(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Brad. - And I'm Jason. - You are listening to - Thanks again. - Thank you. (upbeat music) - Hello everybody, welcome back. Before we press record, Brad and I were chatting about chat GPT and everything around it. Something that fascinates us both, but especially you, Brad. And this is relevant to the current episode and the interview coming up. Because if you know anything, talking to our listeners here, if you know anything about chat GPT, admittedly I know a very, very, very little. But this is essentially predictive analytics. Well, for this episode, we're going to talk to someone whose shtick, see the connection, is prediction. And it also happens to be a passion of yours, Brad, since, I mean, way before we met. And that is meteorology. So I'm turning it over to you with that. - Yeah, you know what, that's normally I do the open, but you said I have a great start and you couldn't have picked a better one. Just because I hadn't even thought of the correlation. And I'm doing a lot of, 'cause I have the time of playing around with chat GPT. Nothing profound other than looking at it and asking it all sorts of questions and generating content just related to RPGs. And as an example, we, Jason, you and I had that misguided attempt at thinking about what would we do with a narrative dice system in Star Trek? - Yep. - And we looked at doing it. And then I think I sent you the info. I asked chat GPT to put something together and I put together a fully functional and great system for Star Trek and Genesis within what moments by me asking multiple questions. - So we'd like to thank you all for listening to Dice in Mind. This will be our last episode. - Yeah, the next episode's gonna be AI Jason and AI Brad. - We can't be flatter. - Yeah, well, it's funny 'cause there was someone who, excuse me, who did, and I'm not gonna get into the type of talk show 'cause it's not something I ever listened to nor would I recommend it. But there is a relatively well-known podcast show out there for those that tend to follow certain belief systems politically. And someone generated a fake talk show, a fake AI host. And when you compare the original to the new one that there was an article about this, they were almost, you couldn't discern between the two. - I'm still stuck on this concept of a political belief system. Now I know what's wrong in this country, but go on. Let's see if chat GPT. - Yeah, I tried to answer all the point being is that it's interesting how AI will play into this. Now, when it comes to me and the weather meteorology's meteorology, I had been wanting to do this since I was like five, six, seven years old. I was the kid who put up a map at the state of Wisconsin and cut out little red and blue squares that I could put on the map so that I could pretend to be a meteorologist talking about the warnings. 'Cause where we live, we have our share on occasion of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings. - Yep, yep, especially you. - Yeah, and loved it. And you and I and your brother did our fair share of, I wouldn't say. - You can't call it storm chasing, but post storm chasing. How about that? - Let's just say storm following. - Storm following is a good way to do it. - Yeah, storm following. We did that a lot, right around '96, '97. Ironically, after the movie Twister came out. As unrealistic as I knew that it was. - We never had cows, but we were always hopeful. - Yeah, exactly. But we drove through, I was with you. We drove through a town that really got in and hindsight, we should not have been there. But we drove through a town here in the state that had gotten all the obliterated. And at five, right up Main Street, tore it down to the soil, tore it up to the soil, excuse me. - Oakfield, Wisconsin, which is for those that are in the area, just is it south, what is it? - It's just next to nowhere. Oh yeah, also the same. Yeah, it's what, 15 minutes, not even 10 minutes from Fond du Lac. And yeah, we went, man, we went out as soon as the sirens were off. - Yeah, yeah, so for me, I looked at, I took coursework and meteorology in college - You were gonna major in it, potentially. - I was, I actually, once I realized I didn't wanna do music, that's what I switched to, but the problem was a lot of the coursework was done during the day and I had to work. So, couldn't do it. Ended up getting a business degree. Storm chasing has become a, I mean, there are tours and things that people go on. I don't necessarily have that inkling anymore, but I am the type that follows. - You are very much an armchair storm chaser and I mean that in a positive way. - Yeah, I will follow. There's a lot of people out there doing meteorology on YouTube Live and Twitch and everything like that. I will follow real. - You text me every time there's a storm system in your neighborhood, so to speak, you, and I love it, you text me, the updates, the analyses, the predictions. And I watch the local, I will stream the local channels when there are storms going through that area. And so, interestingly enough, we are in neighboring states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan gets their fair share storms. And you and I both saw a video on YouTube of a meteorologist who did a weather report for major planets in the Federation, right? - The Star Trek Federation, right. - Hard, you know, what did they call them? What did you call them, fan casts, I think? - Fan forecasts. - Fan forecasts. - Fan them forecasts, excuse me. - Yes. - Fan them forecasts. And we were just like, it's so well done. - And as soon as I saw it, I'm like, oh, we have that, 'cause here's someone who is a meteorologist. - Yeah. - I just, I'm fascinated by meteorologists. - Yeah. - And also a Star Trek fan. - And then we come to discover she's a legit broadcast meteorologist. - Yeah. - On TV, remember TV, and her fandom extends, I think it's, I think as you will hear in our interview, her fandom is heavily rooted like ours in Star Trek, but her fandom extends all over the place. And she's pretty darn impressive with cosplay too. I gotta say, her Dr. Who was spot on. - Oh, I mean, unbelievable. She's, so she is over in Michigan on WNLS. I think you'll go through the intro. So for me personally to be able to talk to a real meteorologist who lives here in the Midwest and deals with the same type of weather that we deal with, you know, you know, snowstorms, severe weather, tornadoes, severe thunderstorm warnings. I watch, you know, I, I, that comes up and she has a fascinating story. She, she had an accident and she was lucky not to get her, you know, hear more about this. And she had the accident on her way back from seeing the premiere of Star Trek Picard season three. - Yeah. And, and I mean, this was a seer. And she'll talk about this. - She'll talk about it. - This is a serious accident. - Yeah. Yeah. So really, please, she, when we reached out to her, so gracious and agreeing to join us on the show for a while, she's obviously very busy 'cause she's on television. - And she has horrendous hours. - Yes. And that was the other thing is her hours, you know, make it, would have made it difficult for her to join us at a time that we were able to do it and she did. So even before we start the interview, thank you to Katie for joining us. - Just the nicest person. I know we say that about a lot of people we interview, but Katie was just a sweetheart and it would have been so easy to just keep talking. We, it took us a considerable amount of time after we paused the record to actually stop talking. - And she was, she was so gracious to a guy who is a wannabe meteorologist who doesn't have the education. Very patient with me, not that I, not that I tried to make it sound like I was knowledgeable in anything, but I tried to toss a couple terms out there just to make myself feel important. And very, very, he was a good sport about it. So again, thank you, Katie. And I think we could probably just jump right over to the interview. (upbeat music) - Katie Nikola was the Emmy award-winning CBS morning meteorologist for WLS in Lansing, Michigan. From reporting on tornadoes live in the field to tracking multi-day blizzards, she loves injecting her forecasts with unique and detailed information that captivates and educates her audience. She is the creator of the fandom forecast, a project she started to bring together her love for pop culture and weather forecasting. (upbeat music) - So since we are now able to bridge probably a few of my passions being track and weather and just, sorry, Katie, general nerdiness. Katie Nikola, thank you for joining us today. - Let's go. - We'll talk, you know, obviously we'll talk weather, we'll talk track, you know, I have to imagine we'll be very cognizant of time, but if when it comes to track, we are not always the best at keeping track of- - These are the same way here. I found out one of my coworkers is into Star Trek and we had a one hour conversation in the hallway this week, so understandable. - Now, just to give everybody, give our listeners a sense of who we're dealing with here. So I got it 'cause we got to paint a visual picture. So Katie is wearing a sweatshirt that says weather witch, which, oh, and it has a witch after it. And then behind her is like this gorgeous, Hubble-esque shot of something. It's just this- - No, it's weather supposed. You have the- - Yes, no, but- - Oh, you're talking about the symbols behind, yeah, sorry. - No, no, the Hubble shot behind her or something like that. - Yes, this is the witch's broom nebula and it combines like your colors of blue and pink and it generally just matches my vibe, so just goes with it. - That's gorgeous. - That's cool. Hey, so we could go back in the time machine, Jason a lot longer and there's probably enough embarrassing stories we won't do that with you. But going back to when you were younger, how did you get interested in meteorology just to start? - Yeah, so it's kind of crazy 'cause I'm in Michigan, I grew up in Battle Creek and I don't get a lot of torn fettas or really active weather here. But when I was four, we were driving back, my family and I were in the car and, you know, it was the early 2000s, we didn't have cell phones or anything, we didn't know what was going on and we drove into a storm and we actually had to pull over because it was so rainy, we couldn't really see anything. And I just looked outside the window and I see this lightning and the wind is whipping the corn in the field and there's rain and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And when we got home, we found out that that was a tornado, that went right over where we were. And I mean, I still thought it was really cool and my parents didn't think it was weird, so we just kind of went with it. And I started going to the library and reading books about weather, especially tornadoes 'cause definitely go through one, you wanna learn more. And then in 2011, a tornado hit my house in Battle Creek, which if you get two tornadoes in less than a decade, it's a cosmos telling you something. