Great thread! nice to put some details to the screen names.
I'm Chris and i'm a 36 (feel more like 26 most of the time) year old married to an amazing girl called Helen. We're not local by any means, moving out here from the motherland in Sept 2005. I'm a technical specialist with a company called AB Sciex. Basically they make instruments for life science called Mass Spectrometers and I install them and fix them when they break. I'm very fortunate in that I get to do something most days that I really really enjoy, get paid for it, and generally have pretty good time with it. Plus there's a lot of travel too, just back from a week in Canada (head office), and planning a trip to Shanghai a few months after the bubs arrives.
I kinda fell into this business after dropping out of of uni in my final year of studying to be a Podiatrist. Always been good at fixing things and have a fascination of how things work. One of my earliest memories is having my own screwdriver and using it to see how a radio worked.
I've work for the same comapny for over 10 years, and they are the ones who persuaded me and my soon-to-be wife to come to Australia. Only six weeks after we got married, we were here with nothing but a few suitcases. Didn't know a soul out here!
The rest is history really - settled in the eastern suburbs, went to a random church soon after arriving and met the wonderful karl! Who could ignore him???
Obviously his passion for weather really rubbed off...
I've always been awed by the weather, especially extremes. As a child we used to get severe winters in the UK, with 'big freezes' lasting many weeks. I'm an avid skier too, love the cold weather - there's nothing quite like standing on top of a mountain in the swiss alps with a glass of hot Gluwein. Alas the skiing is not so good over here. We used to have the privilege of regular overseas trips in the summer hols to places like Florida and the carribean islands. Been through many severe storms, but I particularly remember being stuck in Barbados when I was about 15 because the airport was closed. Funnily enough it was a tropical storm called Chris!
My interest in weather has only really been indulged seriously in the last 6 months, much to my wife's disdain
Seriously though, she's pretty cool about it all, even coming on chases with me. Methinks she might have a taste for it
I'm also very excited about becoming a dad very soon - Helen is 35 weeks gone, and just about over it! It's all a little scary and surreal right now.
In my spare time I'm usually found tinkering in my 'bat cave' under the house, fixing things in the house, or wondering aimlessly around Bunnings in Croydon.
I can't stand the local radio stations here, they only ever seem to play Pink or Kings of bloody Leon. Because of that, I have an internet radio and stick to the decent stuff on English stations
Oh! and I love single malt whiskey too. Just finished a nice drop from Laphroaig, so it must be time for bed...
Enjoy the weekend everyone, happy chasing tomorrow