RU848789

Hello. Name's Erik, aka RU848789, the years of my 3 degrees from RU. 48 years on the planet so far. Married 19 years with a 16year old son. Here's a bit of a bio...

Always found weather fascinating, even growing up in the relatively benign climate of South Jersey (Gloucester County, about 10 miles SSE of Philly). Was a huge snow freak as a kid and would always get pissed off by most storms, as it seemed they all had the snow/rain line to our NW - countless times the NW suburbs of Philly would get 8-12" and we'd get 2-4", followed by rain and temps in the 40s, washing all the snow away. But we got enough snow that I got to participate in my favorite winter sports regularly: sledding, throwing snowballs at cars and running away (kids don't seem to do that anymore) and "hopping bumpers" (grabbing onto the back bumper of a passing car, usually at a stop sign and getting a wild ride holding onto the back bumper).

I always listened to KYW, 1060 am and Channel 6 in Philly, both of whom used AccuWeather, which always seemed to be the most accurate, plus Channel 6 had Jim O'Brien. While he wasn't a meteorologist (I don't think), he was hugely entertaining ("that gully washer's gonna be comin' down like a firehose on a flat rock") and explained the weather more than well enough for a kid (he died tragically when his parachute didn't open). By the time I was 12, I had my own little weather station and kept weather records for the next 5-6 years, albeit only from Nov-March, when snow was possible. The highlight of those years was certainly the winter of 77-78. 40+ inches of snow, including a few 10"+ storms (although even those had sleet/rain mix in).

From there to Rutgers in 1980. Thought about meteorology and English, but went with chemical engineering, since I liked chemistry and knew that engineers made good money. Got three degrees on the Banks of the Old Raritan in the years of my username, with the last one being a unique (at the time) interdisciplinary PhD, combining chemical/environmental eng'g, environmental law and public policy - did scientific research on sequential anaerobic, then aerobic biodegradation of hazardous leachate wastes in soil-based bioreactors, in which the technology was quite effective. The interdisciplinary part came in with the fact that the wastes were from Lipari Landfill, the #1 ranked Superfund site in the US, located in Pitman, NJ, so I got involved with the local community and their issues, plus I also completed a survey of the use of alternative technologies for the cleanup of Superfund sites across the US in the 1980s. Even got to interview then-Congressman Florio, who was one of the primary authors of the Superfund cleanup legislation.

So, after completing a very interesting internship in that area at the NJ Dept of Environmental Protection, I jumped at a job offer from Merck, in which I'd be looking at hazardous waste minimization from their pharmaceutical processes. Did that for 2 years, then decided I wanted to do more mainstream chemical process development and have been doing that kind of thing for the last 19 years, scaling up processes for active pharmaceutical ingredients being developed in R&D and even getting to bringing these processes to manufacturing for the few successful drugs that make it out of research. I now run a ~50 person pilot plant making dozens of research compounds each year. Stressful, but never boring.

Along the way, I cultivated many hobbies, including punk/alternative music, frisbee, golf, poker, Rutgers sports and, of course, weather. Having grown up in the late 70s and getting to college in 1980, I had a front row seat for much of the punk music revolution, with close access to NYC and lots of great bars in the New Brunswick area and throughout NJ. I probably have seen 500+ rock shows, with many of them being nameless, forgotten bands in bars, but I also was lucky enough to catch the following bands early on in their careers over the last 25 years or so: U2, REM, Dramarama, Fountains of Wayne, Smithereens, The Cure, New Order, Joe Jackson, The Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Old 97s, The Wonder Stuff, Simple Minds, Ryan Adams/Whiskeytown, the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, the Strokes, They Might Be Giants, Hoodoo Gurus, the Smiths, The Replacements and more. Plus, even as a teenager, when I was more into "classic rock," I got to see most of the huge bands of the 70s, since my friend's brother worked at the Spectrum ticket office: saw bands like The Who, CSN, Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Zeppelin, Van Halen, etc.

In addition to all the live shows, I had the great fortune of having the coolest bar on the planet in my backyard: The Melody Bar in New Brunswick. It's where the now-famous Matt Pinfield got his start DJ-ing (with me helping him load his albums in and out of the bar on many nights and helping him spin when he needed a "coke" break. Used to go there 3-4 nights a week to listen/dance to all the great punk/alternative music played there - let's put it this way - people used to come to NB from Manhattan to be part of the scenet there. In fact, almost every woman I ever had a relationship with in my life I met there, including my wife, who I met there in 1987. We danced to a BAD song (E=mc2), started dating and got married 4 years later. Mr. Pinfield even arranged for the lead singer from the Wonder Stuff to do a proposal to my fiancee on stage at the Fastlane at Asbury Park in front of our 1500 closest friends, in 1990 (what he said was kind of funny: "there's a guy out there named Erik, who'd like to know if Judy will marry him - why the **** he'd want an ugly mug like me to ask this for him is beyond me."). Plus, he DJ-ed our "punk rock picnic" of a wedding held outdoors with everyone in shorts, except my wife, who was in a big poofy white wedding dress - was right before he joined MTV and became "famous."

And grad school was also very good for my golf game - used to be an addict, getting my handicap down to about 8 in the late 80s, but then work and life intruded and I haven't broken 80 in 15 years (hard to do when you play once a month). Still love the game though. My other big hobbies have probably been frisbee - used to do freestyle tricks and then later got into disc golf heavily, becoming one of the earliest members of the PDGA (pro disc golf association - yes it exists), playing in many tournaments throughout the northeast. I was never nationally known, but I did OK in the NE in the mid-80s and I once held the record at the Rutgers disc golf course.

