In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
The realtor from RE/MAX (Rick Wilcox, a longtime family friend and neighbor to my late grandmother) came to the house this morning to do the initial assessment of the property - basically to give me an idea of the essential things that need to be done to make the place market-worthy. At this point it doesn't look like I'll need to do much, if at all. We are planning to have the house listed and officially on the market sometime next week.
This morning was also trash pickup day, another major event in this whole saga. The city literally needed to dispatch a separate dump truck to haul all the stuff away that I threw out (it's times like these that I really appreciate having municipal services). I am really wanting to 'lighten the load' because I can envision myself moving several times over the upcoming years. I decided to part with a lot of older furniture that I didn't use and that had deteriorated beyond the point of being valuable enough to keep (or donate). This included an old couch and recliner, several lamps, a coffee table and end table, an old roll-away bed and mattress, my old computer desk, and some shelving that had seen better days. The advantage of my front property being a 'cliff' is that it was nice to let gravity do the work of getting things down to the street (after making sure no cars or pedestrians were approaching). Actually it was quite entertaining to watch the larger items crash down the hill - I should have set up a camera. I also filled about 10 extra-large contractor trash bags with other things to get rid of. Hard to believe there was that much useless stuff lurking in the closets, drawers and storage areas upstairs.
Anything that didn't get thrown away has been stacked in my cleared-out back bedroom - all smaller items have been boxed up. So far the room is over half full. The plan with this is to get a storage unit somewhere (on level ground) and slowly start transferring boxes there. That way there will be no need for a mass-moving effort to carry all of it down the hill all at once, and it will clear the house out to make repaiting the rooms easier. Looking at this pile of stuff is making me think I could stand to chuck more of it down to the street next week. I don't like the thought of having to load all this into a truck and store it at wherever I end up. Really, I could get rid of most everything, and I would not miss it at all after about 10 minutes. Historical family items and valuable collector pieces (like my East Washington, PA traffic light and my grandfather's library of train books) obviously are safe - but I otherwise have very little sentimental attachment to the rest of my earthly possessions. All I really need at this point is a bed, a place to set up a computer, a bathroom, kitchen, dishwasher and washer/dryer. Anything more than that is just extra stuff that takes up space. But, seeing as a lot of this may come in handy if I ever do settle into another house, I'll exercise massive restraint for now.
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
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