Chasercon 2010

**Note** the train is bouncy as hell so if I mistype things, oh well!

It is now 1017pm on Sunday night. Im sitting on the train on the way home, a little over an hour into the 19 hour total ride home. So lets recap the thoughts, the photos wont come until I get home because I am an idiot and left the damn cord at home. One would think I could get a loner being around 300 tech geeks but for some reason it was all around fail for that. Anyways,

I really had a blast out here, I accomplished everything I wanted to do. Lets try this in day by day format.

Wednesday:

Travel day, Danny and I left Chicago which had recently just been whomped by a record setting snowfall of 12.6 inches. The bag check lady at Union Station was a bitch and gave us both attitude, we ate pizza hut for lunch and then boarded the train. The ride rocked, I really love taking the train. This was my first time and I cant believe Ive waited so long. It is relaxing, roomy, and walking around and chilling in the lounge car talking to different people rocks. We arrived in Omaha where we un-boarded[?] the train and met up with Scott Bennet who offered to drive us the rest of the way because he wanted company. We discovered what he had a feeling would happen - the bitch didnt put Dannys bag on the train so we had to go to Walmart for some emergency shopping.

Thursday:

Awoke at Mr B's house and after helping him load up we set off for Denver. It was a pretty entertaining ride. Danny had a black cloud over his head due to the bag incident which seemed to have added a voodoo curse as misfortune after misfortune happened to him, us being the supportive individuals we are made sure to laugh allot. We streamed the drive and did an improv type live show where we asked people to call in. Not many did though but it was still fun.

We arrived in Denver and got right down to Business. Most people hadn't arrived yet and there were no scheduled events so we did what most of us wanted to do. We partied. We went into downtown Denver for the Convergence event Dan Ciannca organized and discovered Denver has a pretty awesome bar scene. We arrived back from that and joined up with some chasers hanging in the hotel lounge area but that didnt stop the partying. The other half of our group arrived and we had a hotel after party which got pretty loud and crazy but was allot of fun. Eventually security told us to calm down so we went back to the room to crash, at about 6am.

Friday:

We partied too hard - I awoke with the worst hangover Ive had in years. I couldnt let that stop me though. A group of us agreed the night before we wanted to go sight seeing in the mountains, I was especially enthused because I had never seen them before. Me, Danny, Ben H, DD, Sarah and Andrew all set out for our adventure into the Rockies. We stopped in Idaho Falls for pizza which wasnt anything special [Im from Chicago and have extremely high standards when it comes to pizza.] The town was an awesome place though, all nestled in the mountains, I would love to live in a place like that if only it was chaseable.

Eventually the hangover subsided and I was able to enjoy the awesome day. The mountains are incredible and I took allot of photos. We got to experience a true Rocky Mountain snow squall. When we entered the mountains the sky was clear blue, after about 40 miles it was white out. A 3 car accident happened right infront of us, lucky we werent involved.

We arrived back once it got it dark. The main events for the night were the "ice breaker" which is basically where everyone is forced to meet one another and the opening of the vendor room. We hung out mostly in the vendor area checking everything out and helping with the CTV booth. None of us were in the mood to really party because we were all whooped by Thursday nights rowdiness, so we just hung out for a bit afterwards watching videos and went to bed. At this time Mr Matt Cumberland met us in our room, the crazy bastard drove 15hrs from Chicago just to attend for one day, now thats dedication.

Saturday:

I was actually able to get up in time for the mornings presentations, which were very good and informative. I learned some new things I definitely will be applying to future chase forecasts. I had a scheduled interview with the weather channel so I had to leave the presentations early to get ready for it. The interview was severely delayed because a certain individual ended up being in there for about an hour which pushed everyone else behind. The interview itself went really well, although theyre trying to con me into giving them free video, probably wont happen unless I know exactly what their intentions are. Im sure Ill be updating this blog with followups in regards to that though.

After the interview was done I continued with more vendor area stuff and sitting in on presentations. A big group of CTVers went out to this amazing resteraunt called Texas de Brazil. I can best describe it as a meat lovers paradise, I was in heaven but wow talk about a price tag for that amazing meal. We raised our glasses and toasted to a good 2010 season and laughed our asses off at the ridiculous status updates we bombarded facebook with.There were basically so many different kinds of meat at this restaurant that we tried to come up with new names for them.

Once that was done Ben, Kris Danny and I were in party mode so we set back out for a club in downtown Denver, we had a blast but I was reminded why I stopped going out all the time. I get too generous and drop way more money than I want to. It was worth it though.

Sunday:

I wanted to watch the mornings presentations, but it is now day 5 of getting only 4hrs of sleep and the bed sheets had a death grip on me. I went to McDonalds for breakfast with a chaser from Britan who shares amazing passion for the chase. We had a really great conversation about that. I came back and sat in the presentation for about 20 minutes but they went into subject material I didnt care for so I went back to the room. It was near checkout time and knowing our train wasnt set to leave for almost 8hrs I opted for a late checkout.

We sat around in the lobby saying bye to everyone. Only a handful of us remained so we continued to talk and watch video filmed by David Drummond who had been documenting everything, it was hours of good laughs. Once it was time to leave we dropped Ben and Andrew off at the Airport. Danny and I met up with Brandon again at Union Station and boarded our train for home.

And here I sit...getting sleepy and not really looking forward to the return home. Definitely glad I made the trip and will come next year for sure. I met allot of great chasers there and expanded the network. I also am really proud to be apart of CTV. Making the switch was a great move. We treat each other with respect and we do things together other than just chase, we are actually friends. We go out to dinner, we party and we laugh our asses off. Scott and Steve run as honest of a business as there is in the weather world...and it shows. Too many chasers are greedy and their businesses are ran dishonestly, ChaserTV is the exact opposite, and I like that.

There were several times where that was interrupted by the latest gossip with people talking shit, but we brushed it off. I find it funny how they cannot adress me [or us] face to face.

Photo montage will come soon, not sure how I'm going to do it. Ill probably make it an album on my site because after all, I need more hits!

Oh, we also launched our new site. So check out www.convectiveaddiction.com