A Little Background

(crayon-inspired weather map at age 11)

To kick off my new blog devoted to the weather, I thought I would start with a little background of how I got to this point. This isn't a hobby that I picked up as a teenager or a casual affair for me.....it actually goes back as long as I can remember. My first memory of weather is asking my mom what the "H" on the weather map meant. (It means high pressure for the weather impaired.) It is only fitting that my second memory of weather was a record OKC snowstorm that ruined my bowling birthday party when I turned 7.

I wasn't the most.......ahem........normal boy growing up. While other kids were playing G.I. Joe and Batman, I was drawing weather maps, like the one above. (Hey, I got cool points for liking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, right?) My mom was great at supporting my interest. She set up a meeting for me with Alan Mitchell, a former weatherman from Channel 9, when I was 10. (I thought it was really cool that he could zoom in on the big swimming pool of one of the nearby houses with their new satellite pictures.) She also brought me to the Omniplex when they opened the "weather studio" so I could practice being on TV. I froze in front of the audience of about 10, needless to say. She also helped me plan out what classes I needed to take in high school to prepare for all of the calculus I needed to take in college for a meteorology degree.

I landed an internship my Senior year in high school at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman. The following year I started my basics at Oklahoma City Community College. Here is where the problem occurred: I loved weather, but was not a big fan of advanced math. And I was going to have to take ALOT of math classes. So after much contemplation, I decided I wasn't willing to go through 5 years of Hades to major in something for which the job market didn't have many openings to begin with. Also, it wasn't like I couldn't be involved with the weather if that didn't become my profession of choice.

So that brings us here. Ten years ago I would have never guessed I would love my job as an Internal Audior at a financial institution and that I would be back in school going for my CPA. I would also have never guessed I would start a weather blog, or would have aspirations of one day becoming a volunteer storm spotter when Liz and I have the available funds. Storm chasing is not cheap.

So welcome to my blog. I will use this as my forum to spout about anything weather related that interests me.......I hope occassionally I interest you too.