Sometimes Mother Nature just full on kicks you in the balls!

I THINK THAT PICTURE SUMS UP MY FEELINGS ON THE EVENTS OF THIS EVENING!

Since moving to AZ. 6 years ago, I have seen some incredible storms.  I have seen snow covered mountains in Phx., in April, I have seen rivers form within moments in the middle of the desert and I have seen monsoons and lightning like never before in my life.  I have also seen dust storms or as I learned tonight, HABOOBS, before as well.  But never before have I ever seen anything like tonight's storm!  If you look at my earlier posts from tonight, you can see the video of the storm rolling in and striking like Chuck Norris' balled up fist!  I had to capture some photos and I hope you enjoy them.  Also, check out the national news, this time AZ, made the news for something other than immigration laws or shootings!  The shots and videos that were taken from helicopters are nothing short of spectacular!

 This photo is of Diane's windshield only a few moments in to the storm and this was parked in a carport covered and blocked on three sides!  Oh boy was there more to come.

It actually looks like it is snowing!  It was the blizzard of the summer of 2011

Holy Bat Shit!  We also had about 14 drops of rain to turn the dust in to cement, it was a nice touch!

This was the insult to the injury!  Doesn't it look like one of those bikes you always hear about?  THE BARN BIKE, found after 70 years under some hay bales and an old cloth tarp!  Problem is, it is a 2010!

Here is the real bitch of it all!  Instead of keeping my bike in the garage, I kept my buddies bagger in there.  He was kind enough to loan me the bike so I had to safeguard it.  I pulled it out, washed it, cleaned the shit out of it and then put a nice fresh coat of wax on it.  Diane had clients in town from Canada today, so I went with them to see some condos and figured when I got home I would ride the bike back over and return it.  When I got home, my buddy Jay was waiting in the driveway for me.  We bullshitted for a bit and were hanging in the back yard and I was showing him how nice the yard and the pool came out!  We had people over yesterday for the fourth and I actually shop vac'd the patio and the concrete decking all the way around the pool.  Really wise idea as it turns out!  As you can see, I didn't quite make it over to my friend Daryl's house tonight.  Had my buddy Jay not shown up, I would have gotten on the bike and ridden directly in to that storm!

Look at the bottle of wax and the rag still sitting on the damn tank!  Boy oh boy the universe sure has some sense of humor don't it?  If you think this looks like shit, take a look at the rest of this shit!

It looks like I just drove a thousand miles in a blizzard behind ice and rock salt covered tractor trailers!

Here is the view from inside my truck!  Tonight was just insane.  I am seeing reports and videos of horrible accidents from vehicles crashing at full speed in to stopped vehicles in front of them.  I hope and pray that everyone is okay out there and all of my friends and extended family have made it home safely to the ones that they love and those that love them!

I think that this photo above pretty much sums up my feelings on the whole thing.  I just once again hung up the phone with George The Painter, he is on Jay Kroll's Road King trying to ride back from California.  So in other words, he is driving directly, head on in to it.  The truly wild part is that rather than the storm hitting and getting smaller, it is truly "snowballing" and growing larger and larger as it rolls across the desert.  Once you get past Phoenix, it is nothing but open desert for hundreds of miles and he is now in a place called Desert Center.  It is a town that literally has died.  So that skinny prick is in a ghost town, hunkered down in an abandoned building wearing his helmet and glasses and he isn't even riding.  Like the saying goes, "there are no atheists in foxholes"!  I checked the radar and told him not to worry, he doesn't have to wonder what lay ahead.  DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT LIE AHEAD!  So in that shell of a building he shall stay for a while!

The storm died down and Jay and I went outside and started shooting pics, we were stunned.  He leaned over the tour pack of the bike and blew hard and a huge cloud of dust flew in to the air.  This gave me a great idea.  I will just back the truck in to the street and tear off down the road!  Simple right?  That will blow the dirt off just as easily as it blew on.  Well, it was a great theory.  Did it work?  OF COURSE IT DIDN'T WORK.  I had forgotten about the 14 drops of rain that we got to go with the HABOOB!  That pretty much was the same as opening up a bag of quickcrete, dumping it on the truck and spraying it with the hose.  The truck is pretty much covered in cement now!

Now the truly amazing part is, I LOVE LIVING HERE!  I have never lived any place like the desert and I don't think that I would give it up.  I've seen things here that I have never seen before and each and every day brings something new.  This is now my home, so mother nature, the universe, bring it on bitches and throw at me what you will, you can not, you will not break us!  I'm not sure that my pool filter is taking the same position that I am, but hey, it's on its own!  I'll leave you with a few shots from around the valley.  First though, let me show you a shot of what happens when you just point the camera up in to the black sky, what you see here looks like a blizzard, it however is not snow, IT'S FUCKING DIRT!

It was brutal to stand outside.  You could not take a breath because you feel the weight of the silt like dust fill your lungs and you could barely open your eyes because the wind driven dirt felt as if you were being sand blasted!  I want you to keep in mind when looking at this above photo that we did not go outside to begin taking photos until the storm and its intensity had dropped by 95% at the very least.  I feel for those stuck outside in it with no where to go, GTP for example.... Here are some shots in closing....

If you have ever been to AZ., this photo above is a shot of OLD TOWN SCOTTSDALE!

Until we see each other again,
Keep the wind in your face,
Tits in your back
and The Man off your ass!

Your friend,
Jack Shit