Joel is nineteen.  He has Asberger's, which is a mild form of autism.  He also has learning disabilities.  He is rather immature, as far as behavior goes, but he is still a great kid.  Never really causes much trouble; we are indeed blessed.

Anyway, back to our story.  Joel functions pretty well in certain situations, but he does tend to "fixate" on things, and then we have to do all we can to get him back into the world.  

Lately, it's been weather.  He loves storms, especially if they produce severe events like wind, heavy rains, large hail, dangerous lightning, and his favorite element, tornadoes.  He can tell you all about different tornadic storms (including the date) and where they occurred.  He is extremely intelligent even in light of his disabilities.

The man has a brain from God.  We certainly didin't pass it on to him!  LOL

When the South had the terrible tornadoes last week, Joel spent hours on the computer, chatting with chasers on StormTrack, or watching live feeds on Chaser TV, or getting the latest updates from Facebook.  He also visited www.noaa.gov, which is the National Weather Service's website, reading all the warnings, and writing them down, word for word, in his black notebook that he keeps with him at all times.

He was sorry to hear that over 300 people died as a result of the storms, but he still enjoyed learning all the latest information and keeping tabs on the event.  As he told me the other day, "I don't mind storms as a rule, but I do when lives and property are lost."

While Joel does fine when he is in his weather world, socially he is a scared, shy person.  It is very hard for him to make friends, and when there are large gatherings of people, he gets extremely nervous.

Like at church; whenever we go to church on Sundays, Joel will sit in the lobby because the large group of people gathered in the sanctuary makes him very uneasy.

We suspect he might be claustrophobic.

I hope that Joel will eventually go to college or at least become a part-time chaser.  He can drive, and nothing would make him happier than to chase a big, bad storm.  I am sure he would really enjoy it.  I wish nothing but the best for our weather-obsessed son; he could make some money if he really worked hard at it.  I am sure if he did, he would do a very good job!

As for me, he can have all the tornadoes.  I don't want anything to do with them! I am a known stormphobic! LOL