storm – Looking to God

Bill Harding

Posted on June 24, 2015June 16, 2015 by Jack Flacco

The twisters came early in the season. The emergency response system warned citizens of the imminent disaster ready to strike. But not all took cover. They needed more time.

When Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) arrives at his old team’s gathering ground holding papers for a divorce with his estranged wife Jo Harding (Helen Hunt), he doesn’t know that his next decision would place him on a course with destiny, and as a feature in Wednesday Warriors.

A scientist. A philosopher. A weather prognosticator. Bill can feel a storm brewing on his skin. He draws dirt from the ground and pours it into the air to measure wind speed, updrafts and wind current. He doesn’t need a barometer to know when a twister is churning in the atmosphere, ready to make an appearance.

Bill Harding is the barometer.

His old crew consists of his wife Jo, an overzealous driver Dustin Davis (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Robert “Rabbit” Nurick (Alan Ruck), Tim “Beltzer” Lewis (Todd Field), and a few other eager storm chasers who follow the direction of their former leader into the mouth of tornadoes.

Their mission? To measure the creation, movement and death of a twister. Their problem? They have to get in front of the ravenous beast and drop Dorothy in its path. The whirlwind will then suck the information-gathering instrument into its vortex and produce the statistics Bill and his team needs to understand how tornadoes come to be. Above all, it is his hope the device’s data will one day save lives.

Joining Bill in his quest to intercept a tornado-in-the-making is his current flame Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz). She sees things differently. She sees cows flying across their path as unusual. Sister twisters grazing their truck like a plaything as heart stopping. A monster storm burying them in a hideaway as things of which she can’t compete. She doesn’t even know where to start.

There really isn’t a place for anyone in Bill’s life who can’t keep up with him. It’s not on purpose. He just has a propensity to follow his instincts. If his instincts carry him to drive his truck in the middle of a field while a massive rainstorm twirls overhead, then that is what he’ll do. To him, in the greater scheme of his life, only one thing matters—get Dorothy into the heart of the tornado.

What the character Bill teaches in the movie Twister is that obstacles, problems and difficulties are nothing when a goal is clear and crisp. Hurdles are there to hop over. Complications are there to overcome. Whatever stands in his way, he is ready to confront head-on.

Bill shows what it means to dedicate oneself to a passion.

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What do you think of the character Bill Harding in the film Twister?

Monday Mayhem

Zombies and the Weather

Posted on February 16, 2015February 18, 2015 by Jack Flacco

I’m writing this post a week in advance with the temperature outside having dipped to a balmy -26°C/-14.8°F. Of course, balmy is not the word I would have chosen to describe the frigid arctic air mass that has settled here in Northeastern Canada. But know it’s my attempt at sarcasm. I’m hoping by the time this publishes, this paragraph will remain relevant. Nonetheless, since I’m talking about the weather and our frosty climate across the border, I’m now curious as to whether the undead would be able to survive our environment here in the Great White North.

So, without much fanfare, and since today is Family Day here in Ontario, I thought it interesting for my Monday Mayhem series of articles if I talk about zombie survivability in extreme weather conditions.

[Note: Please folks, don’t take this post seriously, because I’m going to share some ideas with you that will not have relevance of thought, or applicability to current conditions in the grand scheme of zombiehood. In other words, take it as light reading for a Monday morning.]

All right, with that out of the way, let’s talk about zombies and the arctic weather we’re experiencing here in Canada. Would zombies be able to survive our climate if they walk the streets at night and no one’s around to feed them? Literally. Knowing what I know about the draggers, and how stupid there are, I think they’d freeze solid before they even try to get their grimy little paws on us. First, at least on my street, it gets quiet during winter. If it’s quiet then chewers can’t find us. More than likely, they’d roam or maybe stand in one spot, which, by the time I wake up in the morning, I’ll have a bunch of undead statues standing erect on my driveway ready for the hammer to the head. Second, snowstorms have blessed us up here. I’d love to see those miserable eaters fight through our frozen winter wonderland chasing after their food. They’d have to find us first. The blustery wind alone would shake them off their feet.