Always loved poker, too, and have gotten more serious about it in the last 10 years - love going to the Taj in AC to play - the only game one can win at consistently, since you don't play the house - lots of poor players try their luck at it, especially with the advent of it on TV the last 2 years or so. I've only dabbled in tournaments, once winning a $1500 Omaha hi/lo tourney in AC, but cashing in the proceeds rather than trying to go for the $300K top prize, figuring I'd probably lose against all the pros. Still regret not giving it a shot, though. Someday I will pony up the $10K for the WSOP. One other hobby: pool - have a beautiful pool table in the living room - takes a special woman to agree to that and my wife is special (and funny, smart, pretty, etc, although I'm biased).

Jesus - almost left out Rutgers sports. When I came to RU in 1980, the hoops team had just completed its best 5-year stretch ever, including the final four year of 1976 and was always going to the NCAAs, which continued with 2 appearances in my undergrad days. And then, the bottom fell out, as RU turned down the Big East when it was formed, holding out for an all-sports eastern conference, missing a huge opportunity, at least in hoops - and then the success of the BE killed RU hoops for years, although we finally got in the BE in 1996, but haven't done a whole lot, but have at least been a bubble team several recent years and did make the NIT final at MSG last year under Coach Waters. Football has been worse - decent teams in the 80s and early 90s, but oblivion in the late 90s early 00s, going 14-64 over 7 years. But, we've turned the corner under Coach Schiano, as we went to 5 straight bowls, winning 4 of them and having that magical year in 2006; tough year, last year, but I'm confident we'll bounce back.

In the last few years I've gotten involved in fatherly things like coaching my son's soccer and baseball teams - great fun, really. He's not a huge fan in terms of watching sports, but he does like to play, which keeps me young or at least trying. He also loves the beach, swimming, animals, poker, punk rock (how could he not?), reading, learning and more - a good kid. Plus, he does great voices and is a class clown, so I wouldn't be surprised to see hiim get involved in the entertainment industry in some way. Who knows, though - as long as he finds something he really likes, we'll be happy.

Which brings me back to weather. Was an avid watcher of TWC for years, especially when they were the only game in town. But with the explosion of the Internet in the mid-90s, really (was one of the early Mosaic users and spent lots of time perusing the UM weather underground site), TWC became less appealing, as they were too broad and played too much to the lowest common denominator viewer. I played golf during Gloria and have gone to the Jersey shore to get closer to storms like Gloria, Bob and Isabel and had to bail my window wells for hours to prevent basement flooding from Floyd - drove around the whole Central Jersey area after Floyd to see the flooding - it was devastating, especially in Bound Brook. Certainly also loved some of the recent snowy winters. 1/6/96 was just great - was scheduled to fly out of JFK to Ireland that afternoon and convinced my bosses to cancel that am, just based on the ominous forecast (they also knew me well enough to know I wasn't kidding and had always relied on me for weather info) - good thing, too, since the flight didn't go out and thousands were stranded - had ~28" in my backyard. The March 93 blizzard was probably the most intense storm I recall, with outrageous snows and winds, although we got screwed with hours of sleet at the end in the Edison area, holding snowfall down around a foot. And the President's Day storm and other reccent storms have also been great, although I don't remember the dates of these and I don't keep any records any more - been thinking of buying a weather station to remedy that.

One last story: I always have been fascinated with the rain/snow line, especially in this area, where the influences of elevation and proximity to the ocean have such a profound effect on who gets how much snow in almost every storm. So, back around 1992, there was a big nor'easter that dumped huge rain on the "coastal" areas, including my house in Metuchen, but reports were that heavy snow was falling as close as northern Morris County, so I got in the car at midnight and drove up the Parkway, and out on Route 80 until I reached the mythical snow/rain line around Parsippany; I then continued out to 206, where there was a couple of inches on the ground in Netcong and I then took 206 north and by the time I reached Newton, there was a foot of snow on the ground - only about 49 miles NNW of my house! So, I loaded up the hatch of my Subaru with snow, brought it home and made a snowman on the roof of my then-fiancee's car - needless to say she was touched by this act (as well as worried about whether I was touched in the head, I'm sure).

Finally, although I didn't major in meteorology (I think I figured I wouldn't get paid much), I do have a Ph.D. in Chemical Eng'g and much of our disciplines are similar: the mass, momentum and heat transfer equations are still the same, just the applications are different and mets don't complicate things with reactions, but they do complicate things by having much more subtle phase changes and by attempting to predict dynamic systems over a huge area. I've also done my share of modeling of complex 3-D systems in computational fluid dynamics for small scale reactors - lots of similarity to meteorology. So, I generally follow the in-depth meteorology discussions pretty well, but I do get lost sometimes in the details around how the models work and how to get access to and read them, which is why I mostly just read what the pros write. Been thinking I'd like to take a "practical meteorology" course, of some sort, maybe at dear old RU. Also, over the past few years, I've been sending out email updates, regularly to a few hundred coworkers/family/friends on prospective winter storms. I don't "forecast" them per se, but I do have a decent understanding of who the really good pros are on this board and in the media and I try to distill down the key elements and give people a layman's version of what they can expect in their winter storms. I guess I've done ok, based on feedback and the fact that a couple of school systems and our company use my info to make decisions on closings/delays.

OK, I'm done. This is basically an abridged autobiography. Anyone who made it this far deserves some sort of prize. Don't know if anyone will get much out of it, but I had a blast reminiscing while writing it - thanks for listening.