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Literally, like it's a sign that you need to do this. So I just kind of took it around with it and I was always an extroverted child, so broadcasting like my best way to merge passions. - Wow, okay. - Where did you study meteorology from a school perspective? - Yeah, I went to Valparais University, which is in Northwest Indiana and most people just know it from the basketball team, but it's a really tiny school, but they have an amazing meteorology program. - Oh, cool. - And that really, really just fostered my love of weather, even more than what it already was. - So did you, 'cause you said your extroverted or outgoing and media, was that always in the back of your mind like as you were growing to love the study of weather and whatnot, was there always this thought of and you wanna talk about it? - Oh yeah, completely, 'cause when I was little, I would watch the weather channel as any weather incline child does and they had the show called Storm Stories and I wish they would bring it back 'cause it's with meteorologist Jim Cantore and he would explain these storms and everything and at the end, it would always be like, for Storm Stories, I'm meteorologist Jim Cantore, your local forecast is next. Like, that was ingrained in my brain to the point that I could probably say it faster than I could spell my last name and I could just, yeah, it just kind of made me wanna be a broadcaster because I knew I could do that and it seemed like such a cool way to explain science to a whole bunch of people. - See, that's super cool. So, okay, so this is also foreign to the two of us. I'm curious, so how does one go from, you know, maturing in this in college, right? Becoming meteorologist, focusing on broadcast and then landing a gig on broadcast? I mean, I have to assume that is not easy. - No, it's tricky, it's getting easier because there's less and less meteorologists who are going into broadcasting just because it's becoming a more, it's becoming a more difficult field mentally to handle and just physically the time requirements for it and so it's becoming a little bit easier to find openings but usually what it is is when you graduate from college, sometime during college you've had a broadcast internship at a TV station in the summer and then that gets your foot in the door and the meteorologist there help you find jobs and there's job boards all over like tvjobs.com. Great one for broadcast meteorologists and sports people, everyone. And you just go through all the job listings and they'll say mostly weekend meteorologists just like the lower one on the totem pole but still really crucial and you'll get a lot of reps. So you find one in an area that's either open or near where you wanna be and you just apply and hope for the best. So you have like a resume reel you built in college, send it out and then it's up to the fate. Wow. Middle of the later part of the 90s is when I actually went to school for some of this, they moved the atmospheric science division from in effect the straight letters and sciences, they actually moved it under mathematics and that made it difficult just for me 'cause I worked and went to school to be able to attend the classes 'cause they changed all the structure and schedule. So you can see and just being a weather nerd and reading forecast discussions and watching them just how much, you know, not that there wasn't before but how much math is involved. Oh, I'm one math class away from a math minor. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was so burned out in college. I was like, I can't take this anymore. But no, it's broadcast meteorologist. Most of them just have plain old degrees in meteorology. It's not like we get to take a lesser degree or anything 'cause we still study all that we need to know. And that's one of my favorite things to tell people is like, yeah, no, I'm not just some face or warm body that they put in front of a camera to talk. Like I made this forecast. I don't steal it from the weather channel lab. Like I do my own thing. And math is a huge part of it. - Yeah, that's just that fascinates me and I have a daughter who's looking at college and wants to go into atmospheric or environmental science. So even seeing it, and hopefully I don't, this doesn't come across the wrong way, but you know, seeing women in science to me too, I'd like to show her, you know. - Oh yeah. - 'Cause I have a daughter, Jason is two daughters. So anywhere we can see success like that, we like to show that as examples to our kids. - Oh yeah. - Well, I love it 'cause, you know, meteorology has been like a male dominated field and there's like whole reasons for it 'cause it used to be a pretty good mix before they started requiring degrees. And at that point in time, men were the only ones who were going to college really to get the degrees. So there was a drop off and now we're recovering back up to the more 50-50 levels. So at least we're hoping to. So it's always good to get more involved. - See, now how did you end up? And we kind of talked about this before we hit record, but for the five people that listened to our podcast. - Yeah. - So it's such a time on the watch. - Okay, there we go. - Thanks mom. - For our six listeners, thank you mom. How did you end up getting into and becoming a fan of Star Trek? - Yeah. - Oh, now that's a great question. I actually, I really enjoy talking about it because I feel like there's gotta be at least some other person out there who might be in a similar situation. Because for me, I said I was an extrovert. I was always into everything and being very talkative. But then I got to middle school and it all came to a screeching halt. I developed like horrific anxiety. I was borderline anorexic, I had depression and it was just, I was afraid to leave my house, which is completely opposite of what you see today or here today. And it just, it took the wind completely out of my sails for two years and fifth and sixth grade. And then one night I was walking through my dad had Star Trek, the next generation on the screen in the bedroom. And it was Gambit, part one, season seven of next generation. I had no idea, no one in the world ever starts their Star Trek journey with that episode. But I did and I watched it, I was like, this is really cool. And the more I started watching Star Trek, the more I started to feel like these people, even though they're characters, they're fictional characters, they still wanted to go out and adventure even though there could be death or danger or whatever else was out there. It was worth it to them because they got to go on these adventures and learn things and see things. And I really started to embrace that, along with the way of starting to think rationally. You don't think about it when you're watching Star Trek, but they think very rationally. And anxiety is an incredibly irrational thing. - That's right. - So you change your brain the way you think. And so my anxiety was with germs and being afraid that I would catch something. Well, I would go outside, I didn't, you know, wash your hands, stay away from people who are coughing. I'd wear a mask on an airplane, I was ahead of the times. But it worked for me. And then all of a sudden I'm able to take off again and set a course and now I'm here. So yeah, that's, I just started getting into Star Trek and it never really stopped. - Do you think there's, do you think the fact that you were a Trek fan and obviously, do you think that kind of led into your interest in science as well as you were kind of getting right on it? - Oh completely. - Yeah. - You had to see it, Dax, heck yes. - Oh, okay. - Yeah. - You get any kind of science in Star Trek. I especially love it when they talk about the weather in Star Trek and most of the time they do get it right. So I absolutely adore that. But it just, yeah, it makes you want to reach out to other sciences too because on the show, all the departments work together. And with access to social media, I've reached out to volcanologists mainly because of the name but now because of the science and like all these other people in astrophysics and whatever that I will never really talk to and you learn so much. So I give Star Trek the credit for that. - Naturally, this does bring up Janeway. - Oh my gosh. - Right because you had someone who was a blue shirt, right? You had this young woman at Starfleet Academy who was going hard into the sciences, wanted to be an exploratory scientist and then kind of got pulled into command, pulled into leadership because she had the skillset. But they would keep coming to the writer's credit. They would keep coming back to that theme of she's still a scientist and it was always, I mean, my God, look at how many detours Voyager took on the way home because there was something to be explored, right? And just-- - Exactly. - And I mean, again, 'cause we're older than you by enough like we've seen so much, well, but really, we've seen so much change in terms of acceptance, inclusion of gender, right? The fact that Janeway was written that way was, I mean, that was Trek. That was no one else would have written a woman scientist, Captain, who stayed true to that and didn't need a love interest. - Exactly as much as I'm a J.C. shipper. I'm like, that ship needed to sail later on, we need to establish. (laughs) - I'm still holding hope that in Prodigy, they're gonna do something with her in Shikote. - Oh. - I swear. - You've been watching Prodigy, right? - Yeah. - Oh, yes. - It does make you wonder, she's very determined. - I'm so excited for seeing what they're gonna do. - If that's all for a firm handshake, then it's gonna be a little strange. