I'm a huge nerd with a thing for fast cars, anything high-tech, and taking pictures of my daughter. I dream of someday having the financial wherewithal to pursue these interests more seriously.
What's your blog about?
I'll write about science, tech, software, cars, news, privacy, politics, family, fatherhood, and whatever else tickles my writing bone.
I live in the United States (Michigan) and am not a big fan of travel, so my opinions will usually come from that point of view. I'm certainly not the average American, though, so don't write me off without giving me a chance.
What do you do?
I'm a software engineer. I've been programming since my dad taught me BASIC on a Commodore 64 in 1986, when I was six years old. I knew right away that it was what I wanted to do with my life. I grew up through GW-BASIC on MS-DOS, then HyperCard on a Mac, then Visual Basic 4-6 in high school, and then VB6 again at my first programming job -- a co-op employment position while I studied Computer Science at Kettering University.
Since then, I've primarily worked on relational-database-backed web applications written in Java. I've been with my current employer for ten years, and am currently a Senior Software Engineer and technical lead for two major products spread over three teams of developers. I've been offered higher positions, but I've turned them down because in practice, accepting them would mean little to no time spent building great software, and nearly all of my time spent juggling a triple-booked schedule of unproductive meetings. I feel like I could contribute positively in such a position, but I could never be happy.
And for fun?
I spend lots of time with my wife and daughter. As of this writing in late 2015, I have been married eleven years and my daughter will be two soon. It's a wonderful time.
Given the choice and the means, I spend my spare time on cars. I love driving -- especially on a race track. We have two fun cars -- a 2002 Camaro Z28 and a 1987 Buick Grand National. Both are significantly modified from stock, and neither is close to being "done" in my eyes. I can go on for days about cars, so I plan to make separate pages about my cars and other car related interests.
I also love tech, gadgets, and tools. I have a sweet home theater (largely functional but still a work in progress), several computers (all Macs), a Nikon DSLR camera, a Nest thermostat, and an ample, growing collection of garage/shop tools, not to mention a long wish list of things I don't have yet!
I love to build things. Software most of all, but it goes beyond that. Building new things from scratch is my favorite -- together with my wife and her dad (and with help from several other friends and family), we built a ~500 square foot elevated deck + two-car carport on the back of our house a few years ago. I have ambitions to add a master suite to our house someday, as well as to build a detached garage/workshop, and I plan to do a lot of the work on those projects myself as well.
I also enjoy repairing and improving things. From installing upgrade parts on my cars to rebuilding the engine on my lawn tractor to fixing my furnace, there is very little that I won't tackle on my own rather than pay someone else. I do have my limits, resulting more from time constraints and lack of the proper tools than anything else. A lift, a tire mounter and balancer, and a welder would go a long way.
Any other passions?
I get riled up about politics a lot lately. My hot-button issues are, in no particular order: privacy, finance, equality, efficiency, transparency, corruption, education, social services, and infrastructure. I also care greatly about improving the way we care for our veterans.
I'm a pretty talented problem solver. My experience as a software engineer has cultivated several useful skills: if you describe a situation to me, I automatically start looking for ways to improve it, simplify it, etc.; it's rare that I'm at a loss for ideas. I'm also very good at breaking problems and solutions down into smaller, more easily addressable parts. Part of me would love a chance to apply these skills to our political system, but I could never subject my family to the scrutiny of public office. I also don't think my distaste for meetings would be well suited to politics.
Worse yet, I would face an enormously uphill battle to fix our country's worst problems, because I sincerely believe that they're best solved via a substantial rewrite of the Constitution (keeping the ideals, but addressing changes that our forefathers could not have foreseen), which I do not believe I could ever accomplish in today's corrupt political climate. The system today is so unfathomably broken and entrenched that I do not see a viable way out. The U.S. government and political system needs a reset button. It's time for 2.0.
I have a love of truth, logic, and reason. I read Wikipedia's entry on logical fallacies for fun. I love to argue with intelligent, willing people.
My thoughts are heavily influenced by the words, works, and actions of John Siracusa, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Josh Bloch, and Bernie Sanders. I also have great respect for Barack Obama and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Less famous, but most certainly no less influential, are my amazing wife and daughter.
I love podcasts. Especially ATP. I also listen to the John Gruber's The Talk Show, Robot or Not, Reconcilable Differences, Top Four, RadioLab, Serial, Mystery Show, Startup, Reply All, Clockwise, and the CamaroZ28.com podcast. There are tons more shows I wish I had time for, but those consume my commute, plus the time I spend mowing the lawn or shoveling snow, and a handful of other times where my body is busy but my mind isn't.