"weather-drew" (noun):
A nickname used by a systems administrator, web developer and network engineer living in Colorado, working in the aviation industry. He does not make donuts.
About
"As a native Oklahoman, I was born with a fascination of the sky."
It seems many people around this part of the United States share that same statement, and many of them end up living where I do now - Norman, Oklahoma.
In June of 2004, I moved from Nashville, Tennessee to Norman - returning back to my State of birth after being gone for nearly 8 years. The opportunity to work in the weather industry had presented itself once before while I was in Tennessee, and oddly enough - the same avenue which afforded me my current job had actually been part of my carrier earlier on. When I found myself packing up and driving 700 miles west, it was hard to believe that a single email I sent as a beta user for Accuweather's Radar Plus would end up changing my life.
It's actually an exciting place to live, if you're interested in the weather. A central station in the world of Meteorology, Norman houses some of the most brilliant minds and highly respected institutions on the planet. Research born here is often adopted for use by organizations around the globe. People from all around the earth come here to visit our institutions and see our toys. I'm just lucky enough to live right down the street from all of it.
But living in the middle of the Midwest does not come without it's downsides. Oklahoma is a very conservative state to live in, and with small population and low tax base, there are fewer choices when it comes to arts and entertainment. We even still continue to suffer from ancient laws in the early 1900's, some of which state that only low point adult beverages can be sold in grocery and convenience stores. If you enjoy a cold Erdinger, better find another place to live.
The tradeoff of course is the lower cost of living, and Norman is no exception. However, in the entire state, there are only two or three places one might accept residence in: Tulsa, Oklahoma City (very few parts) and here in Norman. Living outside of those areas requires either becoming a farmer or a meth manufacturer.
Blue
In September 2008 I decided it was time to replace my workstation at home with newer technology. I had recently decided that I wanted to try out the new Intel Core Wolfdale Duo series processors and I set out to build a system which would handle anything I could throw at it, and look good doing it. "Blue" was built.
"Blue" is a Intel 3.33Ghz processor based system running on an ASUS P5Q3 motherboard at 1.33GHz BUS speed. The board is built for overclocking, so naturally I run "Blue" at the highest stable overclocked configuration it can achieve, which levels out currently at 4.45GHz. The system handles itself quite well in most of my initial testing and ran without fail thru over 9 hours of Prime95, a numerical factoring program designed to stress processors and memory components.
The system functions as my primary development environment and also as a gaming PC, for those times when I want to loose myself in Flight Simulator or SimCity 4. To date, it is the fastest system I have ever built, yet not the most expensive. The total for all the upgrades came in under $550.00.