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I need at least a hug, a solid five second hug from that, just give it to me, please. (laughs) - But they toyed with that one, much like they toyed with Picard, maybe a little less than with Picard and Crusher. - Well, and see how they turned out, there's hope for J. (laughs) - Yeah. - Well, we're only, though, as we record this, we're only through episode six, so we don't know yet. - True. - But Chebaka for a sec, because there's a theme here that, well, that I'm thinking of, let me connect a few dots, like empirically here for you. So, if you don't mind, like going back to middle school, like, I mean, middle school's hard for a lot of kids, right? - Oh, yeah. - And it seems especially for girls. - Oh, yeah. - And what's interesting, what's so cool to me is that Star Trek was such a piece that helped you, that helped you to grow and to be whole. But that's also the time where we know, we know from the data that girls top out of math. They just, they go from being potentially brilliant to they're no longer interested, right? And that's total socialization. And then you hop over to Janeway, where was something happening with Chikote, was there not? And my connection is, that was back, 'cause I promise I'm gonna bring this all full circle. They-- - By next week, you will trust. - Yeah, that's my thing. - Oh, my God. - But no, no, there are a few-- - I got to. - But yeah, I appreciate it. Brad, you can go. - Okay. - Yeah, but with Chikote, you know, I mean, they brought in seven, because Trek or not, they needed a feminized, sexualized character. Let's, turns out she's a wonderful actor, but that's not why she's so good, but that's not why they brought her in, okay? And then the reason I bring this up is, 'cause there's a theme here, and then like, we've seen, I've seen on Twitter, you've really been trying to call out some pretty blatant chauvinism, right? Regarding female broadcasters, right? So I mean, there's a theme here that I see, right? That remains a problem, deeply in our society. No matter how intelligent, educated, and accomplished these women to come. - Exactly, and what's interesting too, is like, I take on a bit of a Janeway/Bolana-esque way of handling it. - Yeah. - You have to handle it with poise and dignity, and enough that you won't get into trouble, but at the same time, be spicy, come back, then don't just lay there and let it happen, because then it's just gonna keep on happening to the next person, and the next person. Put up some resistance. And I think that kinda does come from, you know, that middle school, what thing of, you know, getting bullied and some ways being worse than others, for other people, it's varying levels and degrees, but you always kinda look back on it, and you just wish like, ah, wish I could have stood up to that, or like said something that I know, like nowadays, all that I would have destroyed that, but like, you learn, and you just wanna make sure that doesn't happen to anyone else. So I just take the conservatively offensive position of calling them out without being too (laughing) like a Belana season five or six. Exactly, more tempered Belana. - I think, I mean, I know, you know, like I've mentioned before, because, you know, we have vested interest in seeing, you know, all our children succeed, but knowing that there are, knowing that there are people out there, you know, like yourself and others, you know, that are willing to make, to stand up for that, you know? And be modest. - Yeah, versus Jason, I come from Gen X, it really didn't exist as much back then, you know, is-- - But we were also guys and teenagers, and we're unaware. I mean, let's face it. - Yeah, true, yeah. Well, it's just like the changing times, the culture evolves, you get more aware of things as you get more socialized with people and hearing their experiences. So it's definitely, it's been nice to see people grow from era to era, depend, no matter when they were born. - Yeah, do you expect, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this and there's gonna be a reason behind it. So you also have gotten into cosplaying. - Oh, yes. (laughing) - So, and how did, and this is almost a silly question, but how did you, this is, I'm always asking this, how did you end up getting into that as well, other than that, that obviously there's a passion there for track, and then I'm assuming the first outfit was probably a science outfit, a blue shirt outfit, or. - Very close, it was actually a red shirt TNG. I got it for Halloween in middle school, 'cause I thought, oh, I'll just get it and the blue one was out of stock, so. - Yes, yeah. - Okay. - But I actually, I wore that for Halloween that one year, and then in 2016, I believe it was, my dad and I went to Star Trek, Chicago, creation event, and I was like, I'm gonna wear my shirt, 'cause I don't get to wear this often, and I wore it, and I thought, this is really fun, and I got to see so many amazing cosplays. And the first time you experienced cosplay, you don't really get it until you're in a room full of them, and you're just smiling from ear to ear, the creativity, and just ingenuity, and all of it, and it makes you happy. And so, I wanted to be a part of that, and I started making cosplays that made me happy, but also would probably make others happy too. - What else do you, when you go out and do it, obviously we've seen, because we'll get to the weather report in a second, but we've seen your science outfit, but what else do you have you gone out as? - Well, I'm a huge Dr. Hufan. I think it's pretty much along the same veins of Star Trek, so I love it, and so I actually made a 12th Dr. Cosplay for anyone who's a Dr. Hufan, where he's on the tank, and he has the guitar, and he's just like going into full mental breakdown mode. I made that during the pandemic, and I still love it with all my heart, and I did the 13th Dr. Cosplay. I've made DoodleBob from SpongeBob, Crowley from the Domins. - Oh my God. - I have a whole closet full. Della Duck from DuckTales, it's not- - That's a deep cut. - Yeah. - Oh, completely. - I remember coming home from school and watching that. - I remember they had to find a leather jacket and cut it, so. (laughing) - Wow, that is awesome. - Okay, so is this what gave rise to the fandom forecasts? - It is, actually, 'cause one, it was coming up on the DuckTales reboot with David Tennant and Catherine Tate and like half the cast of SNL. It is on Disney Channel. Check it out. It is, to me, incredible. It's on par with the original, and just David Tennant knocks it out of the park, 'cause it's incredible. - He's brilliant. - Yeah, no, I had gotten that, I had gotten into the show right before the pandemic started, and I was like, "The season's coming out, "I wanna make something for the fans." So I made a forecast for Duckburg, and the money bin, and just had fun with it, and people really latched on. I was like, "I'm gonna call this a fandom forecast, "and I'm gonna make more." And so I think the second one that I made was the Star Trek one. And that one just was nuts. I got noticed by so many Trekkies. And I even had people from the show following me because of it. I made a Star Wars one. I made a second DuckTales one. Good Omens one. You can think of 'em on the fandoms that I'm a part of, but Doctor Who fandoms forecasted. I actually have a list of all of them still on my desk that I'm gonna be making now that I'm back. It worked. - Oh, wow. - Wow. How did working during the pandemic, just to sidebar, 'cause you mentioned it. How did that change for you? And when you were doing your forecasting where did you have to go back to the station to use the equipment, or did you, how did that all happen? - Yeah. - Yeah, so it was really incredible because when it started, I was a year into my job, pretty much. Not even getting up to a year. So I was still pretty new, but I was a weekday morning meteorologist, which means it was me and four guys at the station. And that was it running the TV station. So we were pretty far apart, anywho. So through the entire pandemic, we worked in the station and we just kind of socially distanced, kept our areas apart. But what was really interesting was trying to do the weather coverage during that because you don't, you try to make it a little bit happier, even if it's pouring rain, you try to find the good in it, 'cause the entire rest of the newscast was really bad. And scary, and it was just information that was horrible. So that kind of changed the way that I tried to present the weather. And it still is to this day, I'll find a bright spot in a seven day rain streak if it means we're fighting off a drought for the next six months. So that helped me a little bit to develop my style. - Wow. So one of the first things, this is sad, but one of the first things I thought or wondered when I saw the trek cast, if you will, right, was, "How are you doing this?" (laughing) - Yeah. - Like, do you go to the studio or do you have a setup at home? I mean, 'cause it's literally like you're watching weather on the news. So it's just kind of seamless. - Yeah, no, it was, it's interesting 'cause I made the graphics with my own, like I made the graphics on backgrounds and everything. I did my research, pulled those in, and I put them into our graphic system, 'cause, you know, it's no of a pandemic, but you're doing something fun. So I just did it after work on my own time. I would come in, press the record button and pop it on. And now I have my own home green screen that I use. - Oh, cool. - And my own sound systems and just have to get some better lighting. But other than that, yeah, you can, it depends on how chill your station is if they have a fun sense with them. - Yeah. - And most of the time it's pretty relaxed, yeah. - And correct, and apologies in advance. Were you, did you do those, like, especially the trek when you were in Sioux City or back when you were in Sioux City? Most of them, I haven't made a new one, actually, because I just moved to Lansing back in October. And I've missed about a month and a few weeks because I was in a car crash. So I haven't had much time to get acclimated. But when I do, all I'm saying is Disney forecast. - Oh, oh, wait. - Go ahead, James. - I just, no, I don't, you know, I'm not gonna, I was gonna ask you a question, but it would be, kind of a spoiler, and we like staying away from that. I will just wait to, I will just wait to watch it. - He was gonna ask, you don't have the answer. He was gonna ask, why Disney, I think? - Oh, no, no, I