E-mail to Roger

PLEASE READ BEFORE SENDING E-MAIL.

As my closest friends know, I love talking about severe weather, photography, sports (especially the Cowboys), geology, fishing, anything about Dallas or south Florida, and all my other interests. But I sometimes get more e-mail than I can answer in a reasonable time.

I have received a lot of e-mail from folks wanting answers to the same basic questions about tornadoes, storm chasing, or photography. Many messages come from students doing school assignments on a deadline. While I appreciate all the good words and interest, my busy work and family life means I often do not have time to answer each e-mail promptly or in good detail. I work rotating shifts and have a different work and sleep schedule each week. Sometimes I may not check my e-mail for a few days...other times, 3 times in one day! And if I am on vacation, I'm away from e-mail for longer. So rather than force you to depend on my strange schedule or blow off such messages, I want to direct you to places where I, or someone else, has already answered many such questions. So check out these resources:

If you have questions about tornadoes, my Online Tornado FAQ at SPC is the place to start. Just about any answer I could give you on tornadoes is already mentioned there; and the FAQ has some great storm spotting and chasing links.

If you want to interview me about being a storm chaser, here is an interview, already online.

If you want to send e-mail to me, please be clear, specific and concise, and make a sincere effort to write well. I will not reply to messages full of sloppy English: bad spelling and usage, all capital letters, no capital letters, no punctuation, etc. or incoherent gibberish. It's not that hard to extend the courtesy of good communication. I don't demand that you write like a letters professor; however, I have no motivation at all to try to decipher badly written material. [Such messages may also end up online for the whole world to see, in my list of dumbest e-mails received!] And please turn off that "CAPS LOCK" key before sending an e-mail to anyone, anywhere. Messages in all-caps are loud and annoying, and for that reason are generally considered bad Internet "Netiquette."

If you have specific comments or questions about any of the SkyPix photography, personal BLOG, old editorials, or anything else on my personal website, please write to my personal e-mail (translate this phonetic version to a real e-mail address yourself) tornado dot specialist at gmail dot com. [I do it this way to reduce spam for you and me.] Now that I am retired from full-time shift work (but not the science of meteoorlogy), the same goes for professional questions about the SPC, my consulting work, storm tours, scientific issues, research, or any of my other paid activities.

Thanks for reading, and for helping me to stay organized! :-)