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Yapcast #1

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, Gabriel here. You’ve probably noticed that ChaserChat took a bit of a hiatus over the last six months or so, and I am beyond excited to be back. It won’t just be my voice hosting shows now though. I’ve added an entire team of podcasters to the Chaser Chat roster, combined with an incredible support staff who will be helping out with editing, managing social media, graphic design, merch, and more.

[00:00:24] We’ll be releasing three episodes per week from here on out. I’m placing a bet on Chaser Chat and I’m putting my money where my mouth is. That’s where you, the listener, come in. At the end of this episode, I’ll run through all of the ways that you can support Chaser Chat so please consider helping out if you enjoy the show.

[00:00:41] Alright, that’s enough of that. Let’s get into the episode.

[00:00:47] (Cassie) Howdy folks, and welcome to a, not a special episode of Chaser Chat, but a sort of a new shoot off. With me, I’ve got Erin, and I’ve got Anna, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna yap for an hour. We’re just gonna talk. I wanted to get a group of my favorite girls together and just shoot the shit.

[00:01:13] Because there’s not enough of us to do this very often, so I want to just sit down and talk ask you about how your season’s gone, ask you the bad, the good, and just sit down and have a conversation, because we don’t get to do that enough, and it’s a good time when we do. Anna, I know you’ve had a fairly decent season. Shout out to Iowa. 

[00:01:36] (Anna) Yeah, shout out to Iowa. 

[00:01:37] (Cassie) Remember how much shit we used to talk in Iowa? 

[00:01:40] (Anna) I’m a completely changed woman at this point. I am an Iowa truther, an Iowa worshiper even, I would venture to say. I’m also an RRFS truther now. Is my VSCO bio for any of the girlies out there that use VSCO. It is RRFS truther and nobody that uses VSCO understands that and I love it. 

[00:02:00] (Erin) I didn’t know that VSCO is still a thing? 

[00:02:03] (Anna) Oh, yes. I’m, I’m on VSCO. I’m VSCO girly in 2024. Yeah. Anyway, my season, it’s been alright. It’s been we’ve had our ups, we’ve had our downs.

[00:02:18] We have, I’ve actually only chased twice so far this year. Which we got off to a really, a pretty, at least I did a pretty late start. I didn’t really get started until April 16th of this year. Actually, both of my chases have been in Iowa. Shocker. But so we got started on April 16th and we saw the new London tornado, which I thought at the time was four, three or four different tornadoes, but it was actually just the same one that was on the ground for a really long time, 40 miles, I believe.

[00:02:48] And so that was Josh and I think that was both mine and Josh’s first chase this year. And then I so I actually I have, talked about this prior, but I’m also a track and field coach. So I am more or less sidelined a lot of the time in the later season, especially in May.

[00:03:05] And actually late April too, and so I the April 26th outbreak was sandwiched right between two track meets, and I couldn’t go, and I was, like, beside myself, I was literally, I was like, these little children had, I’m a pole vaulter, I was like, these little children had better jump high because I am so irate that I have to be here.

[00:03:29] And then of course, like, all of them, because they know what I do, they come to the meet and they’re like, oh, did you see that? You see this tornado? Look at this on my Instagram. I’m like, yeah my, my boyfriend FaceTimed me in front of it, actually. And while I was coaching you guys, it was awful. So that’s how April was going.

[00:03:47] And yeah. And then we chased again on the 21st of May down in Southwest Iowa. And Josh, my boyfriend, my wonderful boyfriend and my chase partner, life partner he was storm chasing with his he’s an Iowa State graduate. And he he was chasing with Iowa State that day. And so we actually were not together.

[00:04:07] It was me and Ewan Newbold, who’s a St. Cloud State meteorology student. We were chasing together down there, and we actually, we, I didn’t actually see Josh until after all the tornadoes. We’ll get into this story in a while yap yap, in here for a while, it’s been alright, two chases I think five tornadoes this year so far? Pretty good. Yeah, tornadoes on both chase days, so that’s pretty good ratio. 

[00:04:31] (Cassie) That’s a pretty, that’s a pretty solid start, because it’s 2024, it’s been fucking stupid. I don’t think it’s over. I think that you’re finally going to get your Minnesota wishes. 

[00:04:43] (Anna) I know, I’ve already been spoiled though, so I’m like, this, something a bad bust is coming for me. I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones,.

[00:04:50] (Cassie) You’re gonna see the world’s crappiest Minnesota bird fart. Not even relatively photogenic, and you’re just gonna, you’re gonna lose it. 

[00:04:58] (Anna) Yeah, there’s gonna be, it’s gonna be like the rainiest shittiest, little little baby. You know that that tornado that was like, oh yeah, it was like five feet wide and it was on the ground for about eight seconds. Even though it was a typo, it’s not gonna be a typo when that happens in Minnesota. I can tell you that. 

[00:05:16] (Cassie) That was one of the funniest things I’ve seen on Twitter this year was because it took me a second to realize, I was like, Was that a typo? Or was it just a drill bit? 

[00:05:29] (Anna) A complete drill bit. Literally, it was the first thought that I had when I saw that, I was like, me and physics and I get the units wrong. Yeah. Answering the units wrong and getting the question wrong. 

