An era of storm chasing vanishing (late 1990s-late 2000s)

@Matt Phelps Very nice! Hard copy albums are certainly more enjoyable to unfold and share, in my opinion, especially with family and friends. Not scoffing at the efficiency of digital albums, but admittedly there is a lot of digital clutter that we don't realize until actually going through it all. Downsizing, archiving, and preserving digital prints in hard copy form is an excellent way to weed out the moments that don't really need to be preserved. Again though, to each their own. In an archival sense, there are limits of purposefulness of content saved. Hours upon hours of driving video, shots of stratus, and/or even doubles of 35mm prints take up unnecessary time and space. Save what's important to you, anything else can be recycled/or have data space reused.
 
I've got my walls at home and at work scattered with some of my better photos. I tell people that because I don't have or want children, those are my children. Haven't ever done the book thing, but that isn't a bad idea either. I've always said I'm not a scrapbooker because my scrapbook is online on my website, but I may get more into printing out more than storm photos as I've been on some pretty spectacular vacations lately as well and have some great memories I would like to preserve.

I'm battling the 'too many photos on the wall' argument with my gf now. She thinks I have too many tornadoes. bleh.
 
The decline can probably be attributed not only to people just leaving the hobby altogether but the lack of the number of people who will actually read through a detailed chase log instead of skipping right to the pictures. Most of the late-2000s/early 2010s chasers don't bother because who is actually going to read it when they can just throw the photos up on social media with less work?
 
Much like Ben, I lost much content when Geocities flopped and just really didn't recover website wise after that. But admittedly, I had already stopped posting pictures after Yahoo took over so it only had stuff from 91 through basically 99 posted. After the flop, the thought of doing all that work again just wasn't gonna happen. The last few years when Randy Hicks and I were still chasing together (1999-2007) the fad moved on to blogs and of course I followed suit. But again, the work to maintain and update proved to be too much to try and keep up with. I still maintain the business website but even that is slowing some. @Matt Phelps, your photo book brings back some memories.....Randy and I both used to carry around a photo book almost everywhere. It provided and added to some good conversation topics - although in looking back, I probably didn't carry it around for anything more than show.:)
During a week long chase that included a "tornado a day" literally, I lost the photo book to some insane inflow during a hellish chase near Yates Center Kansas on May, 8 2003 ---that was the last photo book I would carry with me.

I miss the true chase account websites, I have spent countless hours reading and looking over some. I used to hit uncle Chucks up on a regular basis. I still look at Gene's and Shane's websites a few times each year. I just don't see that kind of quality or content anymore and it's refreshing to me. Sure would be nice if more existed again.
 
@Lanny Dean that would suck to lose that. I'm going to really work on getting my chase logs up and going. I have some on my site right now, but it will be nice to have some up for chases not with the tours.
 
Absolutely not. I'd drop anyone who was negatively impacting my ability to chase, or not appreciating how passionate I am about it. Life is short. We all die. So make happiness a priority, not humans.

I had a pretty decent shot with a woman until I found out she has negative opinions about storm chasers. Said it was irresponsible to put yourself in that kind of danger when you're not getting paid for it. I asked her about volunteer firefighters and paramedics. She said it was the same thing. I made a snide comment about how it must be nice to have lived in larger cities all her life where she's never depended on a VFD. Needless to say, it didn't go any farther after that point. Still single, but at this point I really don't give a crap.

In all honestly, I was far more pissed about the VFD comment than I was the storm chaser comment. I'm used to hearing criticism when people find out I chase storms. But I've spent a very large portion of my life in areas dependent on volunteer fire departments, and I know more volunteer firefighters than I can count.
 
Groan, you guys and your "I still checks Gene's website.":eek: I had no idea and now I have a guilty conscience. Currently upgrading my computer with a 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD ... hopefully that will make all this editing go faster.
 
My website is still out there (http://www.TornadoXtreme.com) however I haven't updated it since 2010. Many / most of my chases also have a link to a detailed (sometimes long) chase account of the entire event and my experience. Since 2010 I have posted some of my chases and storm photos on Facebook, but some I haven't posted publicly. My page goes back to 1999.
 
Thanks Andrew, I forgot about WIX. I may check it out for future Tornadoxtreme revisions and upgrades.

Will throw another plug for Wix out there. I have *never* prided myself on my web design skills, but the most recent version of my site was extremely stress free and is easy as ever to update.

http://www.skydrama.net/

Unintentional website plug - really just want to show that something that to an outsider might seem like I put a bit of thought or effort into was really pretty easy to do. I may work on incorporating the blog to the main website (Wix has a great blog feature, too) but for now I've just linked it back to wordpress.
 
My web page from the mid-90's is still up ( http://chaseday.com), although it has not been updated in 5 years.

@Gene Moore your website was one of the first storm chasing websites I checked out when I started using the internet to kill what free time I had in one of the computer courses I took in high school. Almost 15 years later I still enjoy reading the chase logs from your classic chases and the photos that go along with those chases.
 
I've pondered quite a few times about whether to keep my website out there since everyone has gone to Facebook. I'm on FB but it is just not the same. It is not chaser centric, it is not focused on storms, you can only share with your friends (unless you go Public and I won't), and you are also at the mercy of FB's Newsfeed algorithms and Likes. A lot of who sees your content (within your entire friend list) is based on who you most often or most recently interacted with through Likes or comments. That means you also have to spend a ton of time on Facebook, which I refuse to do. You can post a storm picture or thought, and it will go out there only to be lost amongst all the political outrage and cat photos. I suspect 99% of those on the newsfeed never see the picture or comment, and if they do unless it is somehow notable, outrageous, or infamous they will pass on anyway. To me that is hardly worth the effort. I used to spend a lot of time on Tornadoxtreme updating it with photos and chase accounts, and also posting the same to WxChase and Stormtrack, but that is a lot of work and I grew weary. I used to create very long detailed chase accounts, and there are those that criticized me for it. However I will say that it wasn't just documentation for others, but for myself. Without an account, I'd pretty much forget all the details years later. I can still go back and read some of those, or some of my creative writings. Perhaps no one cares but me, but I honor it as part of my life and it is nice too look back and be able to show someone a picture quickly when we are talking and having a beer at a pub. A few years back I passed my 20th chase anniversary to pretty much no fanfare or notice. Not that I really mentioned it except as a passing comment at the beginning of my 22nd chase season when I posted my chaser safety tips on FB and ST. There were a few folks that noticed the tips, and that's nice. Anyway, I guess I put my stuff out there in case it helps somebody here or there, or educates, or they appreciate an occasional picture. Nowadays I pretty much chase for myself. I don't chase as much as I used to. That is for a number of reasons: health, other life priorities, cost, and lack of interest by others in what I do, and the chaser community itself having a lack of interest and unity in itself. Personally I've never made an effort to go to any chaser parties, meetings, conventions except for some small local gatherings with friends. I suppose I regret that and very much intended to many times when I was younger, but each year I didn't it is now hard to pull the trigger. However I have been blessed with having known, met, and chased with some of the greatest chasers of all time. It's been an incredible ride! With that said I haven't given up on chasing. I don't think I ever will as it is just too much a part of me. The warm humid Spring air always calls with the lure of change and excitement!
 
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