{"id":14,"date":"2008-06-09T04:05:27","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T09:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/?p=14"},"modified":"2023-03-20T01:08:27","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T06:08:27","slug":"tornados-and-high-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/2008\/06\/09\/tornados-and-high-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Tornados and High Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, last night there was allegedly a tornado within a mile of me.  &#8220;How do you feel about that Zach?&#8221; ask some curious dudes.  I feel&#8230; excitement!<\/p>\n<p>I was chatting with my friend Jong-hun at about 2:30am, when suddenly we heard meteorological violence transpiring.  We thought it was hailing, which was odd because we hadn&#8217;t heard it begin raining.  So we opened the curtains of his second-story room and saw that it was not hail, it was just <b>rain falling sideways.<\/b>  Smacking full force against the window.<\/p>\n<p>It was like someone had, <a href=\"http:\/\/omaha.com\/index.php?u_page=2798&amp;u_sid=10353396\">without warning<\/a>, thrown a hurricane switch to &#8216;ON&#8217;.  One moment: calm.  The next: trees flapping around like flags.  The wind was so strong and gusty that <b>I could actually see rain turning corners<\/b> around buildings and such.  I was in awe.<\/p>\n<p>Then, I realized that my car windows were still open.  Dang.<\/p>\n<p>Hopping into my flip-flops, I ran to the front door of the building, which was being violently pelted with sideways rain.  Taking a deep breath and steeling my resolve, I opened the door and swam through the air to my car, where I jumped inside and furiously began rolling up the windows.<\/p>\n<p>I thought about staying in there for a bit and enjoying the relative safety, but I could already feel wetness seeping into my jeans from sitting on the already soaked <del>sponge<\/del> car seat.  So I ran back in.<\/p>\n<p>I was soaked.  Sirens were blaring.  People were beginning to congregate and exchange nervous conversation.  Some grey-haired fellow named Mark came down and began informing all of us impractical youths about all the useful information he had heard on the news.  For example: a Walmart lost its roof.  A home was damaged in Millard.  I was just happy, and kept hoping there would be a tornado.<\/p>\n<p>It made me realize, I have a really weird attitude toward disaster.  Most people, arguably rightly, think &#8220;Disaster = UH OH. Avoid.&#8221;  My brain, somehow, thinks &#8220;Disaster = WHEE!! Enjoy.&#8221;  Probably has to do with the musicians-having-broken-brains thing.  Tornados (and most other disasters, thankfully) are unfamiliar to me, therefore my mind automatically embraces them.  Further, it gets <i>excited<\/i> by them.<\/p>\n<p>I remember how excited I was to get West Nile fever.  I don&#8217;t think anyone really understood, but I was truly thrilled.  It was an absolutely awful experience, and I did not enjoy life at all at that point, but I was comforted by the knowledge that this dangerous experience was high adventure.  Seriously, I didn&#8217;t just have a fever, I had a <i>soaring<\/i> fever and an infected spine!  I might die from a relatively rare disease!  Or at least have neurological complications.  How awesome is that?!  Answer: way cooler than some run-of-the-mill flu.<\/p>\n<p>The storm passed really quickly.  It hit really hard and pounded Omaha for a while, but after just 20 minutes or so it had tapered down to a slight drizzling.  I was left to drive home in a wet car feeling slightly disappointed that I hadn&#8217;t been closer to the danger.  (As it turns out, <a href=\"http:\/\/omaha.com\/index.php?u_page=2798&amp;u_sid=10353311\">I was still pretty close<\/a>, just not tangibly.)  But I&#8217;m still a little bit high from it: high adventure can happen anywhere.  I&#8217;m ready for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, last night there was allegedly a tornado within a mile of me. &#8220;How do you feel about that Zach?&#8221; ask some curious dudes. I feel&#8230; excitement! I was chatting with my friend Jong-hun at about 2:30am, when suddenly we &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/2008\/06\/09\/tornados-and-high-adventure\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-omaha-tornado-thunderstorm-disaster-adventure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1328,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/1328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zachbardon.com\/tour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}