Passion

There are several applicable themes to Into the Storm written by Reed Timmer. Although there are many, the most evident and visible theme explained by Timmer is passion. The circumstances of the setting and his explanations about himself are what make this theme very clear. One aspect of the beginning of the book I have to keep in mind is that he is still in college. He is attending an enormous university known for intense partying and school spirit. Along with this, Reed belonged to a fraternity and lived in the house for a considerable amount of time. While living in these living conditions he went on many storm chases and took part in much internship all around the area for things like local news stations, weather observatories and global companies through the internet. Needless to say, he was a busy guy, however, there is more evidence about towards making this passion a true part of his lifestyle. Reed tells us that he would often skip out on activities with his friends in order to be able to go do things such as storm chase, study unnecessary topics still pertaining to meteorology, or even to first hand gather and document weather data for his own personal use. This portion of the book taught me a lot about Reed Timmer.

The theme of passion has came up in every book that I have read this year besides the ones involving local history. I easily connect to books involving passion because I have a passion for passion. I absolutely love when people follow their passion, I believe a huge part of true success is following a passion. I believe people have many passions. Some may find that they have true passion, but others like myself have passionate feelings toward a lot of ideas, activities or subjects. I feel like I have a lot of passions for just one guy. Some are stereotypical to almost all guys while others are a little obscure. This I feel is the case with everybody, though many I feel never find their obscure passions. Whether they just haven't explored enough to locate them or they have already been located and he/she doesn't want to go out on a limb to peruse or expose the passion we all have many things we are passionate about.

Footage Gone Viral

“CNN wants the footage, they also want an interview. Better hustle over there.”

The last few pages of my book have been describing a storm chase Reed and two of his buddies were in that sparked their whole storm chasing craze. Crammed inside an old jeep wrangler and losing control of the vehicle, the boys were right in the direct path of an F7 tornado. That being, the strongest force tornado possible. The surrounding winds made driving almost impossible described Reed, so the gang tucked themselves under an overpass along with another family seeking refuge under the I-beam constructed shelter. The scene viewed by those boys that day was described to be life changing. “it was just so violent” Reed Timmer states in an interview I watched on Youtube the other day. But, not only did they watch the storm play out, they captured it on camera. It was Timmers hands and camera that were used to capture the footage, giving him the only rights to the death defying images and video recordings taken of the tornado. When he returned to his dorm at OU, word spread around his hall about the footage and everyone was itching to see it. Eventually, word got out to people who know people who knew people who knew some producers at CNN. This was a major hookup for Reed, and this hookip eventually got him some money in return.

Writing Style and Qualification

I have just begun reading Into The Storm by Reed Timmer. I chose this book son somewhat of a whim so since I am only about to finish the first chapter I do not know what this book is quite about yet. What I do know: Reed Timmer is one of the most successful storm chasers on this planet. About 1 in 10 chases result in an interception with a storm on average, and Reed’s stats out-do that by a long shot. I also know that a WX man rarely has any literal training besides field reports, so this book is likely to be more of a factual read rather than a book with a story line. Reeds writing style is extremely informative. It is clear that his main goal with this writing is to help others get a better understanding of both storm chasing in general and his methods with storm chasing. Although his writing is informative, it really isn’t that, well, good. There are no “big” words, no sentences with inversion, no indirect meanings to things just kind of plain text, which I like. He begins his first chapter with his experiences as a freshman attending Oaklahoma University, and being in a lecture hall with a hundred other kids and seeming like he was the one paying the least attention. Its written like he is talking for the most part, which is how the first book I read this quarter was.

                I’m glad this book is written the way it is. Reading truly isn’t in the mix with my other hobbies so its nice to read a book that I can get something out of. On the other hand, storm chasing sounds pretty sweet, and I am excited to learn more about it. This is also a rookie approach to a book, it is this the first book Reed has ever written and on an interview I watched about the book with Reed himself he mentioned that he wasn’t really a reader himself. What was evident was that he had a love for the weather. Storm chasing in specific. In the first chapter I have heard all about how he fell in love with chasing, and when his passion is combined with his statistics, it is clearly evident that he is qualified to write a book on this subject.

The Perfect Storm, originally written by Sebastian Junger, has developed into a very well known novel and an icon to the Gloucester fishing community. Because of its widespread interest, a film company has taken it upon themselves to create a visual of what the crew of the Andrea Gail went through those few days before the destruction of the vessel. This turned into a massive motion picture and just like the book it became a large hit throughout the United States. I started reading the book initially forgetting that I have watched the movie. Within the first chapter I had realized I actually have seen the movie before. The connection was made when jflska’s wife asked him “did I do that” as she looked at his black eye. I am now about halfway through the book and have recently watched the movie again to compare and contrast the plot, themes and accurate story depiction. The plot of both the book and movie are the exact same but similar to all movies written about a book some parts are either skipped over, not given the same attention or given too much attention.