mean, that kind of speaks for itself. No, I was just. - Do you see how I tried to get him? - Which was, like, who would you, I mean, my God, you'd have so, it's such a broad patina. I mean, how would you narrow that down? - I actually have multiple Disney fandom forecasts, like a parks forecast where you do the different lands or different Disney castles or different Disney franchises. You can do whole animation forecasts, like, there's a lot. - Okay, that makes sense. - Oh, yeah. - You mentioned, 'cause I know, you know, for those that follow you on Twitter, know that you were in a pretty serious car accident. - Oh, yeah, nope, nope. - And you were in that coming back from being at the premiere for Picard, if I remember correctly, right? - I was, yeah, I was out, I was in Los Angeles and I was at the Picard premiere. It was incredible. Amanda Plummer was sitting, like, two rows in front of me and I'm just like, oh my gosh, that's Amanda Plummer. And it was amazing. And I was driving back and a person going much faster than I was, hit the back of my car. And mind you, this is on Los Diego Boulevard. So it's like a three lane, three lane, and then a middle lane. And I was in the farthest right lane I could be in. And it actually hit the back of my car such force that it bent the rear tires and it forced me into four lanes of oncoming traffic where another car in the other lane hit me in between the passenger front and back window or doors. And that caused my car to roll and it landed on the driver's side. And just before it would have hit a cement building. So it was a pretty violent crash. And it was like 11-something at night. So when I hopped out of the car, I grabbed my phone and I called my parents 'cause it's like two o'clock in the morning in Michigan on the Eastern time. And bless 'em, I don't think they slept that entire day. They're the entire night into the day 'cause I ended up having to go to the hospital 'cause I had a severely dislocated shoulder which now has a permanent dent in it. - You showed the x-ray of that, yes. - Yeah, the doc said I'm like a pop can, I have a dent. And that my entire left arm was unusable. I couldn't really move anything with it. And I had trauma to my veins in my arm. I had a huge bruising, pulmonary contusions, the works, and I lost my voice 'cause I had a dislocated shoulder for three hours and I was laying on my back in the ER. And since it was a posterior dislocation, it means I was laying on my bone. And so I was just like screaming for a few hours, but it's fine, it's good. But you wanna know the bright side of this? I was in a cosplay, okay? I was in full leather cosplay, leather pants, leather jacket, everything. So I'm hopping, I got out of the car and I'm looking for the ambulance and stuff. They take me to the end and they're like, we're gonna have to get you out of this cosplay. I'm like, hold on. And I unzip the jacket with my good arm and I take off the jacket. I'm like, okay, fine, cut off the shirt. Do not the jacket 'cause this is my Andorian jacket too. - Oh, oh my God. - And then I get to the ER and they're like, we need to take off your pants. We're gonna cut off your pants. They're like, oh, you're not taking them off. So they got one doctor on one leg, one doctor on the other leg and they just, - Oh, oh my God, kids. - Like skin tight, let their pants, I don't even imagine what they said. Exactly, well, between that and then, when I reset my shoulder, I told them, I was like, you have to put me out. Like, I won't be able to handle this. And when I was coming back out, they were talking about Star Trek 'cause they saw that I had like the Star Trek earrings and everything and they're like, what shows the, what's new show are you really into? And I said, strange new worlds because my audience in Mount is hot and the entire ER just started in laughter. Like, this is trauma one at Ronald Reagan UCLA. - Oh my God. - And they were just laughing. So it was, it was pretty great to get them to laugh and to get myself to laugh in that state, you know, the loopy gas has helped. But after that, it was like just dark. - Well, and I just, I mean, it's so impressive your attitude considering how serious it was, you know? - Yeah. - And how you dodged, I mean, bad joke, but dodged a point with that. - No, I mean, you walked away. That's incredible. - Yeah. The fact that I was able to walk away from that 'cause if that second car hadn't hit me, I would have smashed head on into a cement building and that could have been it. So like, you know, those thoughts do like pop up because you might have to work, I drive an hour to work each way every day. And so that's like something that I'm gonna have to deal with anxiety-wise and I had to rehab to get my arm strength back so I could hold onto the steering wheel. So it's, it's, it had to happen. It happened in the best way possible. And that's, that's the attitude I've chosen to take with it. 'Cause like I said, fifth and sixth grade, middle school, I've already know what it's like to be in a deep dark place. So I know how to stay away from the hole. - Well, so we don't feel the buzz, so we're not the buzz skills of the police. - You, you lost, because of the accident, you know, the swag and everything from the card. But I saw like Terry metallis and Jerry Ryan and others respond to your tweets when you were talking about it. And I think Terry, Terry metallis said, we'll get you what, you know, we'll get you all the Picard stuff. - Oh yeah. 'Cause I had, they had these posters when you picked up your seat ticket. So I got this physical ticket and I got this beautiful poster for the season. And I protected that thing, like a baby at the after party and the theater, everything. It was amazing. And as soon as like the car landed and I was looking at the windshield, I looked to my left and there was the crumpled remains of the poster on the driver's side glass. And I'm just like, nah. (laughing) I protected you. And so that was like, that was lost. The ticket was in the car. Like I wasn't able to get anything out of the car. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - Other than I did in my backpack. So I lost that and I was so just mad. And I, you know, still just sitting in a hotel room and an hour or a few, too, after it happened. He's putting up that tweet. I'm like, I'm so really sad about those guys. It's a Terry reached out. And he's like, "Hey, we'll get you the press box." - That's so sweet. - Basically, that they send out. So I got a bottle of Chateau Picard, a charcuterie board in the Delta Bad. - See. - Oh. - I got a Star Trek bottle stoppers and just, I got some very sweet messages. "Will Wheaton message me?" Jerry Ryan message me. - That's awesome. - Gates McFadden, "Bless Her Heart," she's messaged me several times. Oh, all I know is what's his name. He plays Shaw. - Oh, yes. - Oh, he's trying to play. - Oh, he's so good. - Yes. Oh, my gosh. Like, it's such a sweet guy. He reached out. Like, the Star Trek community was very kind. And you know, I was there. - That's so cool. - Because I had friends that I had a podcast with. And through them, I was able to go to the premiere and I just called them and then two in the morning, like, "I am at this hospital, can someone pick me up?" - Yeah. - So everyone is just, in the Star Trek community just was like, "Yes, we'll come and help you or hear, we'll help you with this." I've had people say they'll send me their ticket from the premiere to replace mine. - Because that's what Star Trek is. That's why we all fell in love with it as kids because it's such a better world. And it shows us what we can aspire to. - Exactly. And the person who drove me home to the hotel, Ryan, he was like, "I told him I was sorry. I was being a burden for him, like, getting up at four in the morning to drive half an hour to get me." And he was like, "No, because I know you would have done the same for me." And it's like, "Yeah, I would have done the same for any Star Trek fan." Like, this is who we are. And then that makes you feel good. - Yeah, I saw the Twitter response to your posts and the picture of the dent and everything like that. And then seeing all these people respond. Not even the celebrities, just regular people responding. - Yeah, oh my gosh. I've had people from different countries, different states. I even had a person bless him. He's a viewer that I had in Sioux City when I was broadcasting there. He sent me bouquet of flowers to my new station. (laughing) And the game went well soon. And it's just, I had a person from Texas send me a board game called Stormchasers that he saw at Target. And like, it's just the craziest and just the kind messages people taking the time out of their day to say, even just hi. Like, it just, it really, after something that was so just awful. And it makes you so mad that it happens to people. Then you get this response and it's like, it doesn't negate what happened, but it sure helps to put you on a bright path after. - Yeah, excellent. Do you, I was gonna ask a question. This is where my mind moves too fast sometimes. - The train of thought derailed and went off. - Yeah, no, no, no, it was, I had like this really, really generically generalized mediocre question, and now I forgot what it was. But, oh, you know, let me digress here, 'cause again, 'cause that's what I've known for. Being down in Sioux City, we had talked about the fact that, you know, even here in Milwaukee, Jason, maybe a little more. So, we don't get a lot of, you know, mesocyclonic storms and such. We have to live vicariously through. - Ooh, the bonus points for the term with allergy. - Hey, see, see? - No, you know what happens down there. - See, that's what happens when you prepare for someone being on and you hit Wikipedia. - So. - Yes. - But going down in Sioux City, did you ever do as part of, maybe part of your degree program or anything, any type of storm chasing? 'Cause you mentioned like the board game. - Oh, yeah, good question. - Heck, yes. So in college, Valpo has an amazing program and their professor, Bart Wolf, he started a storm chasing group 28 years ago, I wanna say. So every summer, there would be two classes where they'd go out into the high plains or central plains or wherever for 10 days and chase tornadoes. And I got to do that for four years, which is really wild, 'cause they don't usually take freshmen on these trips and I was lucky enough to get chosen. So for four summers, I spent time from Montana to New Mexico, to Arkansas, everything in between. And it was incredible. And so that was partially one of the reasons why I chose Sioux City. 