Hey folks, been a while since I have updated the blog. Lot’s of cool new business stuff to talk about with the storm chasing and my take on ChaserCon this year along with surviving my first year as Daddy.
So let’s dive in the deep end first, ChaserCon. I’ll say it since most won’t. It was not the ChaserCon of the past when Tim was alive. ChaserCon started as a party to hang out and get to know other chasers and watch each others videos and trade idea’s.
At the first real Chaser Party back in 2001 in Tim and Kathy’s front yard.
This was the party where afterwards, Kathy told Tim he needed to move the party out of the house as we kind of trashed the carpets and bathrooms and kept the kids up all night. Along with someone (me) leaving a bunch of used C41 photo chemical in Tim’s dark room in the basement as I showed this really young kid (Tony Laubach) how to develop Color Negative Film (C-41) by hand to save money on photo processing.
Back in the prime of the Chaser Party which is now ChaseCon or Chaser Convention, the video night, which was Tim’s favorite part of the party, lasted well into the early mornings as everyone was eager to show off their latest and greatest catches. In 2005, I even put up a large cash prize for video night in order to get people to really put in some major production effort into their videos to entertain everyone and had the crowd vote on the best videos. This year, the video night lasted barely an hour if that and nobody really cared from what I could tell since they were finally able to meet with the vendors.
There was some positive from ChaserCon this year. Finally there was a decent meal for everyone as it was a buffet style meal that was edible and not the rubber chicken as in so many years in the past. The key note speaker, Jon Davies, was very interesting to hear the back story of his broadcasting career.
Now this year really did feel a lot more disorganized then in the years past. Even the schedule for the convention was full of typos and timing issues. Worst of all I felt bad for all the vendors and the total cluster fuck of the schedule for the vendors. From the time ChaserCon or The Colorado Chaser Party started getting bigger to where they past the point of several hundred people attending, the vendors were located in a separate area. This was bad for the vendors that wanted to hear some of the talks but at the same time it was great as it gave everyone a place to get out of the main room where people were speaking and go talk to the vendors or talk to other people without disturbing everyone.
The vendor area was also a place where on the Friday Night or opening of the Chaser Party, people would check out all the vendors and mingle and spend money with the vendors. This was the time when the vendors did about half of their sales for the weekend. The other half of the prime time for the vendors was before the banquet dinner before the key note speaker. Everyone would get cleared out of the main area while the hotel would prep it for dinner. So everyone would go to the bar and or go to the vendor area and check out the latest stuff if they did not get a chance to the night before. This year, with the vendors being in the same room as the banquet, it said right on the schedule, time to meet with vendors before dinner. Well how the hell are you going to meet with the vendors if everyone including the vendors are asked to leave the main room?
ChaserCon or Chaser Party is still a decent way to meet people within the chasing community. There just needs more attention to detail for the vendors that pay a lot of money to come to try and make a profit or at least break even. Is the Chaser Party over? Doubt it for now since it still has a purpose. I personally made a lot of connections over the years just from this event. This year was no different as I met a lot of new talented people that we will be working with this spring in new areas of the country who have a lot of great ideas and information from their backgrounds.
Chasercon is not CES or Consumer Electronics Show, not even close. For the 20th Aniversery of the Colorado Chaser Party at Tim’s House, ChaserCon need’s to get back to its roots if it is to make it several more years. More on the latest and greatest forecasting and WTF was that talks during the event on certain subjects, leave Friday Night the party opening meet and hang out night with everyone at the bar or in the vendor area and move the Skywarn & forecasting classes to Sunday afternoon after ChaserCon for those who are interested in them. They would make money just sponsoring it with one of the local broadcasters that could hype the whole thing up during the weekend to come on down after ChaserCon for a free forecasting and skywarn training.
Don’t take this as a complete downer on ChaserCon, it is a great way to see old friends and meet new friends which was one of the main reasons Tim started this whole thing in the first place almost 20 years ago. I met a lot of great people this year so the face time meeting people you have only heard about on Facebook or on TV was always one of the reasons that is a positive to ChaserCon. Roger just needs to get back to the root of the Colorado Chaser Party. After all, if it was not for the Colorado Chaser Party, I would have never met Tony, Rocky, Mike H, Phillip, Eric, Brad, Roger and everyone else that fateful day.
What else is happening, as always with my company, family comes first before chasing for myself and for my stringers. If any of them tell me that they are going to be out due to work or family and not chasing, totally understandable as there will always be more storms. So this year I had to cut short the trip to Colorado to be home for my daughters first birthday. It was great getting a lot of both sides of the family together for a fun time.
While we did a Cake Smash for Laura on her birthday for friends and family, Neva wanted to do it with a back drop for a photo shot. She researched the scene look, got all the props for it ready and a second cake for Laura to smash for the photo shoot. The only part that made me nervous was the fact that Larua did not know what to do about the flame on the candle and tried to touch it at first where mom had to blow it out before she could touch it.
An hour of prep, 15 minutes of photos turned into an evening of clean up but the photos turned out amazing. Yes I still can’t believe I’m someones Daddy.
Ok people, I’m kind of getting sick of this and would like to get cleaned up now as I have frosting on my hands and feet and up the nose and in my hair. I’m done now until next year.
So stay tuned to our Youtube Channel, www.youtube.com/bnvn1 We have a lot of new stuff coming out in the next few weeks and month that is going to be just amazing as chase season gets underway for 2017.