[00:05:40] (Cassie) At some point, you take off backwards or something like that. But, Erin. How has your season been? 

[00:05:49] (Erin) It’s barely been a season. I chased the New London storm. I saw the remnants of it, so I saw it . We went on this back road. It’s probably the worst idea ever. I wasn’t leading the group, which I should have been, and they drove us into a really bad bear’s cage. And we were getting hit by so much hail, and I was, like, yelling in my car as if they could hear me, and I kept calling them on the phone.

[00:06:23] I was like, why are we here? What’s going on? And we finally got to this complete just farm country. Nobody else around. And we were looking on Google Maps, and then eventually using Google Earth to see what was around. And we were like. 

[00:06:39] (Anna) This is how you know you’ve lost the plot.

[00:06:42] (Erin) There’s some topography up there. And there’s a road. And it’s elevated. Let’s go up there. We went up there and it took us around on this dirt road. And I was fishtailing. And I was like, that was great. This was Actually, before I had my new tires. So that was I have new tires now. All four of them. But yeah, I saw the remnants of it past some foresty area.

[00:07:14] But I saw the back side of the storm, and a couple of my NIU cohorts were chasing it, and they saw the front side. So I like, looked at all the timestamps and matched it up with their stuff, and I was like, oh yeah, I guess we did see a tornado. But we I’m trying to think. Before that, before we got stuck in the bear’s cage, we were watching just the front of it just come in.

[00:07:39] It was coming in with such force. You could just see Just the striations of rain, just like pulling down so fast. And I was like, wow, guys, look at how pretty it is. And I got lost in the beauty of it. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s right in front of us. And I was like, we need to go, we need to go.

[00:08:00] And you could see just like the swath slowly inching up. And I was like, Oh no, we got to go. And we couldn’t drive fast enough to get out of it. Cause there was. Yeah, that new London storm was going pretty fast. But that’s all that I’ve chased because I’m in summer class and I’m at work and I’m at home and balancing all those things, but I’m hoping that late June, early July pops off and Illinois just goes crazy , and takes some of Iowa’s energy away. If it happened, but I don’t know. I’m trying to keep high hopes. 

[00:08:45] (Cassie) What’s like summer? I don’t know anything about Illinois. What’s are there potential summer possibilities usually? Is there like a second season?

[00:08:52] (Erin) Kind of. June is usually our high point. It slowly starts to dwindle down. Late July into early August is when it’s really hot. We’ve had a couple good just weeks of semi discrete supercells, but nothing that happens in the Plains, of course, because it’s Illinois. We get tons of trying to think.

[00:09:18] A lot of QLCS. We’re, like, home of the QLCS. We might as well make that our state bird or something. The state bird and, yeah, the QLCS. But yeah, it’s definitely been a super quiet year for Illinois. It’s, Iowa’s taking all of it, and Iowa just popped off near the end of the season last year.

[00:09:50] And then it kept it, but we’re in that transition of the ENSO phase right now, we’ll see. One day, we’ll have our moment. I don’t know when it’ll be, but hopefully soon, cuz I’m bored. 

[00:10:03] (Cassie) I would just, I feel like we talked shit enough about Iowa to where it just started. 

[00:10:08] (Erin) It got mad. 

[00:10:09] (Anna) Yeah, it’s like the tornado machine turned on and then just didn’t stop after that. I love it. I’m not complaining, but, I don’t know, I feel like the second that I spoiler alert, I may be moving there at some point, rather soon. Yeah, so I feel as, if that were to happen I would move there and then it would just be derecho after derecho. I just have a feeling that’s what’s going to happen. And then Minnesota, but only the parts that are really far and would not be easy for me to get to. Those are the places where the tornadoes are going to happen.

[00:10:47] (Cassie) I was thinking too did you like, find residency in Iowa? The tornado machine’s just gonna fucking turn off. 

[00:10:54] (Anna) It’s just oh, I’ve never seen you before. Sorry. 

[00:10:57] (Erin) Suddenly the UP. 

[00:11:00] (Cassie) I think what sucks about Iowa is that there’s literally no possible way for me to chase that. 

[00:11:07] (Erin) It’s such a long state.

[00:11:10] (Cassie) It, whenever we chased that absolute garbage Missouri risk, like at the start of our chase cation it was, like, 14 hours to get from El Paso through Texas. That’s Texas alone that doesn’t account for Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, basically, because we went to St. Louis. And then, I feel like an idiot, because the storm that produced whatever, it was like, oh, Rochelle 2.0.

[00:11:40] I said no to that. Because I thought that it wasn’t crossing over into a favorable enough environment to produce Rochelle 2. 0. I stayed in Mississippi, which was a foolish move, because, not Mississippi, Missouri. Which is a foolish move because that terrain is garbage. It’s just trees and hills and me scaring the shit out of my husband with my driving because all the roads are like that and he let me drive for some reason.

[00:12:07] And then finally two days later we were back in the Texas Panhandle which felt so much better because it’s just straight roads and flat terrain and I don’t know, we spent, we were in Lubbock like seven times, Chasecation. We just were in and out of Lubbock the entire time. Lubbock was, unfortunately, our home.

