Those Martins

Christine picked me up from work yesterday evening and I dropped her off at Blackhawk. She volunteered to help with their AWANA program and the team met for the first time last night. She was originally planning on helping out with the Sparkies, but switched to the Junior High group. I’ve been in contact with the Audio / Visual group at church and may start volunteering in that capacity. I’m also interested in working with the web as well.

While Christine went through her orientation, I started The Mystery of Capital. After reading the first chapter and a half, I think it will be a fascinating book. I’m planning to outline it as I read, noting important facts, figures, and quotations. I’ll read slower, but I’ll have a good resource to refer back to whenever I want to talk about what I read. After I finishing outlining The Mystery of Capital, I plan to do the same thing for The Real Lincoln and The Constitution of Liberty. I read a lot of good books, but I’ve needed to do a better job of remembering what’s in them and being able to use the knowledge. I think a disciplined system of note taking and outlining will really help me.

Finally, a work related update. I received notification yesterday that I passed my Chronicles exam with an 85%. That’s the first step towards receiving my Chronicles Certification and a pay raise. Next week I’ll be retaking the Visual Basic exam and taking the ActiveX exam for the first time. The following week, I plan to start taking my Resolute exams. Those are the exams related to the Epic application that I work with: Resolute Professional Billing. There are five total Resolute exams I have to take and two projects that I’ll need to have graded. Hopefully they aren’t as scary as they sound.

Over the past five years, I’ve migrated from hurricane country in Virginia Beach to tornado country in Madison. Last night was my first brush with tornadoes. Several storms moved through the area, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado watch. Shortly thereafter, I began receiving e-mails from an amateur weather watcher at Epic:

There is now a storm cell to the west of Madison (looks like it would be just north of Verona) which the weather service’s radar is giving its TVS (Tornadic Vortex Signature) indication.

The TVS algorithm can sometimes be a bit jumpy, but now would be a good time to think about where you’re going to hide if something bad happens.

The storm cells are moving primarily eastward.

Six minutes later…

The Sheriff’s department has sighted a funnel cloud over Verona. Storms are heading eastward.

Take cover. Now.

Fifteen minutes later…

The storm that produced the funnel cloud over Verona has now passed us.

Another storm with a radar indication of a possible tornado is currently passing through Fitchburg. There has been no visual confirmation of tornadic activity on this storm.

Another storm that spotters are seeing a funnel cloud on is passing to our north.

I never actually saw anything and neither did my wife. Still, it was a new level of anxiety — I’m used to living in hurricane areas where we have three weeks of building danger. Yesterday I experienced 3 hours of building danger. That will take some getting used to. Even though nothing happened to me yesterday, it was a danger. I woke up this morning to read about a tornado that touched down in Stoughton, about 30 minutes north of Madison. The moment, however, was not without its comforts:

The tornado tore the roof off the [Stoughton Country Club], said the club’s executive chef, Lenny Peaslee. As the storm approached, golfers started coming off the course, and about 40 people huddled in the basement and waited, he said.

“We were … hiding behind the bar,” Peaslee said. “We had beer, anyway.”

That’s the spirit!

_ Cross posted at The Theocrats _