As I mentioned in a previous post, some great things are happening with my company Dryline Media.  I hadn’t planned on making an official announcement until March 1st, but some of the chasers let the cat out of the bag, so why not go ahead and do it now?

For years chasers have asked me how they could sell their video to the media, or if I could sell it for them, etc etc.  Your wait is over!

On March 1st or very shortly thereafter, Dryline Media will launch a new media distribution program.  You create the media, we take care of the sales!  Dryline Media will be officially changing the rules of video brokering in 2010.  Based on many years of applied experience selling breaking news, Dryline Media will represent you with an ambitious campaign resulting in solid revenue on a global scale.  Dryline Media is an independent broker and will work with storm chasers or news gatherers who are not already in a contract with another broker or restrictive entity.

A few things to note:

• No long term contracts!
• Live feeds, news footage and stock footage, we can license it all!
• Very competitive commission structure with perks for our top providers!
• Year-round brokering, not just seasonal!
• Training available to help you be the best shooter you can be!

Much more info to come as we near March 1st.  If your interested in participating you can contact me and I’ll make sure you get the info to sign up when we launch, or if you are going to the Chaser Convention in Denver this weekend, catch me there! I’ll be happy to answer what questions I can at this point! A new website will be online soon at http://drylinemedia.com

We are looking forward to working with you to move your storm chasing to a new level!

I’m been a bit absent from the blog and some of the other social media sites here recently.  It’s that time of year I start getting geared up for chase season, which “officially” starts for me on March 1st, just 3 short weeks away, as I have media contracts that begin then.  Of course I am up for a chase any time!  All of this has of course taken up a great deal of my time.

One of the major projects that I am working on is the future of Dryline Media.  For those that don’t know, this is my dba business name I handle all my video licensing under.  Things are in progress to take Dryline Media to a whole new level.  I can’t give the details just yet because all the ducks aren’t completely in a row, but I am hoping to make a HUGE announcement about Dryline Media at the beginning of March or shortly thereafter. This will be big for a number of other chasers as well!  That’s all I can say right now!

In other news, I have discontinued my association with TornadoVideos.net effective February 1st this year.  This will allow me to do what I am hinting at above.

That said, I have joined up with ChaserTV.com to stream my LIVE ChaseCam for this year, so that will continue to be available! Be sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter so you can get all the latest updates on chasing plans!

More to come…

In things related to storm chasing, the year would have been poor for me, with a mostly unactive season in the local area, and even long distance chases proved to be difficult for many storm chasers to capture that elusive tornado.  I say would have been poor for me except for the one exceptional intercept in Floyd County, Texas on April 29th, when we intercepted at close range, not one but TWO tornadoes.  That event made my whole chase year!  If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

By the time June rolled around I had mostly written off storm chasing except for anything I needed to cover for KCBD.  I was burnt out and needed a break from weather.  So one day, on a day I wasn’t expecting to chase, a relatively decent supercell popped up just to my south and I got on it for the station.  Turned out to be a prolific hail producer and slow mover dropping copious amounts of hail for longer than an hour in the same location.  I thought that was pretty cool, but little did I know what was to come.

Later that night as the storm was dying and I had called off the chase, the storm gave one last punch of lighting which struck a tank battery and ignited a fire on the south side of Lamesa, TX.  The subsequent explosion that I capture on tape of course has now been seen all over the world and kept me busy for quite a while dealing with media stuff surrounding it.  It also of course was the end of my chase vehicle, and I ended up with a new one.  If you haven’t seen that incredible video yet, here it is :

**ADULT LANGUAGE ON VIDEO**

For the rest of the year, I took a big break from the storm chasing/weather stuff, and did a ton of work around my property that had been on my to-do list, including building 100′ of fence, a new storage shed, tearing down an old garage, and building an addition to the house!  At the beginning of 2009 I said I would be happy to get one of those things done.  It was a major accomplishment to get them all done!

I also like to take stock of my financial situation this time of year.  As some of you know, I have been working towards a debt free life.  I’m not quite where I could have been, only because I did do all that work, but it was productive nonetheless and improved life around here, so it’s ok with me.  Last year at this time I had planned to be completely debt free by now.  While I am much closer than I was, I didn’t make it, a big part is adding the new vehicle to replace the one damaged in the explosion.  However looking forward, I see no reason I shouldn’t be debt free by the end of 2010.  I can’t tell you how great it feels to get some of that paid off!

I also start looking ahead toward storm chasing season.  To-do lists have been written and many things need to be done by March 1st, my “official” start date to storm chasing season.  Hard to believe only a month and a half away.  Looks like I’ll also be working with KCBD again this year.  This will be the 6th year chasing for them.  Wow has time flown!

I’m also determined to get all the past chase accounts on the website.  This has been my yearly failed project for the last few years and I am determined to get that done! I am kicking myself for not keeping up with it, because as time passes, memory and details fade.  Any of you younger chasers reading this, this is some of the best advise I can give you: write logs for all your storm chases, promptly after the event!  One day you will be happy you did.

The other major storm chasing related project is to get my entire video library over the years archived digitally.  I recently purchased two 1TB hard drives for this purpose.  This will be major and tedious work, but I need to get it done.  A by product of that is that I am going to be posting all the good stuff on my YouTube channel for you to watch!  Maybe even a DVD or two in the future!

But first, I absolutely must get the Explosion DVD produced.  This has been put off too long and many people are waiting on it, so that is now top priority!

Of course mother nature knows this and seems to be working up a huge trof in the western US which may bring some severe weather to Texas by the end of this week.  More on that later…

How is your New Year starting out?

