Eric Hoffman's Home Page

Tim the Enchanter welcomes you to Eric's page and reminds you to beware of Killer Rabbits and that this page is best viewed using Netscape.

OK, I'll add myself to the growing list of people taking up bandwith with useless, self-gratifying homepages. Anyway, here goes...take a look around and enjoy. If you have a comment or like what you see, send me some mail.

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Find your way to different sections of this page by clicking on the topic below:

About myself
Weather
Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Sabres
Cornell Hockey
Pics and Sound. Surfs up.

Occasional construction ahead.

About Myself

You can learn more about my professional or personal life through:

My Academic Life

I am a PhD student at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University at Albany. My PhD studies involve identifying the evolution and characteristics of synoptic-scale environments associated with large-amplitude inertia-gravity waves (IGWs). I will be working with Lance Bosart and Daniel Keyser. Our initial research is to identify the characteristic vertical structure associated with IGW life cycles. This work is being presented at both the 7th Conference on Mesoscale Processes, Sept. 1996, Reading, United Kingdom (joint AMS - RMS conference) and the 15th Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting, Aug. 1996. The title of the work is Large-Amplitude Inertia-Gravity Wave Environments: Vertical Structure and Evolution. You may view the preprint here.
Last year I completed my Master's degree: The Evolution and Mesoscale Structure of Fronts in the Western United States: A Case Study . My advisors were Lance Bosart and David Knight. Here's the abstract. This research involved identifying the many physical processes that affect the evolution of surface fronts in this region. Some of these processes include: orographic effects, differential diabatic effects, and the role of upper tropospheric PV anomalies. Again look to this space for future announcements regarding publication of this research.

Weather

I am a self-proclaimed weather Geek. If you are too and want to find all the cool weather stuff available on the 'Net try these places:

Our Department's server.
Some of the student pages here at DAS. Take for example:
- Mike's homepage.
- Dave has quite a few good weather links too.
The Weather Net at the University of Michigan keeps a comprehensive list of weather links.

I love all weather, especially SNOW! If you have some photographs in digital format (jpg, gif) of cool weather events that you will part with, let me know. My personal weather picture collection is rather weak. Luckily, I have found some cool lightning pictures over the 'Net. Check them out:

Other Interests

Well I'm not a sports junkie, but I do like sports. Since I'm originally from the Buffalo, NY area, I root for the sports teams from Buffalo.

The Buffalo Bills

No Super Bowl jokes please!. Unless they're funny ;-). I am not a fair weather fan. I have liked and followed the Bills since childhood and suffered through many a dismal season.

If you like the Bills, check out these places:

"The Unofficial Buffalo Bills Home Page"
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has an excellent Hyperbills section.
Check out John Ferguson's Bills page. Make sure to visit his links page....many more than I have here. :-)
USA Today Bills page.
The NFL has a pretty cool homepage with a page for every team. Of course the "best" one is the Bills page.
Sportsline (a service similar to ESPNet) has a Bills page.
Others soon! Let me know if you know of other cool Bills pages.

The Buffalo Sabres

I have followed Sabres hockey since I was 8 years old when they lost to the "Broad Street Bullies" Flyers in the '74-'75 Cup Finals. If you like the Sabres, check out these places:

USA Today Sabres page.
The Unofficial Buffalo Sabres home page. A new design that incorporates the new logo makes this a great page.
Jay Kuzara has a pretty cool Sabres page.
John Ferguson also has a Sabres page. Is this kid good or what?
Official NHL Web site. This page is OK, and keeps getting better..
Nando's Sports Server has a Sabres page. You need to have an account there to access some of the information, but some is free.
Similarly, Sporstline also has a Sabres page.
WGR55 AM Radio in Buffalo has a Sabres page. Listen to audio clips from some games.
Others soon! Again, let me know if you know of any other cool Sabres pages.

The Buffalo Bisons

I'm not as big a baseball fan as I am for hockey and football, but hey it's a hometown team. The Bisons are a AAA team, in the American Association, and the top minor league club for the Cleveland Indians. They have a very nice "retro" stadium in downtown Buffalo, Pilot Field. Last year they lost the American Association championship to the Louisville Redbirds.

Here's a Bisons page. It has the schedule and standings etc...

College Hockey

Well, I caught the college hockey bug when I was an undergraduate at

Cornell has a beautiful campus located in scenic (but remote?) Ithaca, NY.

In fact I got so involved, that for my last two years ('86-'87 and '87-'88) I was the skating mascot: the Big Red Bear.

Cornell Hockey. 1996 ECAC and Ivy League Champions!!!! Way to go RED!

Cornell has a NCAA Division 1, hockey team affilitated with the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC). I try to keep up with them as best as I can. Of couse, I make it a point to go to the games when the Red play locally at Union and RPI, oops they want to be called Rensselaer. Although the program went through a slump in the early '90's Cornell usually has a top notch program that regularly challenges for the ECAC title and produced a number of professionals including: Joe Nieuwendyk.

In 1995-'96 Cornell hockey has a new head coach: Mike Schafer ('86). Mike was a crowd favorite at Lynah Rink during his playing days:

"Kill, Schafer, Kill!"

As expected the team plays with the heart that he did every night. Thank you Coach Schafer, for returning Cornell to ECAC and national prominence.

In his first season, head coach Mike Schafer led the Big Red Hockey team to an outstanding 4th place finish in the ECAC, an undefeated (9-0-1) Ivy league championship, and home ice advantage for the quaterfinals. In those quaterfinals, Cornell demolished Colgate 8-3 and 8-1 to advance to the semifinals in Lake Placid against Clarkson. After blanking Clarkson 3-0 in the semi-final, Cornell wrapped up the ECAC championship and automatic NCAA berth with an exciting 2-1 win over Ivy rival, Harvard. Let's GO RED!!! 1996 ECAC and Ivy League Champions!

Here's a summary of the 1995-1996 Cornell season, final ECAC standings and playoffs.

Also, check out The Unofficial Cornell Hockey Homepage.

If you're interested in College Hockey in general check out:

U.S. College Hockey Online for in depth coverage of all Div. I Men's Ice Hockey. (Formerly the College Hockey Homepage.
The College Hockey Lists: INFO-HOCKEY-L and HOCKEY-L. These links are to the archives of the moderated e-mail lists. These lists exist for people who like college hockey. The lists are a GREAT source of information.

Fun on the Internet

Look HERE for some fun jpegs, gifs, and .au files that I have found while surfin' the 'Net. (Rated PG-13, acceptable for younger viewers. If you're looking for other entertainment you'll have to find it yourself ;*))
My favorite place to start Surfin' is .
If you have a specific topic in mind you can use one of the many search engines on the 'Net. Yahoo has one, so does .
Another search engine is .