I'm changing careers - part 1.

After careful consideration, I've decided that it is time for a career change. Although I love my current job (in case my boss reads this), I think that I would make an excellent TV meteorologist.

A meteorologist is what was once known as a weatherman. At some point in weatherman history, it was determined that in order to be more professional sounding, "ologist" would need to be added to the name. "Weatherologist" sounds like someone that can't make up their mind so that name was rejected. Ironically, weathermen are particularly poor at making up their minds. If you were to greet one with "Hey, how's it going?", a typical weatherman would reply "There's a .0000025% chance that I will die today. I'm taking my death precautions."

For those that have never lived in Oklahoma, "precautions" is a word that is always preceded by "tornado", as in "Take your tornado precautions." Weathermen tell us to do this all of the time. No one ever has. In fact, no one has a "tornado precaution" other than going outside to see if the tornado is within visual range.

Weathermen give other peculiar advice in advance of an oncoming tornado. "You need to get as low as possible" is frequently said. In my case, that would mean that I need to get in the crawl space underneath my house. While I'm down there I might as well check my plumbing for leaks. In the event of an actual tornado, I'm fairly certain that the biggest leak would be coming from me.

 People that live in mobile homes are usually told that they need to abandon their homes and get to a "place of safety". Most people think of their home as their "place of safety" but apparently mobile home owners need to eschew that particular line of thought.

The instruction to get to a safe place puts the mobile home owner in a particularly difficult predicament because they are simultaneously told that their vehicles are unsafe and they need to stay off of the roads. Since mobile homes tend to congregate, the only other structures within walking distance are probably other mobile homes whose residents are also supposed to be searching out the mythical place of safety.

So, since walking and driving are out, the only other reasonable transportation alternative is................

helicopters.

Yes, that's right, helicopters.

You might think that a helicopter would be a relatively unsafe to be during a tornado with all the whirling vortexes of death spinning around the atmosphere. You might think that said death vortexes would have an adverse effect upon a device that depends upon consistent air currents as its means of remaining aloft. You might think that a helicopter would be on par with a hot air balloon or a glider as a preferred method of emergency tornado transportation.  You would be wrong.

Whenever a tornado warning is issued, a veritable swarm of helicopter pilots take to the skies in order to locate, chase and televise the potential winds of death, the very same winds that forced you to leave your mobile home or crawl under your house.

So if you don't have immediate access to a cellar, you should get a helicopter. It's the only sure-fire way to reach a place of safety, assuming that it hasn't blown away.

Time to check Craigslist.

In part 2, I'll explain why I'm becoming a meteorologist instead of a System Administrologist.