[00:12:30] I hate Lubbock. I really do. I got in a car accident in Lubbock. So I have this angry bias. I don’t like it. 

[00:12:36] (Anna) It smells bad there. 

[00:12:38] (Cassie) So Lubbock’s not so bad, but Amarillo, Amarillo smells like cow shit constantly. It’s a cute city, I won’t lie. It’s 

[00:12:48] (Erin) That’s Illinois. Illinois You’re describing Illinois. It smells like manure. 

[00:12:58] (Anna) Yes. There’s actually, there’s a video, if you go to my tagged photos on Instagram, folks, you will see that there is a tornado video posted by Ewan, and if you turn the sound on, which I only found out about a little bit after this was posted, you can hear me saying, Opening the door to get out and film the tornado, and sniffing, taking a big ol whiff, and being like, Oh, it smells like shit.

[00:13:23] I love Iowa. And then the door slid open. I was like, oh, who’s that? He clipped it exactly there. Great. 

[00:13:32] (Cassie) I love Ewan so much. 

[00:13:36] (Anna) He’s so great. Oh my gosh. 

[00:13:39] (Cassie) I’m hoping that whenever we leave El Paso I’m really hopin for Kansas, I’m not gonna lie. Like Kansas is manifesting. 

[00:13:50] Can you imagine the chases together if we were, if I was in Kansas?

[00:13:55] (Anna) I would just fly down I-70, all the time to come see you. 

[00:14:00] (Cassie) I know. And if Mason leaves, I could just be like, oh man, this sucks. My husband’s gone. And then I can be like, oh, but Anna is like four hours away. 

[00:14:10] (Anna) When will my husband return from war? 

[00:14:13] (Cassie) Me every day, like every time I wake up, like for nine months in a row.

[00:14:17] (Anna) Even when Josh leaves like for work or school. 

[00:14:21] (Erin) Yeah, basically. Oh, you love Illinois. All the, oh, there’s so many dirt roads. There’s so many wrong turns you can take and you just end up in somebody’s field. If you need to view a storm, there’s always those tiny little service roads that aren’t actually roads.

[00:14:47] You can just park your car there, throw on your hazards, and you just sit. On the hood of your car, and people know exactly what you’re doing. Cause they look in the sky and they’re like, wow, the clouds are dark. Oh, she has a camera in her hand. Oh, she’s taking pictures of the clouds. Oh wait, it’s pouring rain. There’s a tornado coming. I need to get out of here. 

[00:15:07] (Anna) I love the Midwestern attitude towards storm chasing. So I have a very specific memory. This, I think this is like a couple of years ago, but we were, me and Josh were in South Southwestern Iowa. And we were just, flying down this road to try and get in front of this storm.

[00:15:24] And at the same time, I think we were in or near Villisca at the time. And so we were flying down the road, going by this, the one church that exists in the the completely flat farm fields that are out there. And about ten people trickle out of the church, and they look, and they’re, like, pointing over at the clouds Oh, it’s another Tuesday. And then they look around at us as we’re, like, just going Mach 10 down the road. 

[00:15:48] (Erin) But, under the speed limit, right? 

[00:15:51] (Anna) Yeah. Oh, yeah. It is Iowa. So yes, we are going pretty near the speed limit. I will say that. But and you just see two of the little old ladies Waving, just waving at us as we’re exiting. 

[00:16:02] (Erin) Be safe, kids! (Anna) So funny. I was like, yeah, they’re just, that’s the classic Midwest nice. Oh, look, there goes the storm chasers! How nice! That’s what they were, that’s what they were saying. 

[00:16:16] (Cassie) We were in the infamous Happy, Texas. And I pulled up to an Allsups, and I pulled this is one of the rare instances where I just needed to go in the gas station and get something.

[00:16:27] So I pulled up, and the clerk looked at my truck and he goes, Are you guys storm chasers? And the most southern accent possible. And I was like, we might be. There’s a possibility. And he was just like, is it going to get bad here? And I was like the chances are pretty low, but I would keep an eye out.

[00:16:48] And then, that was Silverton Bay, so it actually got pretty bad there. 

[00:16:54] (Erin) You lied to him. Oh no. That one lady, that storm chaser who said she wasn’t a storm chaser exactly, she lied to me. I lost my job. I don’t have a gas station anymore. 

[00:17:11] (Cassie ) If you can’t tell that I’m a storm chaser you’re gonna fucking know about it. Because it’s one of those goofy things that I’m really proud of. And I’m just like, guess what I do? Every time somebody talks about at my job, talks about being from a state where there’s tornadoes and they mention tornadoes, I’m just like actually, did you know?

[00:17:33] I’m fucking annoying about it, dude. Like Especially after Silverton. I won’t shut the fuck up about Silverton. 

[00:17:39] (Erin) I wouldn’t either if I was there. 

[00:17:42] (Anna) You’ve more than earned your right to never shut the fuck up about it, ever. 

[00:17:46] (Cassie) Yeah, because that was my dream tornado, except it looked like a penis for a good chunk of its life.

[00:17:55] (Erin) Wow, what a life to live. 