One example of this is the communication between the Andrea Gail and ground control about the upcoming storm. The book goes through no dialog about the communications but in the movie much of it is present. My best guess as to why this is the case is because in the book, the readers are given what is almost data about the storm. This is truly needed in order to understand what the crew is going through. Facts and descriptions like how waves are formed initially by a storm and how the storm faced by the Andrea Gail relate to other storms are all explained in the book but not in the movie at all. There are just a few scenes of the control room in a state of bedlam as they try to figure out what in the world this freak of a storm is doing. There is also a noticeable difference in the themes presented in both the book and the movie. In the movie, a theme of love especially between jfkdls and jhfsdlkajk is clearly represented. In the book, love is really not presented between human and human but is very evident between human and sea. In the beginning of the movie, when the Andrea Gail and crew set out on their voyage to the north Atlantic seas in search of great fishing out on the Georges Bank, fjkdsl and jfkldsa go through this full love scene. He “needs to go fishing” but she doesn’t want him to leave and she “has a bad feeling” and “its gonna be the last one” he promises and so and so. His love for the sea takes over and he leaves and throughout the entire movie their love is represented with constant flash backs and refrains back to Gloucester of her missing him and such. At the end of the movie, the rest of the crew sinks down with the ship and he floats up to the surface and he says in his mind something to her as he gets pounded by waves and she is listening to him speak and it somewhat kills the accuracy and validity of the movie but not to an extent of making it a bad depiction. Overall, I feel like both the movie and book do a great job accurately representing what the crew of the Andrea Gail went through during that violent tempest that cost them their lives. I recommend to anybody who has read the book to watch the movie and vice versa. 

“He popped up into a world of shrieking darkness and landsliding seas. At one point the crest of a wave drove him so far under the surface that the pressure changed damaged his inner ear.” Pg. 246

There are many life threatening events written about in The Perfect Storm which all relate with the same perfect storm. The combination of stories told by any of the first hand viewers of this storm and the little information about the Andrea Gail voyage shape the story line into what it is. The combination factor mainly allows the writer to describe to the reader how intense the storm was for the Gloucester crew members.

In an attempt to save the Andrea Gail, a Navy Seal team helicopter ran out of gas and the team had to “abandon ship” as the helicopter plunged into the bone chilling North Atlantic water. The above quote describes an example of how rough the seas were that night. Each SEAL in the helicopter made it out of the sinking aircraft and regrouped in the white washed ocean. During the process of regrouping one of member of the team encountered a wave so powerful that it knocked him below the surface to the point where the water pressure causes damage in the ear drum. With a little additional research I found out that around 14 feet a human ear is vulnerable to damage if not acclimated properly. It takes a massive wave to drive a human body 14 feet below the surface, especially in an open ocean where the force of the crest of the wave is significantly lower than that of a wave breaking on the shore. As a surfer, I know how powerful a 10ft wave can be and how it can slam me to the bottom with depths up to 6 feet or so. I can only imagine how big that wave must have been and how rough the oceans were to create such a monster.

It is almost unfathomable to envision what seas as big as the ones faced by the Andrea Gail actually look like. Not only the wave height but the wind speed, foam spray, and pitch black atmosphere must all contribute to making this death defying image of mother earth. Not really being able to see, losing feeling of your extremities, getting pounded under the surface of the freezing water, taking waves up to 90 feet to the head and the thought of your crew members who just passed away cannot make for a pleasant time.

Every author has their own unique style of writing. The storm written by Norman Olstad, displays a great example of style within an author.specifically, the style in which I am talking about is somewhat informal. Often times while reading this book I will notice unnecessary swearwords, lack of quotations and other informalities that don't make the author look uneducated or whatever but give The text a little personality. Norman all start is by no means a popular or serious author; he's got a day job and is from what I have researched a physically active guy. There is no in-depth literary content to this book such as symbolism or allusions like you would find in a book like the Great Gatsby. That literary content is almost sacrificed for accurate story telling as this is a completely non-fiction book written by the main character on a personal experience. Although there's not much to figure out about this book between the lines, the author has a very defined style of writing. He uses a lot of jargon which to some may get in the way of understanding some of the situations. Luckily The author and I share similar interests and all of that jargon is second nature to me. It not only gives me a sense of satisfaction while I'm reading it, but it really helps me to get on his level when he is describing a lot of the situations in the book. 

I personally enjoy reading this book. Going into it I had no idea that the author shed the exact same interests as I do and it was clearly evident that he did it right from the beginning of the book before he directly shared his interests. All of the life lessons indirectly suggested are ones that I have learned by going through the same kinds of things. Although I have some first-hand experience on what the book is about, Norman has a lot more than I do and on a more extreme level as his father would push him as a young boy to be a daredevil. 

Quote blog

“My father always trained me to stay calm in the storm.” Pg. 286

Norm releases this statement during a very tense part of the book. Currently, Norm is at the base of a mountain he just descended from and is starting to lose his energy as he tries to find something to keep him alive. The snow he traveling on is covering a dense bush creates sink hole like structures in the snow when stepped on because of all the empty space below the snow. The winds are howling at hurricane force and the 4,000ft elevation temperature is surely below 20 regardless of the wind chill. After descending from the plane crash he was just involved with, it is easy to see that 10 year old Norm could be pretty stressed out right now. Norm’s father raised him to become mature quick. He was always dragging him out of bed early to take him on ski or surf excursions and constantly pushed him out of his comfort zone whenever they were out together. This ties in with the quote because it’s all those uncomfortable situations that Norm was thrown into by his father that help him survive this terrible accident.            

I believe this training is very crucial for not only people that participate in activities with high risks but for everybody in general. The man who can out of a dire situation the quickest and most efficiently is the stronger man. The man who can survive the longest without any resources is the stronger man. To do this, one has to be trained to stay calm. Stress and panic block out sections in one’s brain that need to be easily accessible during times of high risk. Life defying decisions need to be made in a situation like Norm was put into, with no room for error. If he hadn't of kept his mind clear during all of this he would have not remembered all of the backcountry tips his father has taught him over the years and many other things. Norm eventually makes his way out of this mess which some may consider a miracle. Personally, this seems to me like a perfect example of hard work pays off. These situations mix in with humanity not as often as they used to. I believe that the loss of survival instincts contributes to the loss of the original mankind. Everybody should train to stay calm in the storm.