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Monday, February 2, 2009 - 5:13PM

Hail in February (from over 7 months ago)

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and brought down my business.

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. This page is a detailed account of the biggest threat to my photography and video operation that I had to battle daily to just barely survive, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem facing all of my colleagues as well.

click to enlarge

Back on June 22 of last year, I collected and saved a few handfuls of golfball to near-tennis ball sized hail from the Sissonville, WV storm. I've kept it in my freezer in plastic since then. Today, I remembered it was there and decided to take a look - not much left! Sublimation takes its toll over time. I don't know if I'll just let them continue to waste away, or rinse them off and 'ceremonially' use them in a glass of ginger ale. The latter seems more fitting, though I am curious how much longer they'll last.

I guess a sealed container is necessary to preserve ice in the long term. I'll have to make sure I have one ready for next time, if I get another storm like that close enough to home.