[00:17:58] (Cassie) I know. It was very phallic, so I tried to find, pictures of it when it was just a stovepipe, but right before it roped out where I got all my good pictures, It had a shape. And I was like, okay, it was still pretty, I started doing 

[00:18:13] (Erin) That’s probably the first time it had ever been called pretty.

[00:18:17] (Cassie) Yeah, that’s the only time it’s been called pretty. But I started doing film photography, and I think the downside of film photography is you can’t just look down at the viewfinder and see what you got. We’ll see. 

[00:18:30] (Anna) Psyched for you though, that’s so sick. 

[00:18:33] (Cassie) I’m actually, that’s, when I started chasing my whole goal was to just do it on film.

[00:18:39] Because I think that film photography is just. The way they do it, the way it’s processed, the way it’s developed having a limited amount it’s really made me take less pictures, if that makes sense. Because I think I’ve had, shout out to Scottie Vanderford, by the way, but I think I’ve had, I’ve taken 24 pictures out of 36 whole in the three weeks I’ve had it.

[00:19:05] (Erin) What film camera do you have? 

[00:19:09] (Cassie) It’s an Olympus. That is the extent to my knowledge right now.

[00:19:14] (Erin) That’s a great idea. 

[00:19:16] (Anna) This is the difference between me and you, Cassie, is that I got the shittiest little digital camera I could find on Amazon because I wanted to be that girl.

[00:19:31] And my goal now is to get a picture of a tornado on it, because it looks like your DS camera from 2006. Yes, and I want that so bad, and I want to post it on Twitter serious, and have people be like, oh, that kind of sucks. 

[00:19:47] (Erin) So bad. How much was that camera on Amazon? Five dollars? Okay. 

[00:19:54] (Cassie) Imagine whipping out a DSI and just being like, oh, a tornado!

[00:19:56] (Erin) Oh, I gotta get this for my friends.

[00:19:58] (Anna) It’s gonna be Josh’s fucking drone, which is like $1, 500 in the sky, with him, with his like, his little, but his nice ass camera, and then it’s gonna be me with my shitty, tiny little, it’s pink, too, which, and it’s gonna be me with my pink, with the little wrist strap, and I’m gonna be sitting You know, snapping, and it makes like a fake little shutter sound when you hit the button.

[00:20:24] It’s like the best thing ever, dude. Oh my god. I can’t wait. I forgot to, there wasn’t time, frankly, last time I was in front of a tornado to have any concern with that, but I want one more where I can whip that thing out, where storm motions aren’t like 47 knots, 

[00:20:39] (Erin) Yeah, or it’s just a complete blur.

[00:20:43] (Cassie) Imagine you see all the footage that everybody got of Greenfield, like Mike Scantlin’s drone footage, like all the pictures and shit like that. And then you upload this 8 bit pictogram recording. 

[00:20:56] (Anna) Filmed on a toaster. People would be like, When did this tornado happen? Was this 2003 ?And I’m gonna be like, no, baby, that was a razor. Yes. Filmed on the pink razor. 

[00:21:08] (Erin) The equivalent of the people who bring disposable cameras to concerts when they’re on the rail. And they’re just like, wow, take a picture with me! And like the Olivia Rodrigo one where it’s just a cowboy hat and it’s not even their faces. Just you accidentally shoot the ground and there’s not a tornado. But I swear, there’s a tornado right there. 

[00:21:35] (Cassie) It’s going to be off brand. 

[00:21:38] (Anna) Yeah half the tornado is going to be in frame, and that’s it. 

[00:21:42] (Cassie) So I got invited to this Facebook group like last year called Crap Weather Photos by Tori Jane Ostberg.

[00:21:52] (Anna) Had me right next to you. 

[00:21:55] (Cassie) It’s so fucking good. It’s So a lot of it I see as monsoon stuff, where it’s just you have a lightning trigger, and it triggers every time lightning strikes, of course. But the lightning you guys can see my camera, it’s right there.

[00:22:09] It’s just off frame. Or it’s the pictures I’ve posted have been like, when I’m trying to take a picture of a state sign when I enter a new state. I did it with Illinois when I was on my way to Ohio. Where my camera focused on the fucking raindrops instead of the sign itself. 

[00:22:25] That single Facebook page is just pure serotonin to me.

[00:22:33] And it’s a bunch of really good photographers too. World class photographers who are just like, yeah, I can’t take pictures. 

[00:22:40] (Anna) That’s so funny. I love that. Dude, I got some shit in my snapchat memories. I have tornadoes in my snapchat memories. That’s, most of that’s from me.

[00:22:53] (Erin) Me too! 

[00:22:54] (Anna) So that’s how you know you’re down bad is when you’re filming it on snapchat. Okay, that’s not true because Josh does Franny’s Report on snapchat. But if you’re not Josh, that’s how you know you’re down bad. 

[00:23:04] (Cassie) I don’t have Snapchat anymore, but if I could pull our old conversations during certain events and shit like that.

[00:23:14] Actual cesspool. I always look at weather Twitter and I’m like, what if I’m the degenerate? What if it’s me? 

[00:23:22] (Erin) Am I the drama? 

