Backstory

• Things I understand are way less exciting than things I don't understand.
• As a kid I got a copy of RPG Maker for the original Playstation and realized I was spending weeks (ab)using the simple logic editor in that game to build things it was never meant to build
• My dad said "hey that sounds like computer programming maybe try that"
• Checked out some Dummies books from the library and found coding fun.
• Taught myself Linux in the same way - checking out a Red Hat 7 book from the library with the install CDs still in the back and just screwing around with ~how you could break~ what you could do with a "free OS" taught me a ton of basic operating system theory.
• A few years later I was compiling my own Linux kernels with my own kconfig for kicks.
• A few more years later got a BS in Software Engineering.
• Open-source is the best software development paradigm I've come across - it's the world I grew up in and it's the world I feel most comfortable in.

What I do for money right now

Architect, designer, and programming language polyglot most at home with an open-source stack in a Linux/Unix/macOS environment. Have been accused by peers of being creative, intuitive, pessimistic, and a disciplined engineer, but I would like to take this opportunity to clear my name and reject those accusations. Except maybe "pessimistic", I'll cop to that.

Rust/Go/Javascript/Terraform/Shell/Python are what I work with daily.

What I'm doing for fun right now

• Getting past the borrow checker hump with Rust
• Getting "good at" Rust
• Shaving yaks with Emacs (using Vim keybinds)
• Failing to keep up with quantum computing theory
• Reading books on macroeconomics
• Collecting, repairing, and modifying 90's-era video game consoles
• Playing old Japanese vertically-scrolling shoot-em-ups, badly
• Pretending to be a race car driver and watching F1
• Listening to 1978-1985-era UK post-punk
• Keeping up with the burgeoning FPGA-based video game hardware emulation scene.

Dumb thing I'm most proud of doing

• Despite having no soldering or electronics experience, I replaced all the capacitors in the guts of an old CRT television without electrocuting myself, and it worked. I now use this television to play 90's-era video game consoles. Because I have done this, and not died, I will die a proud man.

What I think is important

• Keeping the joy, fun and sense of play and discovery at the center of all work, personal or professional, and protecting the right of others to keep it there too.