The "training camp" part of storm chasing officially kicked off this past weekend with the 2005 Storm Chaser's Convention here in Denver, Colorado. I missed out on the first day (Friday) of the conference which was basically the ice-breaker night due to work. Blake Naftel flew out and brought a friend, Chris, which I put up for the weekend.
Saturday marked the first offical day of the 2-day conference. It was an action-packed day for video and stories! Tim Samaras once again blew us all away with more video from his probes! He set up a probe with 360 degrees of cameras (including a 7th camera pointing straight up) which caught a totally unreal view of a tornado from nearly ground zero! Absolutely incredible!
I spent a lot of conference time chatting with chaser pals, meeting many fellow chasers (most from Stormtrack), and networking with local opportunties. It was nice to be in the mix for a change, as I finally had a season worth talking about!
I skipped out on the video shows at the end of Saturday as illness was plaguing me a bit. We returned early Sunday morning for the last half-day of the conference; the overflow day. I didn't win any of the big door prizes, but did walk away with a couple shirts and one of Tim Vasquez's books. We all sat through about noon before I said my goodbyes and ran Chris and Blake to the airport where I returned home to recooporate and ready myself for the TESSA conference the following weekend.