[00:23:27] Yeah, I would have so many to upload. Like when Connor Healey and I first started chasing together, I was, I’m the type of person who like, doesn’t want to inconvenience somebody.

[00:23:39] I’m like, okay. When when I was in his what we now call the the Thunder Bus? Thunder Truck? Whatever you want to name it. Rest in peace. I was too scared to ask him to roll down his rear tinted window to take a picture of the Lowering supercell so all of my photos are too dark and I would have to blow them up so bad in exposure, and they look like crap and oh my gosh I have so many or like he was going too fast and my shutter speed wasn’t matching up with it so they’re just so blurry and I’m like, there’s a funnel cloud right there, I know there is, and I’m just gaslighting myself, and I’m like, that’s a tornado, I know it is, you can’t see it, but it is.

[00:24:28] (Cassie) No, that’s 99 percent of my pictures from this season, because Mason did a lot of the driving, so I would like, roll down the window, or take it through the window when the window was clean and I couldn’t get the shutter speed to match up, so there’s like this photogenic thing in the sky, and then everything beside it is just like absolute.

[00:24:46] I have so many ruined pictures just from trying to get somewhere. And I’m still new to photography, but I feel like storm chasing is unfair sometimes. Cause like, when are you gonna everybody finds all this time to take these really good pictures, but I’m always fucking late to a target. I literally accidentally rolled up on the first Fort Stockton.

[00:25:10] Yeah, I we left late, of course, because why wouldn’t we? And we basically missed 6/2 in Fort Stockton. And then this year, we were chasing with Connor Healey. At, fuck, I don’t remember the day. But the day I got the Fort Stockton wedge doing air quotes, because I don’t, still don’t know if that was an actual tornado or not.

[00:25:35] But, but, we made a bad call and went down Bob’s Road, and we’re once again late to the actual good tornado. And I think the first time I’ve ever, no, fuck, no, not even this one, not even Silverton. So we were helping somebody get unstuck from the mud, and we missed the first we missed the fucking twins. We missed the Silverton twins before this nice. We were once again late 

[00:26:02] (Anna) And you were doing a good deed. That’s so shitty. 

[00:26:04] Yeah, I know, what’s the point? 

[00:26:06] (Anna) What’s the opposite of karma? 

[00:26:09] (Cassie) Yeah, bad karma? 

[00:26:11] (Erin) Bad juju I don’t know. 

[00:26:13] (Cassie) I don’t know.

[00:26:14] (Erin) Let me look up antonyms of karma. 

[00:26:18] (Anna) Look up Google for that one. 

[00:26:20] (Cassie) Hey Siri, what is…

[00:26:26] (Erin) I have it off specifically because people say, Hey, Siri, way too much. 

[00:26:33] (Cassie) Yeah. Don’t know. Every time I say, sorry, like I’m like, for some reason it thinks I’m saying, Hey, Siri, like I will like every time I’m apologizing to somebody, she like butts in and she’s yes. 

[00:26:47] (Erin) I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you. Can you repeat that? I said shut the hell up, Siri. I’m sorry, I cannot find that on Google. 

[00:26:59] (Anna) That happens a lot with my Apple Watch just out of nowhere. I’m having a conversation, and it’s just, I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. And I’m like, I wasn’t .

[00:27:07] (Cassie) My watch used to do that shit all the time, too. It’s gone. I don’t know where my Apple Watch is. I lost it. I shit you not, I lost it in Luverne. 

[00:27:20] (Anna) In Minnesota? 

[00:27:22] (Cassie) In Minnesota. 

[00:27:24] (Anna) Oh my god, that’s funny. I’m so sorry. 

[00:27:28] (Erin) That’s why I have a calculator watch. Yeah. 

[00:27:32] (Anna) Oh, that, that. Okay, the drip goes on unimaginably hard. Oh yeah. I want a calculator watch, that would complete any outfit. 

[00:27:44] (Erin) The amount of compliments I get on it. 

[00:27:48] (Cassie) Amazon right now. 

[00:27:50] (Erin) Don’t play with me about math

[00:27:53] (Cassie) Yeah, no, I’m actually actively working towards beginning my academics in meteorology

[00:28:02] (Erin) Ready to hate yourself forever. I’m at the end of mine. 

[00:28:05] (Cassie) The only encouraging thing I’ve seen in years is the new Apple iPad update where it’s going to do the math for you. 

[00:28:16] (Erin) Oh, my brother and sister in law were just talking about that over dinner. 

[00:28:20] (Anna) I haven’t heard that. What is it? 

[00:28:24] (Cassie) You can write out a problem and do the equal sign next to the problem. And it’ll answer it for you. 

[00:28:30] (Erin) Instead of being like, a regular iPad baby, you’re now an iPad math baby? If only it could make me love math. I don’t think there’s anything that can do that. 

[00:28:42] (Cassie) No. No. I would rather eat hot coal than go back to Algebra 2. Ugh. It’s so bad. 

[00:28:49] (Erin) Get ready for Calc 1 through 3, and then differential equations. I’m taking DiffEQ in the fall semester. 

[00:28:59] (Cassie) I hear that DiffEQ is the one to be scared of. 

