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In 1994, petitioner, who lived with his family in West
Virginia, accepted a job in California with his current employer,
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Petitioner accepted the job in
part because of its proximity to many of the abandoned gold mines
that he had learned about in his research. Petitioner hoped that
his gold mining would eventually become so successful that he
would not have to depend on an employer. He moved with his
family to California in 1994, and he began mining for gold in
1995.
Petitioner devoted a substantial amount of time to his gold
mining activity. Each week during the years in issue he worked
four 10-hour days for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and devoted
the remaining 3 days of the week to gold mining. Typically, on
Thursday evening he would pack his equipment into his truck and
travel that night to a mining site in the desert as much as 150
miles from his home. Petitioner then would spend the next 3 days
mining for gold during the day and camping by himself at the
mining site at night. He returned home on Sunday afternoons.
Generally, no one from his family accompanied him on these trips.
Because his mining activity frequently led him to remote
locations inaccessible by road, petitioner devised and
constructed equipment small enough to permit him to transport it
on foot for considerable distances. It was lightweight portable
equipment that was a miniaturized version of more mainstream
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