Since I’m talking about the wind, what about tornadoes? In the summer, just north of where I live, resides twister alley. Do you think the undead would be able to survive a blast from nature soon after one of these cyclones touches down on terra firma? The impact alone would kill them. I’ve seen videos of how one of these funnels cut a path straight across a neighborhood leaving devastation in its wake. No way would a zombie live through that. I mean, after getting slammed a few times upside the head with a pickup truck, I’m sure there wouldn’t be anything left either of the zombie or the pickup.

How about thunderstorms? In minutes, I’ve seen our neighborhood go from birds chirping, sun shining and a gentle wafting of the breeze to utter devastation, thunder clapping, deluge of water coursing through the streets and lightning. I think a storm of such ferocity, though, would do little damage to the chewer population. Oh sure, perhaps a few bolts of lightning frying the unfortunate undead who happens to stroll the sidewalk that day could prove nature still had a way announcing its control. But really? It’ll last a few minutes and the zombie crowd would still be around for the fight.

No, what needs to happen is for the earth to open and swallow anything dragging their feet. Then, and only then, would there be peace on earth.

Unfortunately, our neighborhood hasn’t experienced an earthquake in years. Not that I would want one, mind you.

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Do you think the weather could prevent the undead from attacking? What would be the most devastating thing the weather could do to destroy a zombie horde?

The Ice Storm of 2013

Posted on January 10, 2014May 8, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Almost three weeks ago, Toronto and the surrounding vicinity had its power cut from under its feet. Living an hour north from the greater metropolitan, we came out of the disaster unscathed. Other than a few felled trees, we had a virtual behemoth of ice blanketing the area. But we retained our power. That in itself is miraculous. And why wouldn’t Freedom Friday describe the event as anything but?

I awoke to the sound of silence. Unusual, I thought. The neighbor’s dog should have been out barking in the backyard. A car or two should have been traveling on our street to work. I wouldn’t have known what to make of it until I hopped from my bed and peeked through the blinds to discover everything coated in ice. I felt I was living a real-life scene from the movie The Day After Tomorrow where New York City fell under a sub-arctic weather mass.

My first instinct to call my parents proved unproductive. Their phone gave me a busy signal, which meant one of two things—they were talking with my sister about the storm or they’d lost power and weren’t home. Sure enough, my sister had called to let me know my folks were over at her place after having lost power. The region had shut down and no sign of any visible progress would be forthcoming for the next seventy-two hours.

Meanwhile, I had my own dilemma. Even though we hadn’t lost electricity, we had a driveway covered in a foot of ice. It looked like a literal skating rink out there. When I dared make the trek outside, the five steps from our home mocked me with the words, “treacherous”, “lethal”, and “deadly”. The steps were non-existent, replaced by a hill that wasn’t there the night before. I negotiated the anomaly without compromising my safety.

Once at the bottom, I slid to the edge of our driveway. Had I known then what I know now, I would have never slept. Instead, I would have chosen to stay up all night to ensure the bottom of the driveway remained clear. Well, that didn’t work as expected. I stared at the mound to the mouth of the driveway and measured it to be three feet, more or less. That’s three feet of solid ice. I knew I was in trouble.

Surely, I thought, my snow thrower would rescue me from days of attempting to find the bottom of my driveway. I didn’t know what I was doing. I revved the engine, aimed for the ice and—nothing happened. The machine threw its hands in the air not even recognizing the ice and laughed at me. Okay, so maybe my optimism got the best of me.

Next, I put away the snow thrower and went to Plan B: I lined my pockets with cash and waited at the foot of the driveway on the mound of ice that held my weight without a problem. As the cars passed by my street, I held my breath. I hoped upon hope for relief. I didn’t know if it would come, but I kept my wits about me and remained confident.

Half-an-hour later, reinforcements came in the form of a plow. With a pocket full of cash, I felt confident we’d win. And win we did. We managed to get the whole driveway plowed for a $20 bill. Imagine my relief.

Well, that was one problem out of the way. It didn’t help my stair problem. What to do with all the ice that had made my steps a ski slope? Unfortunately, folks, this I had to take care of myself utilizing a spade fork to break up the ice. Three hours later, I’d cleared the steps.

Now, this is all very well and fine, but it doesn’t compare to the satisfaction of digging out our neighbor across the street from this mess. But that’s another story.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, now on sale.

Did you experience the ice storm of 2013? What did you have to do to dig yourself out of its clutches?

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