[00:29:07] (Anna) Okay, cause I took DiffEQ with linear algebra, and the linear algebra part of it was definitely difficult, but Honestly, the one that I struggled the most with was Calc 1. Out of all of them. And then, I got better at it after that. But people say that Calc 2. 

[00:29:23] (Cassie) I remember when you were I remember when you were doing Calc 1, and you were fucking going. 

[00:29:28] (Anna) I was, dude and, yeah, then, I think I grew a new brain over the summer after that, and I’ve been cool since then. Actually, no, physics ruined my life, but other than that, I was cool.

[00:29:38] (Erin) Physics was easy for me. 

[00:29:40] (Anna) Okay, it’s easy when your professor isn’t Satan? 

[00:29:44] (Erin) Yeah, I had the worst math professors ever. I had to retake Calc 2 three times. Because the professors were horrible and I couldn’t learn. And then I finally got a, she’s not Russian, but she’s some like somewhere in that area with her accent.

[00:30:07] I got a female teacher and I passed. She allowed me to go up to her and ask her questions during exams. And she helped me out. And I was like, wow, this is great. And I was like, wow, I’m looking forward to Calc 3. And I got a German professor. Didn’t do partial credit, on his corrections on the exams are only crossed out stuff, no feedback.

[00:30:33] I failed with a 43%, so that’s why I’m taking Calc 3 over the summer at U of I. God bless the 16 week program that you can take at your own pace and you do proctorate exams. But the NIU math program, probably any math program at any college, They’re just, they’re horribly set up, they’re so sped up, you don’t get a chance to catch your breath, and you’re just constantly catching up with it, and it’s so frustrating, and I was so down on myself, especially my Calc 1 , semester was the COVID semester.

[00:31:17] I didn’t learn a single thing. I had a professor who spoke broken English and it was over the internet and his voice would pop in and out and he would yell at us if we didn’t answer the questions. And I was like what do you want us to do? We just got out of trigonometry. I was like, My trigonometry semester was at my community college and it was halfway interrupted because of COVID and my teacher was pregnant and she was hormonal and mean and she was just like, I’m just going to give you all these assignments and stuff.

[00:31:56] I’m not going to check in with you guys. Good luck. And I was like, what am I supposed to do? This is a completely new concept and it’s fundamental to the rest of everything that I will be learning. What am I supposed to do? And they were like you’re SOL. 

[00:32:16] (Anna) There are some good professors out there though. And that makes all the difference. Oh yeah, for sure. So the needle in the haystack though. Yes. But there also, there is. There are a lot of resources put together by good professors on the internet that are available to everyone. If anybody needs help with any of that, hit me up.

[00:32:37] Because I have the, I will be the plug for the good teachers on YouTube because they singlehandedly helped me through Calc 1 and the rest of the classes. 

[00:32:46] (Erin) Yeah the organic chemistry. 

[00:32:49] (Anna) Yeah, organic chemistry tutor and Yeah. Oh my gosh, I’m totally blanking out on this name. Professor Leonard. He has lectures basically the entirety of Calc 1 through differential equations. 

[00:33:02] (Erin) Wow, okay. I guess I’ll have to hit him up. I’ve been using Chegg. 

[00:33:07] (Anna) Oh, yeah. Chegg, it’s useful up until a point, you know? 

[00:33:12] (Erin) Yeah, I just like having the stuff written out and explained, because using the online software Cengage and stuff, they want it written in a particular way.

[00:33:25] And you’re like, I swear this is right. And, oh, my sorry, I didn’t use the correct vector lettering. Let me type in this one and fix it. It’s those tiny little things that make you want to throw your laptop off a cliff. 

[00:33:41] (Anna) Yeah, usually they, they try to tell you what, vector notation they want.

[00:33:47] (Erin) Yeah, but Cengage doesn’t. They’re just like, Sorry, this answer could not be understood. I’m like, oh, yeah, that’s right. I have to go over into the drop down menu and I have to click the J or the K. It can just be so tedious sometimes.

[00:33:59] (Anna) It is woth it at the end of the tunnel. 

[00:34:07] (Erin) Yeah I have one year left. I have to take Atmospheric Dynamics 1 and 2. I have to take Stat 200 because apparently Stat 100 isn’t the same equivalent at the university level as it would be at the community college level. So I have to fit that in somewhere And I’m gonna be a meteorologist in a year.

[00:34:31] (Anna) That’s so exciting though.

[00:34:33] (Erin) It’s so scary. Yeah, I don’t want to be in the NWS, but I want to be in the field. And I also want to do aviation meteorology. And I’m like, there’s so many options. 

[00:34:50] (Cassie) Your dude, he flies planes, doesn’t he? 

[00:34:52] (Erin) Yes, my boyfriend’s a pilot, yeah.

[00:34:54] No, but I don’t know. I’ve always been interested in different areas of meteorology. I wanted to frickin be in a DOW, just in the middle of stuff, just sit in our little truck with our radars, and I’d be like, Hey, wow we’re not gonna die. I know we won’t. We’ll be okay. Or be at a National Weather Service office.

[00:35:26] But then I was like, I don’t want a desk job, but there’s so many desk jobs in meteorology, which kind of sucks, but it’s also like you’re going to learn a ton, but I don’t know I want to be like Benjamin Franklin. I want to be out there, key in a kite, risking my life, yeah, on horseback making sure I have my scrolls at home and enough ink.