'Cause it was in an area that I had driven through on a storm chase, I liked the area and I knew I could get more storm chasing done. And then absolutely no storm swarmed while I was out there. There was like, maybe like three tornadoes within my area. And then now this year, they're already getting way more activity. I'm just like, it's fine, everything's fine. I'm a weather curse, it's fine. I'm the kind that people want to pay to move to their area because nothing will happen then. But I still tried to chase as much as I could. You know, we had several derecho's moved through, which are those severe wind storms, got to see those. And I actually, for the August 2020 derecho that just destroyed Iowa practically, one of the costly storms and actually the costly storm in US history 'cause of all the agriculture that was destroyed. - Wow. - I called in sick that day. And I will never forgive myself for missing this. - Oh, you called in, I was waiting for the day. - I thought you were playing hooky. - Yeah, I thought you were gonna play hooky, but-- - I had the worst migraine headache. I couldn't even stand up. - I mean, you can't do anything. - And I'm just like, I'm gonna puke if I move, so I have to call in and then this happens and I almost flipped a table. I was so limited. - So, okay, so as a meteorologist, what's when you saw the footage of the tornado outside of LA? What went through your mind? - Oh my gosh. - Day after tomorrow, the movie? - I missed it again? - Yes, yes, yes. - No, 'cause LA, you guys have had snow. There's been tornadoes now. You get all of this chaotic stuff that's been happening, flooding, and I'm sitting here in Michigan, like, it's just brown out 'cause everything's dead and there's no snow to cover it. - Yep. - Yep. - So, first, extreme concern for the people who were in that position and situation. Second, jealousy, that there's a little bit of active weather 'cause in Sioux City, that's another thing why I love Sioux City is once you get out West, there are far fewer things for storms to hit and that makes it easier to study it without feeling, like, without the imminent concern that is damaging or destroying things. And you can go a 50-mile stretch without a single house sometimes. So, ideally, that's what I look for. And if you could take those storms and just put 'em somewhere else where we can enjoy them in peace without destroying anything, that's what I want from life. - Just to be able to study them, too. I mean, I even know from being a kid to being an adult and following the weather and both and having the weather radio and listening to that K-E-60 radio and National Weather Service Milwaukee Solve and I used to be able to recite that and how you're able to, and obviously, it's a science, but it's still, it's still iterating. You're still learning and seeing how you're able to forecast storms and potential tornadoes. - Oh, yeah. - So much better now than even 10, 15, 20 years ago. - Exponentially better. - Yeah. And just seeing how that's grown and it's fascinating. Did you ever think about watching the California weather or watching, looking back at Sioux City or whatever the case is? Did you ever do a fan forecast except go back and say, "Hey, I wonder if this area's gonna get hit or not and kinda run the numbers and run the models?" - Yeah. One time, when I was in Sioux City, they had tornadoes here in Michigan and I did a Facebook Live update for my family back home and my friends. I was like, "Hey guys, here's what's happening. Let me show you what's going on." And like doing forecasts for areas that I have an emotional attachment to. And, you know, the meteorologists in those areas too, I'll just share their information. And she's like, "Hey, tune in to channel 159's news," whatever it may be. And just making sure that people are safe 'cause that's the thing too. You mentioned the science head, the technology has grown incredibly. The social science is still very lacking in that we don't get the warnings to all the people and we don't necessarily know how to. It's not for lack of trying. We have tornado science. We have the emergency alert system on our phones. We have all of this yet. There's still a gap and there's going to still be people who you say there's a tornado warning. They're sitting in their front yard on a chair watching. - We just have this conversation. They're called Wisconsinites. We know from Wisconsinites. - Yeah. - There's a comedian here in Wisconsin named Charlie Barons. And I know if you've ever seen it. He did a video of being a father and he's yelling at his kids, "I'll send you the link." He's yelling at his kids to get to the basement. And then as soon as it is, he's like, "Okay, everyone's set." Then you see him come out the door with a beer and crack a beer and start watching the sky. So. - Exactly. And like, sometimes that's perfectly fine. You got good visibility, trust your instinct. You probably 60 years in the plane. You know, she's still in experience with that. But it's like, you get different ways of warning people at night versus during the day. There's the blind and deaf communities who have to get different alerts. - Yeah, that's right. - And it's just, that's one of the big things for me now is social education of the sciences through TikTok. And just telling people, "Hey, did you know that there's a thing called ball lightning and its mother nature's version of a grenade? 'Cause I bet you didn't and here's a new fear. - Well, I mean, even too, I was watching, 'cause I lived for a couple of years 'cause I have family in Tampa and everyone talked about heat lightning. You know, you look out toward the gulf and you'd see lashes of light and everyone's like, "Oh, don't worry about it, it's heat lightning." And I remember looking that up and I'm like, "There's no such thing as that. How is it being permeated as a, it's like a myth that exists." - So that's in my TikTok ideas journal. - I love a lot of journals, by the way. So, but not heat lightning, totally. It doesn't even exist. All it is is that in the summer, when it's hot, you tend to get thunderstorms that keep going into the overnight hours. And when they're far enough away and near the horizon, all you don't see that lightning hit the ground 'cause you can't see the cloud base. So all it is is cloud lightning. So it's cloud to cloud or cloud to ground. Just generally call it heat lightning. - I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause 'cause I could, yeah, Chase. - That doesn't make any sense. I mean, why? Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's cool. If people will truly believe anything. - Chase, there was, when I was, 'cause I was with Chase, this was early 90s, when we went to college together the first year, I ended up moving to Florida after that. And I remember hearing about heat lightning and down in Tampa, you know, they hadn't had a hurricane come through in eons and I needed to prepare growing up in the Midwest. So I went to the library and looked it up. - Chase, the internet didn't exist. I mean, other than, that was when Chase and I were like, "Look, we can actually dial in and send email back and forth "when you're up in--" - Our friend Eric had a 9,600-baud modem and that thing flew. - Yeah. - Oh my gosh. - Yeah, that, now we've sufficiently-- - Said, but true. - Wow, said, but true. - Yeah, 'cause I could, I could start talking about, and I'm gonna pause, but like Lee Zach's recurring cycle, I was fascinated by winter forecasting. 'Cause obviously, I imagine you as a meteorologist here all the time from people like me out in the field. So how many exact inches of snow are we going to get this winter? - Don't give me this fluff range that you're just covering your butt with. What are you thinking? - Yeah, yeah, this storm that we're gonna get, am I gonna get two inches? Am I gonna get 2.3 inches? Am I gonna get eight inches? You know? - But you know, as we, as we, I think, as we inch, maybe here, no pun intended 'cause it's snow, but as we inch toward the end here, I mean, I think that's a real thing. Like, I've heard from people I love and respect and who are intelligent and educated, exactly what you just said, Katie, of well, they don't really know. And it's like, well, no, but I mean, the models are so superior to what they were even a few years ago. Yeah, but they're just covering themselves, they don't really know. And I mean, it kind of goes to what you were saying about the social science aspect of the physical sciences, of something like meteorology. Like, I've said to my, one of my daughters in the car one morning on the way to school, was like, yeah, but they don't, they obviously don't know what's going on. And it's like, kiddo, we don't even have the computational capacity to fully explain one single match burning. And they are trying to forecast. - Yes. - An entire section of a continent. It's like they can't, and so what I'm getting to is, there's such a poor understanding and such a poor tolerance for ambiguity. And especially for uncertainty, whether it's in your, whether it's the weather forecast, whether it's COVID, right? Well, why can't you just give me an answer? Well, because there's no way yet to predict with that kind of specificity, which must mean you're hiding something. - Exactly. Well, and the thing is, we could go into specifics for that one hour model run, but the next hour is going to completely change. And there's no way to redact all of that previous information and make sure everyone who saw that now sees the new stuff. So you have to take into account a broader range of things before you put that into a forecast. And it is true. Like a lot of times people, I swear, if I had a dollar every time someone said, like you could be wrong half the time and still keep your job. - Oh boy. - Scientists have now gotten, like meteorologists, we've gotten close to 85, 90% correctiveness. Like in many areas, there's been research done. And what's really quite interesting about it is that no matter how good we get at forecasting, there's still going to be one spot that's a degree colder and that's technically wrong. So I always tell people, it's like pour a whole bunch of glitter into a bowl of milk, find one speck of glitter, start spinning the milk around in