telling me about how sad it was. There was… what was it? Shadow’s friend Maria or something that died?

[00:32:04] Kay: Oh boy. Yeah, so how much of a nerd do I want to make myself out to be on this?

[00:32:10] Gabriel: I’m trying I’m trying to bait you. I’m trying to bait it out of you right now. Please don’t make my efforts for nothing!

[00:32:16] Kay: All right, so I If you were to put me in a situation where, gun to my head, I had to give you a ten minute lecture on something without looking anything up, and I couldn’t, it couldn’t be tornadoes and it couldn’t be something related to my day job, it would be Shadow the Hedgehog Lore.

[00:32:35] Gabriel: I love it so much. I love so much where this podcast has descended down into.

[00:32:40] Kay: Everybody listening to this is gonna be like, what the fuck am I listening to right now? But anyway, yeah, so the girl you’re talking about is Maria and it depends on which lore you’re talking about when it comes to how she died, and the reason that this occurred. But basically Shadow’s creation was supposed to be a cure for some mysterious illness. In the comic books that was called NIDS, which was Oh, I think it was Neuroimmune Deficiency Syndrome or something like that, but it was-

[00:33:13] Gabriel: That sounds legit.

[00:33:15] Kay: Yeah, and it was actually weaved into the lore very well. At the start of Sonic Adventure 2, Dr. Eggman is trying to release Shadow from his cryogenic sleep so that he can use him to take over the world because that’s what Robotnik does. So he does that. Shadow is all out for revenge because the last thing that he remembers was- I have another thought on this in just a second- but Maria, the eight year old child, he, the last thing he remembers is her getting shot by a GUN soldier, which is basically the Sonic Universe’s military. Can’t remember why, and, long story short, he turns out that he misremembered things because he has amnesia, and she actually wants him to save the world, not doom the world, and all of this fun stuff, so he dies at the end. Spoiler alert. And one of the most heartbreaking scenarios that I have ever had. It still makes me choke up a little bit.

[00:34:12] Gabriel: This is still Sonic Adventure 2, right?

[00:34:14] Kay: This is still Sonic Adventure 2.

[00:34:16] Gabriel: Okay.

[00:34:16] Kay: He goes on an ARK, man.

[00:34:18] Gabriel: I’m gonna go, I’m gonna, I’m gonna YouTube this when we’re done with the podcast. I’m gonna watch the ending that you say is a tearjerker.

[00:34:25] Kay: Oh yeah, and by the way, for Sonic fans, that was a hilarious pun that I just made about the ARK, because he lives on Space Colony ARK, and I said he has a character ARK. Haha, funny. Anyway, also weave puns into my day job quite often for my programs, and it either is great for most people, and then every once in a while you get people like my fiancé, who you just hear Just in the back of audibly groaning.

[00:34:52] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:53] Kay: Anyway, so that’s all. Yeah, that’s all Sonic Adventure 2. But it turns out it’s fine because Dr. Eggman found him and put him in another cryogenic freezing chamber to save his life and in Sonic Heroes he’s awakened, but he can’t remember jack shit. The events of Sonic Heroes play out. There’s something about him possibly actually being an android, but that doesn’t get fleshed out until Shadow the Hedgehog, which is the next game in the series. And for that turns out basically what happened was it’s just a whole thing on his amnesia and figuring out what actually happened. Now what I was going to say earlier on when I said that I had a thing to bring up for the Maria plot point here is that the Sonic, the third Sonic movie trailer is supposed to come out at like 6 a. m. Pacific tomorrow. And right now the Sonic community is placing bets on how they’re going to handle Maria dying because… for obvious reasons, it might not really be a great idea to show an eight year old getting shot.

[00:35:50] Kay: Interesting. So you think it’ll be off screen?

[00:35:51] Kay: We’re thinking it’s probably gonna be off screen, yeah. Or she dies due to a mysterious illness that she has or doesn’t have, I don’t know.

[00:35:59] Gabriel: I’m so happy that you went so deep into this.

[00:36:02] Kay: I’m gonna, people are gonna be listening to this genuinely, and they’re gonna start asking you questions about whether or not you should have brought me onto the podcast, cause…

[00:36:11] Gabriel: Oh trust me, nobody is listening at this point in the episode anymore, so it’s not gonna be a problem.

[00:36:16] Kay: They don’t get to listen to some cool Sonic the Hedgehog lore!

[00:36:19] Gabriel: For all three people who are still listening to this episode, could you let them know where they can find you on social media and just plug your podcast again one last time.

[00:36:28] Kay: All right, so I am the host and owner of Rough Skies Ahead, spelled exactly like it sounds. You can find me on all podcasting platforms, as well as some featured episodes here on Chaser Chat. On Twitter, I am most active @KayofAllTrades. Spelt exactly like that, K A Y. I do stream occasionally on Twitch, also under KayofAllTrades. And that pretty much amounts to all of it.

[00:36:51] Gabriel: Awesome. Well, Kay, thank you so much for joining me here today, shooting the shit, talking about all sorts of stuff. And I look forward to continuing to foster a, an absolutely wonderful, blooming work relationship.

[00:37:04] Kay: I concur. Thank you for bringing me on and listening to me babble for the last hour.

[00:37:09] Gabriel: Thanks for listening. If you’re not already subscribed, hit that button right now and then make sure notifications are turned on so you never miss an episode again. There are lots of ways to show your support for Chaser Chat. You can pick up something from the merch store, leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app, leave a comment and a like on YouTube, or just share the link to this episode on your preferred social media platform.

[00:37:30] Thanks again for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.