All about me
Introduction
Howdy! I grew up in San Diego county and attended high school at San Marcos High School. During that time I had created some of the best memories with others in the BSA, enduring all sorts of trials & tribulations. After graduating high school and obtaining Eagle Scout, I enrolled at California State University San Marcos to study Management Information Systems. My tech positions and undergraduate education led me to a profound interest in computers, and that hobby evolved into starting a freelance for home computing and networking. As of December 2023 I have completed my Bachelor's degree.
Hobbies & Interests
Recently I have been obsessed with working on my car, adding it to the list of my hobbies for-sure. So far I have completed an oil change, coolant flush, spark plug install, caliper and brake install and lots more. After some brake fluid and axle fluid changes, I would say I'm a certified grease monkey.
I have always loved building/tinkering with hardware or home automation, occasionally programming personal projects. This interest eventually snowballed into freelance work when the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020, since everyone needed computers to complete work & school from home. In most cases, people just wanted the old family computer back up and running. I'm not going to lie to you, during the pandemic business was booming! Through all the typical computer and networking fixing/troubleshooting I had the privilege to make some awesome enthusiast projects you can check out here.
I was one of those young chaps that enjoyed gaming on an Atari, and would play games with friends later on in life on various consoles. If I am gaming nowadays, I'm usually playing Bungie's Destiny 2, or Arrowhead's Helldivers II.
Since my high school weight-training courses I always loved to lift weights, thanks to those courses I learned how to properly move my body in the gym in a meaningful manner.
It was 2018-2020 when I stopped training completely and I have a core memory that haunts me to this day, looking at a picture of myself during 2020 and seeing these thin, frail arms. To be honest, that scared the shit out of me.
I now have some personal training experience and a partial cert in nutrition, and plan on training for the rest of my life. I specifically practice eccentric resistance training and keep up with the latest studies on nutrition and exercise science. I try my best to make sure I'm following the current best practices for both of these fields, its fascinating how little we still don't know about the human body!
I post progress photos here to track how I change over the years. I used to do this on Instagram, but I don't really care to show this off constantly to everyone. I have stopped using all media sites for years now.
I also love golfing, my home course being The Executive at Lakehouse. My friends would tell you I don't golf enough, but I still whoop some ass even out of practice. The driving range can work wonders I tell ya. If you see a corgi club cover chances are you found me! I started golfing when I was young, and had tried essentially every other sport before then. Golf was it!
Since early college, I have maintained a gym routine that has become second nature as a part of my schedule. Thanks to 3 years of weight training in high school I have been able to make some awesome progress solo. I always feel guilty missing a day, so as long as it gets done every day it wont bother me. This last two years I have begun to track my progress and strictly maintain a diet to some awesome results I post roughly once a year on Instagram. I don't use social media at all really, but will throw something up a couple times a year.
I began to passively read in 2021, and have found psychology in particular to be interesting.
Skills & Expertise
Starting in high school I attended a handful of courses where I would learn skills I still value to today like Computer Science where I would learn JavaScript for the first time, Weight Training where I would learn how to safely utilize gym equipment to stay healthy, and woodshop so I can now say "I told you so" to my father when he messes up woodworking projects. Weight training has especially been the most critical throughout my life, I have been maintaining myself exceptionally well thanks to 3 years of class. Also during high school I had earned the rank of Eagle Scout in the BSA, the highest attainable rank. Eagle Scout is awarded to only the top 4% of Boy Scouts that achieve near perfection in leadership, social, outdoors, and communication skills. Eagle scouts can excel in many stressful and demanding situations that can challenge even the most confident leaders. Boy Scouts are granted this rank after a lengthy review process, as the requirements necessary to achieve this rank take years to fulfill. During the time it took to achieve Eagle Scout I attended and even further elevated training program to bolster my leadership skills called National Youth Leadership Training (NYLT). At NYLT I was taught advanced servant leadership tactics, conflict resolution, and the psychology of communicating effectively.
Early on in college I interned at Google where I got some exposure to HTML & CSS with some more exposure to JavaScript. Through several retail positions in electronics, I then learned more about sales and how to effectively convey topics to people of all knowledge levels as it pertains to tech. These jobs also helped me understand that many people need many different technology solutions, depending on what work is at hand, enhancing my perspective. My college courses bear the majority of my skillset, where I learned intermediate JavaScript, instance-based virtualization in both Microsoft Azure & AWS, database management, cloud databases, enterprise systems solutions, the information systems under those enterprises, and information systems for business intelligence use. During my undergraduate education I began to take my hobby of working on computers to people who could use my expertise (or rather vies-versa through word of mouth) during the pandemic, leading to a small freelance. I go into more depth about this on my Computer Engineer page. After working for a couple years I have learned advanced home networking, Windows Registry & Home Server, with a deep knowledge of computer hardware & software.