a circle and track it and tell me where it's going to go for the next seven days. That's what we do with meteorology. - That's like a really awesome analogy. - Because it's like half the time you can't see what's happening the other half of the time you could get bad data, you could have satellites go down, you could have whatever it may be. And all just comes down to it. If you have to, look out your window. We're going to try to make it better than that. And whether you appreciate or not, we're still going to try. - Well, and now I mean here locally with weather reports and I follow the four major networks. Now as part of the forecast, just I think, and I don't want to speak for them, but I think probably to show people the complexity of it, they'll show the different model runs. And say, here's the GFS model run where you look like we're going to only get three, but with the European model run, we could potentially get seven. So just be aware, that's why things are the way they are. - Exactly. - Shout out to Minnesota Public Radio, right? We're sorry, that's in the country. But they have, there's an updraft blog. That's what they call it. And when there's any kind of inclement weather, so you can imagine this is popular during snowstorms and blizzers, and big time in the summer, especially in the hot, right? Friction ones, they have the blog, but then they also live blog. And they do exactly what you just said, Brad. They, the meteorologists with them, they post just every few minutes. They post the different models. They post, right, the NWS updates from the entire region. And it's just, here's the information. Here's the best thinking. And it's not gonna align, but it's open. - Yeah, exactly. You can present all the data to people and let them make their own decisions. And that goes back to the, I wish that they would do meteorology in school. In like, middle school, high school, have a meteorology course, basics, how to read the maps, 'cause then that would really increase meteorological literacy. And it would help with explanations and you could go more in depth. Like, it was pretty taboo here for like the early 2000s to really show raw data or model numbers that could be thought of as confusing, like the viewers won't understand it. They will, you just have to explain it in a way that's easy to understand it in under three and a half minutes. So I love those model comparisons. We're side by side. Here's one, here's the other. We're gonna move them both at the same time stamps. You can see this one has a blizzard at 7 p.m. This one has nothing. Now, which one do you think is right? 'Cause that's the challenge we're going through. And it kind of gives you a little bit more sympathy from people too, when they see the challenges that you're going through with it. - And I mean, Jase, you know, we keep going back to making fun of our own age. We're, you know, I'm 49. I remember as a young kid in the early '80s, there's a legendary meteorologist in the area called Paul Joseph. It was him and Tom Skilling started his career here before he ended up at WGN. And they used to do their weather reports on a state map that had a piece of glass or plexiglass over it. And they would draw on the markers and they would draw in the low pressure and high pressure systems. And I saw, you know, I saw the thunderstorm symbol that you had next to your wedge. I think it was the R, right? - Yeah, it was like a little R with an arrow. - Yeah, I remember him putting those on there and now being able to show the model runs, it's just fascinating how far we've come in that science. And thinking back to, I remember watching Twister. And then I'm going to stop, Jason, I know. - I was wondering if we get to Twister. - Yeah. - I used to do a Twister festival where we rented out a drive-in and showed the movie to the town of Sioux City. Like, I appreciate that movie. - Oh, and I remember all the flack people were giving meteorology saying, hey, they're actually saying that it's an F4 or F5 tornado. Why aren't you doing that on the weather reports? - Yeah. - And obviously for obvious reasons scientifically, being a weather and I know why you can't. But now, even now they're saying, look at the, I was watching the more, I think I mentioned before, the coverage of the more Oklahoma F5 tornado. - Yeah, which was 1999 or 2013? - 2013. - Yeah, there you are. - And they were showing the debris ball and they had a guy up in the helicopter and they're like this, you know, and they weren't saying for sure. They're like, this very well could be an F4 or an F5. And just the fact that you all are at that point, just 15 years later. - Oh, yeah. - And being able to warn people of it and then saying, okay, if you're at the Walmart or at Westmore High School or at this, take cover, get underground. This is not a joke. You know, you watch this stuff. And I'm just fascinated, sorry, I'm fan-boying a little bit. - No, it's incredible. I fan over too. - Like it's, you want to know a fanning about it. Actually, I will grab right here so the viewers can find out. Anywho, I have my cat's named Doppler and radar. And I live the brand. I'm currently, it's for those listening, I have my little Doppler next to me 'cause she's chaos and she's probably gonna try to tear down my green screen. But yeah, no, you name him Doppler and radar after technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. So I can't wait to see what my cats will be named when I'm 80 'cause they could be something that's invented here in the next 10 years. - Jason knows that I was such a nerd that my hard drives 'cause I had a computer that had multiple hard drives on it. One was Dorothy and one was Dusty from Twister. - Aww. - I don't remember that, I forgot about that. You, we both, I don't remember that. We, I remember the, I do, I don't remember they had names. I mean, first of all, how quaint hard drives. But like, oh yeah, you're not kidding, Katie. Like, like Doppler's actually kind of going forward with the green screen. - Oh yeah. - That's funny, cute. But it's, it's just distracting because I keep waiting for the color shift and it's not happening. - Yeah. - But no, Brad, I mean, Twister was a great movie but my God did Brad get into that movie. I mean, we're still quoting that movie today regularly. Oh yeah. - It's not exactly what happens. - It came out of the year I was born, by the way. - Well, that was unnecessary but that's neat. - Yeah. Well, it's not, we were only, I mean, we were 20 at the time. So we were still, well, I, Jason, I was extraordinarily immature. I probably, probably was a good 10 years behind my chronological age at that point. But that was when, a little bit. - Alperated. - Yeah, destroyed, overrated, especially, yeah. But watching that movie, knowing full well, they did two different weather stations. Meteorologists came together and did, for both stations they showed it, them going to Twister and giving their, both their review of it from just a cinematic perspective and then their review of it as a scientist perspective. And they said, you know, we're not there yet but it was a fascinating scene to where potentially we could go. Other than at the end of the movie, them floating in the air and looking up at the, you know. - They would have been so dead. - Oh yeah. - Oh my gosh. - They would have been shredded. - Swiss cheese. - Okay, so that's funny because the part that really bothered me from the beginning is, none of the aerial sensors would have flown. - Yeah? - Yeah. - I mean, they would have been picked up but it's like all the mass was in the sensor and then you had a tiny little cutesy pinwheel. It's like, that's not how fluid dynamics work. Nothing flies like that. - And it would have been ripped out. It was just aluminum. If you have wind speeds of 300 miles per hour, it's going to shred your Pepsi can. - Yeah. - Wow, yeah. We, this was, well, probably a year before you were born, there was a major tornado that hit north, north of us about an hour in a city called Oakfield. - Yeah, so five minutes from my hometown. - Yeah. - And so we went out. - Well, I watched 'cause I was working much further away and I saw the anvil and drove up there. This was before we all were carrying cell phones that drove up there, Jase. And not behind it, I was past. But we drove through the city as any idiots shouldn't do after the storm goes through. - And look, it was a week and week. So I went with our friend Brian, right? 'Cause we were in fond of like, that's where we're from or where I'm from. - I went with you. - You were with me, right? Yeah, it was you. And we, you remember we went and by the time 'cause it was like, we, like that one, you had to go under downstairs. Like that was right. - Oh, yeah, unsurmountable of ground. - Yeah, 'cause this was, this was just literally miles away from town from our, and I mean, it's amazing. There was no loss of life. But you remember, we went up on the hill by the time we got there, which was like 15, 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes after a tour through, the National Guard was already there. And so we couldn't get closer then. Remember up on the hill? And I've told my girls about this. I will never forget it because you looked, we looked down onto the town and it was an F5. So of course-- - You could see it raked. - Yeah, it raked down into the soil. Yeah, like there was no grass, no pavement, nothing. It was just that swath, I remember that 'cause it went right downtown, like down into like the dirt, like deep. And it's like, I mean, I was just, it was humbling. - Now, did you guys have the smell of like the broken trees, the grass, the dirt in the air? - I don't remember that. - I don't remember that, but I've heard about that. - That was the thing I've seen a lot of people talking about with the tornado that hit Mississippi. Is that there was a lot of just the fresh smell of wood being snapped off and grass being torn up. And it's definitely interesting to see how that works 'cause these storms pick up the trees, they pick up the grass and they fly them hundreds of miles away at times. They were covered in a check from someone over a hundred miles away in a different town. So it's definitely interesting when people experience big tornadoes like that if you had any like other sensory inputs that were left behind. - They, we had, this was probably about 10 years ago, I lived about seven miles as the bird flies from Lake