What has been going on?

Many of you might have noticed over the past few weeks when posting the Covington forecast I title it “Covington FirstAlert Forecast”, not “Covington News Forecast.” If you are a fan of Covington News, I have not posted a forecast to that page also. I have only told a few people, but now I need to tell you all what is really going on. I have left Covington News. As many of you know, I did serve as the main weather forecaster for the page and did do some news posting. I left the page back on June 27^th after making a couple of people “upset.” I was tracking the latest on the drought and the multi-generational heat wave that was heading our way. With us being under a drought and a burn ban, I could not help but overhear the scanner dispatching many area fire departments out to different fires, most of them being field fires. With West Central Indiana being a mainly rural area, it was the job of Covington News to post that information. If you live in a rural area and see smoke, you want to know what is going on. I, however, did not know it would make a couple of people upset with us. Somehow, what I was doing was not helping with the problem, only making it worse. I then decided to post a link to EvansvilleWatch, a group I am proud to be part of. After I posted that link, I made one of those two people mad, again, and I just had enough of it. I then changed the profile picture, cover picture, and left the page right then and there. In the few days after I had left, I was surprised to see the amount of people that came to my support of what I had done. The two people I had made upset were basically told that Covington News was doing everything right and that we were giving out information in a faster way. I did nothing wrong at all. I was following the Covington News page discloser and the rules set up by EvansvilleWatch. I was posting public information onto a public page using a public police scanner. Today, anyone can have access to a public police scanner by an app for your smartphone, over the Internet, and the old fashion way of a police scanner you can buy at the store. I almost wanted to post that saying, but did not. It was better for me just to leave the page altogether.

EvansvilleWatch was started in 2009 by Bill Merkel of Evansville by using a Twitter account. He no followers, no Facebook fans, and people had to wait to hear about the major breaking stories on the news later. Today, EW has 11,700 Twitter followers, over 21,000 fans on Facebook, and is the place to go in the Tri-State for breaking news first. EW was the first to do what we do best: listen to scanners all day and inform the general public. We tell people in the Evansville-Metro what is going on before the media calls it breaking news. When I became part of EW in April of this year, I wanted to help expand that service into the Covington area. Little did I know, I would make a couple of people upset and it would force me to leave the page. When we do something wrong at EW, we correct ourselves as soon as we can. Same thing at CN, make the correction as soon as we can. Both EW and CN policies say that information may not always be correct. What I had posted that day was to inform the general public, but it was the public that made me leave. One thing I want to make clear right now, I did not create the CN page. I joined the page three days after the page started. The page was made by someone else in Covington. That is all I am going to say about that.

One thing I will not forget about that is me being called an ambulance chaser and that I need to get a life and job. Some of the people on EW were called ambulance chasers, so I’m use to it. As for getting a life, I do have one. I have friends and I talk to them whenever I can. We like to do different things and we respect each other during those times. As for a job, I did have one during the 4^th of July. I worked at Shelton Fireworks off of Exit 8 on I-74 in Covington. I learned that there is just more than one kind of firework and that people will buy fireworks, even if the world was ending. While I did not make enough to buy myself a Mac, I did make enough to buy a book or two for school and put gas in my car.

Now the question is, what are my plans next? I currently run the Covington Trojans Football, Covington Gold Rush, my own weather page, a national page know as Weather, and of course EvansvilleWatch. One of the newest projects I am working on is my blog. I hope to one day turn my blog into its own website to help better inform everyone. I will be heading back to the University of Southern Indiana this fall. I am majoring in radio and television (RTV). One of my plans is to hopefully put a forecast together for the schools radio station, 820 The Edge, which is an award winning radio station and the number one college radio station in Indiana. I also have plans of filling in from time to time this year for Access USI and current forecast Kayla Lambert. I have known Kayla for a few years and I hope that we will both teach each other something about the weather. My plan is, as I said, to fill in for her from time to time when I need to for the 2012-2013 school year. As long as Kayla graduates in May 2013, I will be taking over as the full time weather forecaster for Access USI on SETV 12. I do want to try other plans out at this time. One of them is being free-lancing for different groups. What would happen is different groups and originations would hire me to watch the weather for them during the time in which they would be active. For example, the Covington 4^th of July Celebration group could hire me to watch radar, temperatures, and so on during the time of which the 4^th of July Celebration is going on. I had planned on starting it this summer, but after what had happened in late May and early June with the passing of Jamie Stockdale to brain cancer and Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Witsman giving his life for our county, I had forgotten about my free-lancing. I do hope next summer will go a little better.

I will update you all on what my next plans are. Some will work and others will not. I do hope to have something to you all by the end of the month of what I will be doing next. Thank you and God bless.