I was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio. After high school, I married my high school sweetheart and moved to Houghton, Michigan to pursue a degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduating, I moved to Minnesota because it's the only place I was offered a job (the job market for Electrical Engineers wasn't hot in 2004/2005). I worked at Rosemount Inc. as a Compliance Engineer until I was laid off at the end of May 2009. After a 2.5 month "vacation" looking for a new job, I took a position at Det Norske Veritas (DNV) where I now work out of my home as an ATEX Specialist. Both positions are just fancy ways of saying that I deal with the certification of equipment intended for use in hazardous locations.
My passion as a child/teen was astronomy. My first telescope was an 8" Coulter Dobsonian. From there I upgraded to a 10" Meade Starfinder Equatorial. I entered the realm of CCD astrophotography when I was 15. Not being able to afford a consumer CCD camera, I built my own. At the time, there was a book called "The CCD Camera Cookbook", which basically gave step by step instructions on how to build a CCD camera. This was an incredibly fun project for me and planted the seed that lead me to be an Electrical Engineer.
By 17, I needed an upgrade from my Starfinder, so I sold it and purchased a 10" LX200. This was a nice scope, but I hardly ever used it because it was such a beast. Just getting it setup was a major workout. I eventually sold it because we needed the money during our super low income college days.
While writing this page in 2009, I got the itch to once again look at the nebulae and galaxies that I once used to do so regularly. After lurking on Craigslist for a few months, I scored a 12" dobsonion for just $250. It didn't come with the dobsonion mount, but I was able to build one that works very well for under $50. So a 12" scope for $300...not bad at all.
I've enjoyed storms all my life, but didn't get into storm chasing until after I moved to Minnesota. Before then, I either didn't have the time (high school), or I didn't have the opportunity (no tornadoes in the UP of Michigan). My first "chase" was the August 24, 2006 tornado that hit Kasota, MN. I left my home just before the storm hit Kosota, thinking I could actually catch up to the storm and see something. Can you tell I didn't have a clue what I was doing?
2007 wasn't much better. I basically just drove into the darkest part of any tornado warned storm, because that's where the tornado had to be, right? I'm probably lucky none of the storms ever produced, because it could have turned out very bad. After the 2007 season was over, I found TornadoVideos.Net and realized that there were lots of others chasing storms, and that I was doing things completely wrong. I definitely learned a lot hanging out in the TVN forums over the 2007/2008 winter, as well as by reading tons of stuff on the web about storm chasing and meteorology.
2008 is where this site picks up. You can see that I was still an uber noobie, but I did at least have some kind of a clue as to what I should be doing. At the end of the 2008 season I was introduced to F5Chaser, which is an amazing group of mostly Minnesota based chasers. Thanks partly to all the friendly people there, I felt much better about the 2009 season, and I'm sure I'll feel better about each and every season going forward. Storm chasing is definitely something that is very experienced based, although I'm trying hard to make up for my lack of experience by reading as much about it as I can on the subject.
I mainly chase solo, but certainly welcome the chances I get to chase with others, especially on long trips. It's always nice to be able to pass the time with someone that shares the same passion as you. My wife seems to be getting semi interested in chasing after our family vacation chase on 7/13/09, so it's possible that future chases will become more of a family affair.