Happy New Year!!!

2014 saw me bungee jump for the first time (actually twice), travel the South Island of New Zealand, see my first wild penguins and even start to monitor their nest boxes, dive with Great White Sharks, travel to Australia for the first time (storm chasing, scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, crocs and kangaroos, and fun with friends), visit family for Christmas for the first time in four years, spend time with friends new and old, present as a keynote speaker on storms and chasing at the New Zealand Meteorological Society conference, do my first radio interview (also about storms), explore more of beautiful New Zealand, and throw myself into interesting work projects related to storms and a lot of programming.

I closed out the year in style in Sydney, on a boat in the beautiful harbour! We had a great 9pm and midnight fireworks show, and it was an awesome start to 2015! In the new year I’m looking forward to returning to the U.S. for storm chasing in May, seeing old friends, showing my sister around parts of New Zealand on her first overseas trip in February, hopefully doing the same with my parents later in the year, starting to get involved in more media work at work, more Python programming, becoming at least conversationally fluent hopefully in Korean (have been learning it for fun in the last year), and whatever other new adventures come my way.

I am going to try again to update this blog a little more often with parts of my adventures, even if it’s for just a handful of people reading (thinking of you John and Nancy!).

I’d love to stay and write a little more but am about to board my flight from Sydney back to Wellington.

I wish you a healthy and happy 2015!!