2008 video tally

I finally finished uploading this years video to my media server. The grand total space the video takes up is a huge 136 gbs, and a total of 836 individual shots! Having it finally all organized and set up will allow me to quickly put together a DVD for this year. Today I took some more shots of the best tornadoes from 2008:


I also experimented with time locking the footage so I can sync up two clips from two different cameras.

July 19 Lightning over Denver

Tonight a small line of storms popped up on the north side of town and stuck around till dark giving me a shot at some lightning! At this hour the lightning continues but it is rapidly dying off and moving away to the east. Here are some of the better shots I got.

Edit: Just saw this. A fire caused by a lightning strike? Looked huge for awhile!
Tony sent me this link, it was a lightning triggered brush fire that cause evacuations out by Brighton:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/16933335/detail.html#

Dodge City, KS Chase Base?

I've always had it in my mind to get a place in Kansas. Home prices are around the cost of a nice automobile and with the stock market sucking now and at most times it's good to put your money into something you can actually use. I believe with the bio-fuels and wind energy that are making a resurgence in the plains, the central US will actually see a large rebound in the coming decades and we want to be a part of that.

Geographically, Hays, KS would have been the ideal choice but home prices there are twice as much as if you went one exit east to Russel, KS or one exit west to Ellis. These two towns would have been fine, but talking with Amanda this weekend we started thinking about Dodge City.

Dodge City has the rich western history that Amanda loves with Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp and all the old west attractions and gun fight shows. For me, although it is two hours south of Hays it is still in prime Kansas chase territory. From Dodge City you can get east into Greensburg, Pratt and the areas along the KS/OK border that have been hot from 2004 and 2007. The drive striaght north leads you to Wakeeney, KS and our always favorite, Trego County.

Getting a spot in Dodge City is strong in our minds and looks like it may be a reality as soon as the end of this summer!

Airtracker 7

Here's an image of AirTracker 7, I believe it's a Eurocopter AS355 which I have found a scale fuselage for.  I'm entertaining the idea of converting my Align TRex 600 to a scale model of AirTracker 7.  Would be pretty fun!

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Flying monkeys - super size!

This week I got my latest Flying Monkey from eBay that will become our Helicopter Camera Ship. This thing is about twice the size of my other helis and will eventually be used to carry a fully gimballed and gyro stabilized HD video camera.

I have the retractable skid parts coming in the mail. Also I have a bid out on a Futaba GY240 gyro to put on the rotation axis of the gimbal. I'm leaning towards the Panasonic HDC-SD9 video camera since it weighs only 0.60 lbs, has a three CCD imager and records to flash memory.

More details later~!