Michigan. And probably about two hours north of us, there had been a pretty hefty, I don't remember what year it was, but we had corn, corn stalks kind of floating down and we had an envelope, there was no address, just a piece of one with a turn address from Chase up in Adams County, which is far enough away. - That's hilarious. - So yeah, so just we're fascinated by this. We didn't even get the chance. We've kept you on goodness, another 40 minutes longer than we could have done. - Thank you so much, that's been a challenge, cheers. - We have to, if it's okay with you, especially as Picard wraps up, we didn't get the chance to totally get into that. We'd love to have you back. - Oh yeah, 'cause I need someone to geek out with and you guys are perfect. - Yeah, right back at ya. - Yeah, it's, oh my God, I, yes. (laughs) - Yes, 'cause like, while we're recording this, we're up to episode six and I've already, I've re-watched that episode so many times. Like the ending had me screaming at the TV, it was so good. When TV gets your butt off the couch, that's it. - I never cheer or fist pump at anything. I mean, I don't do sports, I mean, I, you know, very much, no, like golf clapper maybe, but even though golf makes no sense to me, but, oh my God, the, the, these past couple episodes, yeah, especially six, I mean, like when I was texting Brad, like, I found myself cheering. - Why was there, like a EKG beat by Kirk, you know? - Oh my gosh, yes. - Oh, I missed that. - You know what's hilarious? There's one viewer, they have a heart monitor and they've been posting their heart monitors results while watching the episodes on Twitter. I haven't been able to find them again, but I'm starting to think I need to invest in one because it's probably just gonna be off the charts for the rest of the season. - That's your next, your next cosplay. It's not Techicardia, it's Snapchat, right? - Yeah. - Oh my God. - Yeah, I don't watch mine. I know you have me thinking that as I should have. - You probably shouldn't. I probably should just to see what it looks like. - So. - And then you can match it up with parts of the episode and it's really cool to see, like when the episode has like major fight scenes or big revelations, like science. - Yeah, so much, yeah, science rocks. - That again, why Star Trek is so awesome. - Yeah, Katie, thank you so much. We will definitely-- - This was a pleasure. - As long as you're amicable. Have you back, 'cause we will have more card talk, more Star Trek talk, there are things. You were on a podcast about a year ago, the Trek Profiles, and they had topics on there. I didn't even touch half of them, 'cause I would love to hear about them. So we'll have to have you back when Picard is done and talk about that. But thank you so much. We know you're still healing and recovering for a long time. - Yeah. - And wish you all the best as you, as you get better and return to normal work, and thank you for-- - And we love you. - And thank you to Katie's mom for listening to us. - Yeah. (laughing) - Well, thank you guys for having me, literally anytime you give me a ring, I will try to be on here whenever you call. - Plan on hearing from us as soon as 10 drops. - Yeah. - That sounds good to me. - All right. - All right. - Perfect. - Thanks so much. (upbeat music) - Poor Katie, if we hadn't said that we need to be cognizant of her time, I could have probably just sat there and listened to her meteorology stories for hours. One thing I forgot to mention that I wanted to ask about, and Katie, I'll have to ask again, is she is a certified broadcast meteorologist, which means there is, I mean, there are stringent requirements about this around atmospheric dynamics, thermal dynamics, physics, probability and applied statistics. I mean, you have to, and then you have to do a multiple choice, and then they have to evaluate you. I mean, that was a lot of work to put into-- - No, she's got legit science cred. I mean, she's a meteorologist. And she, I don't remember if she talked so much about it with us during the interview, or perhaps afterwards, but she, I mean, she's a scientist. - Yeah, she's a scientist. And not only that went above and beyond and got the CBM certification from the AMS, American. And I forgot to ask about that, because that is stringent, and it would be fun, Katie, you have to have the on again. I would love to hear the stories about that. And I promise I won't message about it, 'cause I don't wanna go in a stalker territory. But it's funny though, when there are storms coming up, I actually have, I think I mentioned before, I will go to the streaming sites for the local television stations so I can see on the ground. And so hopefully they never have to deal with it over in the Lansing region, but I have that one on my bookmark, a bookmark for weather too, in case stuff that floats over from where I am, which tends to happen across the lake, and then reforms across the lake could cause some interesting weather over there. - Well, and they're clearly in good hands. That community isn't good hands, especially with her emphasis on communicating so clearly, so well, so informatively. - And I mean, what a story, and I don't wanna make light of this, is to what she went through with that car accident, and how so many people, when she posted online that she's okay, Jerry Ryan reached out, Terry Matales reached out, and she lost all of her swag that she had gotten in the accident from being at the premiere, and they said-- - Seriously, I love great at her. - Yeah, I mean, that tells you a lot about the Star Trek community. - Right, and our love for it, her love for it, very, very cool, it was a real treat getting to talk to Katie, because that is obviously one of your true passions, meteorology, lifelong, yeah, and just being able to chat with her about the science and the broadcasting of it, and then having that fandom perspective, pretty neat stuff. - Yeah, and again, I've said this multiple times, you were very patient with us, and patient with me, I should say, in asking questions about meteorology, 'cause I don't get a chance to talk to, meteorologists-- - I knew, I had acquaintances with some meteorologists here at the World of National Weather Service Office, - Right. - I used to be a, I am a, air quote, trained spotter, and I do put in reports, laymen's reports, when things happen locally here through a-- - The irony is we both record from our basements. - Yeah, yes, I think there might have been occasions in the past, where when you and I were both recording at one point or another, we both were dealing with severe weather upstairs. I remember one time-- - Yeah, I think that's actually. - I remember one time you were like, can you hear the thunder, and I'm like, no, I can't hear the noise. - Oh, and it was shaking the house. - Yes. - Yeah, love it. We both love that weather. - Yeah, so yeah, thank you so much for taking the time. We'd love to have you back again, and I think she mentioned at some point that her mom might listen, so hello to Katie's mom. Hello, Katie's mom, your daughter is awesome. - Yeah, and thank you for actually bearing with us and listening to us, so thank you both. (upbeat music) - It's time for the GM corner. - So now let's move over to the GM corner, and boy, there are some things we could talk about and some things we can't. Jason warned me multiple times on topics that I really kind of need to avoid until certain shows finish their seasons based off of the time that we are recording this. - Versus on the drops, right? - Yeah, so I'm gonna pass it over to you and say, so obviously you had some travels that you were dealing, you were doing, this is the first time we've recorded, and I think we've been half or so. - Oh, about two weeks, yeah. - Two weeks, yeah. - So I have been periodically texting you the cover of a book that I've been trying to get you to purchase. It is funny you should bring that up, yeah. - Okay, well then, I'm gonna turn over what's on your desk or what's on order? - So, well, it's not on order only because it's not available yet for pre-order, but to use the wrong Canon, it will be. Before much longer, as of this recording, it's only been a few days, but when this episode drops, we're talking about two and a half weeks. What I think is just wonderful, is that Modiphius, our friends at Modiphius, announced something I never expected. I mean, we know that Star Trek Adventures is in the very capable hands of Jim Johnson, but I never would have put money down on this one, like seeing this happening. There is coming, if you don't already know this, a Star Trek Adventures lower decks campaign guide. - Oh yeah. - You could not get the money out of my wallet faster. I mean, like, you know, we've talked about this, but I mean, you've said how many times as we've recorded over the past couple of years now of it's surprising when I'm the one to pre-order first. Look, the moment this book becomes available, I will be pre-ordering, I love the idea. I so very much, I very much wanna play. I think I, so I was traveling. We were on quite a ways away last week. And I think at some point I texted you, and I'm like, maybe it was right before we left, I'm like, I really wanna play STA. We just have to figure out how to make this work. And now, now I know how I wanna play it. So, you know, no rush, Modiphius, no rush Jim, but you know, Daddy needs a new campaign guide. That said though, Kudos to everyone, because Star Trek pushed it like crazy on all of their channels. I mean, really obvious stuff, so it was everywhere. So, man, I hope I can get one of those in the first round, 'cause I just don't even care what they charge. - And the crew pack PDF is out and everything now. So, if you're a, if you're a lower deck fan. - Four different PDFs are available? - Yeah, you can go and pick it up now. And I know we talk briefly with Jim and he's gonna join us next month. And so, we'll, we'll- - Oh, next month, you're right. I'm seeing you're right, I had a senior moment. - Yeah, so, or actually, by the time this month- - No, no, you're right. - We'll be that month. - No, it'll be next month, senior, no, June. You are also having a senior moment. - I am. - Yeah. - But this is what happens when we don't record for two weeks. - Yeah, I'm out, my timeline is all wet. - I know. - But it'll be a great conversation. - 'Cause it's August, right? - No, just kidding, keep going. - Yeah. - Well, you had me pause 'cause