Home and hobbies

I live in Pacifica, California with my wife and daughter. Pacifica is a small, beautiful, and somewhat crusty beach town just south of San Francisco. Outside of work I like to pursue too many hobbies. A selection: swimming (in the pool and the ocean), weightlifting, running, hiking, reading, listening to and collecting music, photography, bonsai, and travel. In a previous life, I was a DJ for a heavy metal radio station and I completed a DIY Ironman triathlon during the COVID-19 pandemic (barely, it nearly killed me).

Spring wildflowers at Mori Point, Pacifica

Books

I really, really like to read. Reading is fun, plus it teaches you things, plus it's sort of meditative. It can make the world feel bigger and smaller at the same time. Whether reading fiction or non-fiction, the best part of reading for me is inhabiting another's perspective.

Below is a dashboard of nearly every book I've read, along with letter grades for each and a lot of plots (ha). I love talking about books, so please reach out if you disagree with any of my takes or want to share a recommendation.

The home bookshelf in our previous apartment. It was nice while it lasted.

Photography

I'm a total amateur photographer, but I really enjoy the hobby. Even if I take bad photos, the fun side effect is I get to better remember the beautiful places I've been and the people I spend time with. I took every picture on this site (except for the few of me). I use a Nikon Z5 mirrorless camera. You can view more of my photos in higher quality on Flickr.

Banner Peak, again.

Music

I love music, and I've tracked nearly every song I've listened to since 2014 using Last.fm. For a while in graduate school, my friends and I hosted a heavy metal radio station on Monday mornings from midnight to 2am, the most metal of time slots. We averaged about 6-10 listeners and sadly had to shut it down before making it big. I cannot play any instruments, unfortunately, as much as I've tried to learn piano, guitar, and even general music production with MIDI controllers. One day I will learn.

Royal Albert Hall, London

About this webpage

This website is hosted on GitHub Pages, but I hope to self-host it soon on a home server I run on an old laptop in my closet. It's not the most reliable way to host a webpage, but it's a fun project to work on. This webpage was made using the Story template with favicons from Flaticon.

Teeny tiny mushrooms in the Trinity Alps, California.