[00:35:55] To write all my forecasts down. That’s the type of stuff I’d want to do. 

[00:36:01] (Anna) I would, that was, I don’t know who tweeted it, but there was a picture, after Reed’s car gave out, there was like a picture of him, somebody photoshopped on horseback or something, or Reid, Reed on his storm chase or something, Dominator 5 or whatever.

[00:36:16] (Erin) Dominator 5. Oh my gosh. 

[00:36:20] (Cassie) It was, again, Silverton day, we were on this shitty back road, And there were, like, horse tracks that were way too fresh to have not been somebody chasing on horseback. 

[00:36:33] (Erin) Or running away from it, you never know. 

[00:36:36] (Cassie) If you’re listening, let me know. I kinda wanna come say hi.

[00:36:40] (Erin) Can I come pet your horse? 

[00:36:42] (Cassie) Yeah, can I come pet your horse? 

[00:36:44] (Anna) That’s the next evolution of Pecos Hank, is gonna be him chasing on a horse. 

[00:36:51] (Erin) You’ll have to name the horse Tornado, though. 

[00:36:56] (Cassie) Could you imagine baseball sized hail on horseback? I know, the poor horse. 

[00:37:11] (Erin) I’d create a metal barrier , The horse would be the Trojan horse. 

[00:37:17] (Anna) The horse armor that they had in medieval times. 

[00:37:20] (Cassie) I was about to say the suit of armor, but for a horse. 

[00:37:23] (Erin) Bring back chivalry! 

[00:37:25] (Anna) It’s so loud, too, out there. Clank, clank, clank. I would actively stop filming the tornado and start filming the guy on horseback. 

[00:37:38] (Erin) Oh yeah, I think everybody would. 

[00:37:39] (Anna) No, this is more, this is more rare. 

[00:37:43] (Cassie) He’s in this mixture of a metal suit of armor but also rubber because apparently that protects you from lightning. 

[00:37:51] (Erin) Oh yeah, you need to be grounded enough. You can’t have actual horseshoes made of metal, because you’re gonna get struck by lightning. It’s got a little raincoat. Little umbrella. He’s ready. He’s ready for any storm that comes his way. 

[00:38:11] (Anna) I’m just picturing somebody with a jousting pole or whatever. 

[00:38:15] (Erin) That’s my lightning rod.

[00:38:17] (Anna) On the end of the pole. 

[00:38:20] (Erin) Now I’m thinking of do Amish people chase storms? 

[00:38:24] (Anna) Oh, dude, one time, I was on, I was out in Wisconsin one time, and we were running from the storm, and we, there was an Amish man going full I don’t know, as fast as he could go the other direction, and I was like, Brother, that’s the wrong way!

[00:38:42] Josh was like maybe it’s the right way for him, insinuating that he’s storm chasing. And then we saw him again later, and he was soaked, just drenched, head to toe. And I was like he chased it, and he found it, so.

[00:38:57] (Erin) Core punching in the buggy. 

[00:39:00] (Anna) Dude, yeah, core punching in the buggy with no radar. 

[00:39:04] (Cassie) They just, there’s some people who don’t need it. Like the days of sniffing the dirt are not over. 

[00:39:09] (Anna) Yes, exactly. That’s Jonas was so wrong because Jebediah.

[00:39:14] Just if I pull off that was that, I will know. I’ve seen it all. If I pull off to the side of the road and I see an Amish man like sniffing dirt and sprinkling it, I’ll be like, all right. 

[00:39:23] (Cassie) Reaches out of the buggy and feels the air . 

[00:39:25] (Anna) Yeah. That’s all of my studying and all of my degrees that I may have someday will just, somehow I will never be, I will never be that, that in touch with it, I don’t think.

[00:39:38] (Erin) You grab your master’s and just 

[00:39:41] (Anna) I’m brandishing my master’s degree. 

[00:39:44] (Cassie) Think about it, he’s got like a, he’s got like a hail protector on his buggy. 

[00:39:47] (Anna) Hail cage, of course. 

[00:39:49] (Erin) He built it himself.

[00:39:51] (Cassie) This has been a good Yap Fest. I appreciate you guys. 

[00:39:57] (Erin) I appreciate you too. 

[00:39:59] (Cassie) But, I hope, Erin, I hope you have a season. 

[00:40:02] (Erin) Me too, I really do. 

[00:40:05] (Anna) Manifesting some Illinois magic. 

[00:40:10] (Erin) Grab the jewels or whatever those things are. Grab the crystals. We need to sage Illinois right now.

[00:40:19] (Cassie) Just cleanse Illinois. 

[00:40:20] (Erin) Yes, cleanse it, please. 

[00:40:23] (Cassie) But I think, I feel like, at the end of everything. It’s not the end of the world, at the end of the Yapcast, we should manifest something, and I’m gonna manifest Illinois. 

[00:40:31] (Erin) Illinois super outbreak that happens in the field, just in the middle of nowhere. An EF0, EFU. 