just for like a split second, I'm like, is it really- - Brad, Brad, froze. (laughs) You could see this. - Well, I mean, you know, for those that listen, I'm in between jobs and so my schedule's a little wonky. - Yeah, it is. - And without the structure of work, sometimes these days roll together. And so, when you said August, I'm like, oh, man. - I'm just kidding. - I mean, there was that split second moment where I actually thought it was. - Okay, back to you. - But yeah, we're gonna have, we're gonna have Jim on next month and talk about lower decks and everything. - And anything else to talk about. - And I will mention to him the fact that you're gonna get the lower decks book but you still don't have a core rule book yet. - Why are you outing me on, I will correct that. - Okay. - I will correct that. You know, we haven't, to my defense, we haven't played anything again and I know, there's no excuse, but- - There's no defense for this. - We've had Jim on how many times and you still haven't picked up the core. Now you do. - I mean, I'm sorry, I can look over. - You have the rules digest. - Oh, and the champion guide and the player's guide. - Yes. - And utopla, planisha. And I will soon, I hope, by the end of summer, when it comes out, have the lower decks campaign guide. And yes, and I will, in fact, they've been on sale at the Game Center. I do need to order the core rule book. Honestly, in the past two days, I've ordered two books online. And so like- - Was one of them the core rule book? - No. - Again, no defense for this, no defense. - It is coming, but, you know, we haven't played anything. - No. - You know, we, which is ironic because it's like, let's go to buy weekly for a while as a podcast, so that we have time to play. - Yeah, that doesn't work out very well. - And instead, we're taking all of that extra time and talking more about the podcast and the background. - And talking about shows that are on television that we have been fascinating. I mean, we went to start, we got online at the top of the last hour, and I don't think it took 20 minutes for us to hit the record. - It took 40 minutes, Brett. - Oh, did it? - It took 40 minutes, which is worse than even our normal. But again, we haven't actually talked like this for two weeks since before my trip. - Yeah, because you were traveling. - Yeah, but I, and there was a significant time difference. But I mean, to your point, and then I'll bet it over to you, but to your point about, you know, talking TV, I mean, as May rolls around here, so we've had season three of "Star Trek Picard." We've had season three of "The Mandalorian." We are a month and a half away from season two of "Strange New Worlds." Later this summer, I think it's, I think it's August is season two of "Lower Decks." August is "Asoca." - I mean, there, there is so much going on that we talk about, and this that distracts us on the tube, if you will. - Well, and part of it, I'll be honest with you, part of it's on me, 'cause it takes for him and I, it takes two to, to the game. And I have, I've been, I've been in the, you know, in the throes of a job search, but I'm gonna take control of GM corner. - Yeah, go. - I have upstairs the book, which is indefensible that you don't have, AKA the courtroom one. And-- - So I hear. - Yeah, and I have been using, going back to our initial talk about chat GPT. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I sent you a lot of this. I had chat GPT create a senior crew for a starship. I had to create three different starships. It is-- - No, hold on, you had to do one more thing, which was far more impressive. You asked it to create an adventure. - Oh, yeah. - And that was downright eerie, 'cause it's like, that was humbling, 'cause I was reading that. You were texting me these screenshots and it's like, damn, that's good. - Yeah, and because, you know, it's hard for Jason and I to find right now-- - The time to write the stuff. - Yeah, and to write it and to find a group to be able to play. - Yeah. - We have to do this duet-wise. And it is just fascinating to me how a lot of the recession zero and session zero material we could generate very quickly and jump right into a game if we wanted, and then allow chat GPT to be, it's not at a point where it can be an AI GM, it's not there. But as a GM PC, one of us probably mean, we can have it generate content that we can leverage into the game and create some randomizing, it can help us randomize some of this. - But of course, I mean, maybe not of course, but I can imagine, I can imagine Jim Johnson listening to this episode, and if he is, I can imagine him thinking, well, what if he has been publishing exactly what you're talking about for several years now, why not pick it up? So there is that too, we could readily-- - Yeah, why not pick it up? - No, no, not the core rule book. For example, the lower dex material that's available on PDF. - Yeah. - Those look really interesting. - Oh, yeah, I'm not actually-- - I don't need it. - I don't need it. - To just play. - I always had to generate completely fictional-- No, you wanted to see what it would do. And it was spooky-- - I wanted to see what it would do. - And the way it would explain, I had it try to explain to me how 2D20 system would work in combat. I had it-- - Oh, geez, that was, yeah. - You know, it just, and I had to do it with RuneQuest, I had to do it with a couple other games as well, but just because, let's be honest, the current season of Picard has-- - Yes, it does. - And had captured our attention, and I think I've, and I get there are people out there that think it's that, you know, I'm a fanboy, so they really couldn't do no run. One and two were okay to me. I didn't get as much out of season one as you did. - No, I really enjoyed it. - We both have agreement on season two. - Yeah. - And it was neat to see how, you know, the Q resolution worked. I think it could have been-- - Oh, that was so-- - First and last episode of season two were great. - Yeah, but season three had me hooked. A lot of times with the first couple of seasons, I wouldn't be able to watch it, or I wouldn't watch it until the weekend. I'm watching it as you are pretty much the same day that it comes-- - I'm going to share this because I know my wife will never hear it, and I can't imagine anyone in my university listening to this, but season three is so good. I have simply scheduled Picard into my calendar, Thursday mornings, and I go in later. - Yeah, I-- - There it is. With me having more free time during the day than normal, my wife works downstairs here in relatively the same area where I'm recording. - Mm-hmm. - I have the upstairs, and so I'll watch it, and I purposely move my chair, my old man recliner, two about four feet in front of the television, and watch it, and you and I've talked about it. I probably shouldn't bring it up, but there have been multiple occasions during this season where we have both texted each other and said, "We got emotional." - Yeah, I didn't expect that. We-- - Yeah. - At some point, we'll just leave it at that. Yeah, there's been a lot of track. It is truly, truly four fans of the next generation, DS9, Voyager, even Enterprise. Not to minimize it, but there's even reflections back to that era in here. It is a culmination of, it's early 25th century. It is a culmination of the 24th century Star Trek. - Yeah. - That we have loved since 1987. - And hopefully a handoff to the next next generation. - Yeah, and you and I have discussed theories and all that, we're not-- - For another day. - Yeah, people have not probably finished the season yet by the time we've-- - Yeah, very possibly not. So we'll get around to it when there's been enough time. But speaking of the next next generation, fortunately, we've got wonderful people like Katie, who is gonna be there to help forecast what it's gonna be like on Vulcan, what it's gonna be like on Andor and all these other great, right, Telar and all these other great places. Hopefully there's gonna be a lot of trek in the future. - I just think of the work that Terry Metallis and other folks like Dave Lass and have Moroni and all those people and to see stuff in the series that I know very well from the online game just absolutely made my day. But the only other thing I will say, I'm GM. So I have been working through that and really the main other thing is more on RuneQuest just because I'm fascinated by the DICE metric. But in all honesty, you and I have had an overload of trek. There's really not much we've been talking about beyond the podcast and trek. - Nope, we haven't even had time to really process what came out at Star Wars Celebration. - I mean, I've been thinking about it a lot and I've been mentioning it to my girls. And in fact, we just, one of my daughters and I just watched The Last Jedi last night just for fun. Yeah, we, you and I need to talk about all that 'cause there's a bunch of good stuff going. And I will, I'll wrap my piece up with this. I watched some of the interviews and the one that almost made me choke up was when they had Hayden Christian. - Yep, no, you're gonna say that. I saw that. - And here's a guy who had a very polarizing fan base. Some people love-- - Oh, just so aligned for so long, yeah. - Some people didn't like him as Anakin and everyone just gravitated and gave him such a good, warm welcome back when he was at Obi-Wan. You can, I mean, he was phenomenal as Vader in Obi-Wan. And if you haven't seen it, it's like an eight minute video. - It's worth watching, yeah. - And look at how the fan base just welcomed him. And here is a genuinely good guy getting emotional by everyone's warm welcome. And I just have to believe it's because it just based off of what you see, it probably ate at him a bit, some of what happened in over the years about what people thought of him as Anakin. Just, I mean, they were chanting his name. He had to stop and he said, look, you know how to make a guy feel welcome. - Yeah, yeah, it was sweet. - It was sweet. It's well worth it. We'll talk more about the Star Wars and the movies they announced and how, you know, everything else with that in the future, but lots to come out from there too. - Yeah, this is the way. All right, with that, as always, thanks for being with us. Be well, stay well. We will see you in a couple of weeks. And man, oh man, do we have another cool interview lined up for all of you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
