During the spring and summer, I’m generally stuck between two worlds.

No, not my love and extreme hate relationship I have with summer. We’ve already gone over at length my dislike for the season and it’s abysmal heat and assortment of flying, crawly, bitey critters that can just go to the deepest, darkest pits of He … but I digress.

No, the two worlds of which I speak of are the worlds of what I cover and storms that affect these things I cover.

Oh, man do I love storms. I mean I LOVE storms to the point where I’m almost obsessed with them.

No, mark that, I am obsessed with them. They’re exciting, they are raw and unpredictable and yes violent, which it’s just now dawning on me that with that statement I’m a person of interest in something. Which is optimistic. Rarely does anybody find me interesting.

I’ve been through three tornados in my life and have seen one fully-formed tornado in person, not counting the funnel cloud I photographed in Austin a few years back. It hadn’t touched down yet, so I never got the chance to say I saw my second tornado, which is good because where I saw it would have been hovering over where the Interstate 90 Kwik Trip is currently and nobody really wants to see semi’s tossed around. Or so I’m assuming.

The third I can only assume at the time by the tractor tire that rolled by our house. Also, smart weather people and the fact our town was missing a large chunk of it confirmed this assumption later.

The conflict arises because often times the storms get in the way of what I have to cover, and instead of getting to watch it, I sometimes have to continue working as I watch it.

Work just gets in the way of everything.

At best, it simply postpones or cancels things,as was the case Tuesday, and now I had two baseball games to cover as well as Pacelli graduation, which was also Wednesday night.

At worst it throws semis around.

Having lived through the aforementioned tornados, I know the damage and havoc they create and I’m certainly not unsympathetic to such things. But for me, It’s hard not to look at the storm as a creature of both respect and awe. This is Mother Nature telling us that we don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. That, my friends, is humbling.

But at the same time it’s hard for me not to become mesmerized by it all. The colors, the cloud patterns, thunder and lightning. All of it because I’ve lived through three events that could have turned my life one way or the other. Instead, I’m not kind of entranced from the very beginning to the very end.

As it stands, I have some great stories so, best case scenario I suppose. And sure, many of you may think I’m crazy. Probably think I’m crazy. Do think I’m crazy? Potato, patato … let’s call the whole thing off.

Still, it all came back as new Tuesday night when the first dark clouds began bearing down on Austin and Marcusen Park.

I knew the offiicals didn’t want to deal with it, but I instantly started taking pictures, becuase to me the storm is a canvas. Even now, as the thunder rolls outside of our house as I write this, I find myself wanting to watch it all, and when I’m done with this column I probably will.

Sufficed to say that, yes, I am looking for the next close call. I’m not a drug user or an experience junkie, but I will travel toward the storm just to see what it hides.

Tractor tires. It hides tractor tires.