[00:40:42] (Anna) I’m not trying to manifest nothing, but we know that kind of shit does happen in late August, and it has been seen before, 

[00:40:49] (Cassie) Not to mention, it would not be the first time that Anna and I have manifested something. 

[00:40:53] (Anna) Yeah, we have an unfortunate history of that, so I probably shouldn’t have said anything, actually.

[00:40:59] (Erin) In the northwest corner of Illinois, in the fields. Within my reach, that can just go out before dinner and return after dinnertime, before midnight, and I don’t have a five hour drive ahead of me. That’s all I need. 

[00:41:17] (Cassie) Man, that must be fucking nice. 

[00:41:20] (Erin) It’s never happened. 

[00:41:23] (Cassie) No. The fact that I started Storm Chasing had a half a season where I drove to Minnesota and Wisconsin. And then move to fucking El Paso. 

[00:41:33] (Erin) A culture shock. 

[00:41:34] (Anna) I can’t wait for people to be like within, driving distance. 

[00:41:39] (Cassie) Yeah, cause you are at your current residence. I believe you’re like, exactly 24 hours away. 

[00:41:46] (Anna) That’s insane, actually. That’s stupid. That’s ridiculous. , An Iowa residence would be, like, 21 hours. So that’s not even, or hardly remotely any better. 

[00:41:58] (Cassie) I have to, I had to take a plane to go from Texas to Texas, just to give you guys an idea. 

[00:42:04] (Erin) It’s okay, I could maybe get Hunter to let you hop on board for a little bit. 

[00:42:09] (Cassie) Oh, that’d be neat. I love planes. I actually adore planes. So every time you post plane pictures, I’m like, fuck!

[00:42:15] (Erin) The plane adores you too, Cassie. 

[00:42:18] (Anna) That’d be the wildest your Uber has arrived text ever. 

[00:42:22] (Erin) I’m landing in three, two, one. Wait, let me stop and get. 

[00:42:28] (Cassie) He starts charging you extra for waiting. 

[00:42:30] (Erin) Yeah, this is how much You need to pay me I need to fill up with Avgas. This stuff may or may not cause cancer, don’t get it on your hands.

[00:42:41] Oh, you also have to pay my medical bills, because I have cancer from the Avgas. There’s so many charges that they would find. Repairs on, oh, we have to take this apart every hundred hours. Oh yeah, I’m just circling. I’m sorry, I can’t land yet. We’re not over 100 bucks yet. I’m sorry. 

[00:43:01] (Anna) I can’t quite get in touch with air traffic control, I’m so sorry.

[00:43:06] (Erin) They said that I’m not clear to land ever, so I don’t know what to tell you. We’re stuck up here. You’re gonna get to know me now. Yeah, there’s a huge storm that’s taking up the entire Midwest, I’m sorry. We gotta get out of here now. 

[00:43:26] (Anna) You look down and it like there actually is. Knowing this here.

[00:43:30] (Erin) There’s five tornadoes. 

[00:43:33] (Cassie) This has been a fantastic Yapcast, a good Yapfest. 

[00:43:36] (Erin) Yapfest number one. 

[00:43:39] (Anna) Yaptastic, actually. 

[00:43:40] (Cassie) Alright, so let me know where I can find you guys at on Twitter. 

[00:43:44] (Erin) What’s my handle? No, it’s I always mess it up because I have an underscore in it. It’s let me, I’m on my Twitter.

[00:43:52] It’s Erin_Kwx . You’ll see my name, Erin Kornfeind, with two tornadoes around it. That’s me. 

[00:44:04] (Cassie) Okay, any other social media you want to plug? 

[00:44:06] (Erin) No, because I don’t want people to stalk me. Like they already do. 

[00:44:10] (Cassie) Fair. Valid. Alright, Anna? 

[00:44:12] (Anna) You can find me on Weather Twitter at WX__Anna because the one with the one underscore was taken for some reason.

[00:44:23] (Erin) Who took it?

[00:44:24] (Anna) I don’t know. It’s not a Twitter account that’s been active, so that’s frustrating. And they’re not even a weather person, but anyway, you can also follow me on Instagram if you feel like it. I, would say the same thing, but I have a public account there, so I’m whatever. @AnnaKDav, A N N A K D A V. 

[00:44:41] (Cassie) Alright, and my name is Cassie Frey. I will be doing more Yapcasts because I enjoyed this. You can find me, ooh, I’m about to throw you guys a new one. You can find me at CassieFrey_wx. I done changed my handle. Yeah, so I got married a year ago.

[00:45:03] (Erin) Still waiting for the real ceremony. 

[00:45:07] (Cassie) We do wanna, I think we might plan that when we come to Kansas. We’ll see. Okay manifesting Kansas. 

[00:45:14] (Anna) Me andJosh will roll up to that and go on a bender probably for that. , 

[00:45:19] (Erin) Yes. A Kansas bender. 

[00:45:22] (Anna) A great bender. 

[00:45:24] (Erin) Oh my goodness. 

[00:45:25] (Cassie) Great Bend footage is some of the scariest tornado footage I’m gonna let you guys go enjoy your evening. Thank you for coming along. And I will see you guys in around a month. Probably not you guys specifically unless you want to come back, but have a good night y’all. 

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