UPDATE 4:39 pm CST: Storm system is taking a track further south track and the Texas South Plains is now in prime position for the heavy snow.  The NWS has issued a Winter Storm Warning, and widespread snowfall of 4-6inches with locally higher amounts possible, and whiteout conditions early tomorrow!

A rare treat may be in store for areas of west Texas starting tonight.  A winter storm is taking shape and will move across the area, bringing accumulating snows to most of west Texas.  Right now, it doesn’t appear that widespread snow accumulations will be particularly high, perhaps only an inch or two for most of the area, but some areas on the north side of the track of the system could see 4″ or a little more.

Right now that area appears to be areas east of I27 and north of Hwy 114.  However, some models are taking this system a little more easterly than northeasterly, and if that happens, the heavier precipitation would be a little further south.

The snow will be behind a cold front currently plowing through the northern south plains and should be through the area by late this evening.  As the front passes, temps will drop considerable and any precip should change over to snow.  Gusty winds will also be a factor, especially on Christmas Eve as the storm system moves east of the area.  This will certainly push around any loose snow.

There has only been snow on the ground in Lubbock, Texas 13 times in the last 97 years of records being kept.  Should snow be on the ground tomorrow, it will be a rare treat for everyone in west Texas.

As with all winter weather, travel conditions will deteriorate and people traveling in the area through the holidays should be very careful.  This storm has blizzard potential for those traveling further northeast into OK and KS.  Winter weather advisories, watches and warnings are up from Texas to Michigan for this system.

You can find Texas road conditions on the TXDOT website.

In the warm sector, folks in the eastern half of Texas are dealing with severe weather with a tornado watch already up and some storms already appear to be trying to produce tornadoes!  Folks in the eastern part of Texas need to pay close attention to their local sources of information, and have those weather radios ON, especially as it gets dark.  Winter tornadoes are some of the worst killers because of the time of year and they mostly come after dark, people aren’t as aware of the potential.

Aside from a couple of very awesome chases, the 2009 season was pretty dismal to say the least. Couple to that a large amount of drama in the storm chasing community, some of which was trying to suck me in, I just needed to get away from it for a while. I also had a number of projects in other life areas that were piling up on me too.

So, that’s what I did, I concentrated me efforts elsewhere and largely tried to forget about weather and storm chasing for a few months. It worked wonders for my attitude and I got a ton of things done this summer.

But I’m back now and getting excited about starting a major project with my old video that most of you should love. Not going to reveal details yet, but let’s just say it’s something many of you have been asking for from me for a while now.

Oh, and those of you waiting to find out about the video being available of the tank explosion, I haven’t forgotten about you either. The video finally aired on “Destroyed in Seconds” and now I can release it on my own. That will be a priority here shortly.

Thanks for the time off everyone! What did you do this summer?

http://daviddrummond.com/latest-weather-news/90-how-do-i-sell-video-to-the-media.html

I will retain wx5tvs.com/.net/.org since that is my ham callsign and I don’t want it to end up with porn on it so I have parked it on DavidDrummond.com for now.

Please update your favorites and any incoming links you might have to the new domain.  With the new layout, some URLs have changed, but all of the content was brought over, so you should be able to find it through the menues.  If not get in touch with me, I’ll point the way!

For those of you that have my personal email address, it will now foward to my new one, and when I reply to you, you will have it.  Everyone else can still contact me through the forms on the website.  I don’t want to put it on here to help cut out the spam.

Future plans for the site including, most importantly, getting all the past chase logs back up WITH VIDEO! as well as a few more tweaks here and there.

The new iMap tracker for the LIVE ChaseCam should be ready very soon and that will appear on the site as well.

After them main chase season I am hoping to get a few choice prints available for purchase, as well as (gasp!) my very first storm chasing DVD!

If you are a chaser and are linking to my site, please update your links, and if I am not linking back to you, let me know and I will get you in there!  So much to keep up with!

I’m open to suggestions as to what else you guys might want to see.    Please leave comments below!

What do you think?  You like that look? Hate it?  Comment and let me know!

I am happy to announce that I will now be working with TornadoVideos.net (TVN) for video streaming, some media licensing,  and other storm chasing related projects.  Dryline Media (my dba) just signed the deal with them today.

This came after about a month of intense consideration on my part.  Despite other offers out there, some of which are run by friends of mine, in the end I had to separate my friendship status from my business dealings and make a sound decision based on that alone.  After careful considerations of the contracts by both myself and attorney, and making sure they meshed well with existing contracts, I made the final decision today, and frankly I am excited about it.

You readers that aren’t involved in the social aspects of storm chasing will recognize TVN from the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers.  I feel partnering with them will be beneficial to myself and them (I am always a fan of win/win situations) as well as potentially bring many more opportunities down the road.

I know some of my friends that will be reading this that are going to be streaming video with another service will not be happy with this.  Please understand that I am still me, and I am still the same guy you knew last month, and also understand that I have considered all sides in all of this, and in the end I had to put all personal feelings and friendships aside and make a business decision.  This was not a decision I took lightly by no means.  In fact, I have thought over this extensively for about a month now.

I hope that my decision will not negatively affect any friendships I already have.   I understand everything I’ve heard from both sides, I know where everyone is coming from.   In the end, everyone has to make their own decisions and should do so based on their own information and not anything anyone else tries to get you to do for their reasons.  Do what you feel is best for you. Their reasons are just that, their reasons.  Sign up with who you want to for your reasons alone.

I hope in the end when the dust settles all the controversy can be gone and we can all have fun storm chasing again, and still sit down at the end of the day for that steak without anyone feeling like they are sleeping with the enemy.

For everyone else…

I’ll be posting more shortly about the new live streaming that I will be doing this year!