Starting a personal website & blog

print('Hello World')

I’ve been meaning to start a personal website for a while now, and I finally got around to it. I’m going to use this space to write about my projects, share my thoughts, and document my journey as a software engineer, game developer, and anything else that comes to mind.

In the beginning

My life has been unique. I spent most of my childhood bouncing from state to state, until I finally landed in Texas. Texas is where I grew up, where I learned what hard work was, where my life really turned around. Growing up on a working hunting ranch, you learn pretty quick that often times it's yourself that has to get the work done. A lot of hard work, a ton of unique experiences, and a lot of fun. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Texas landscape after a controlled burn

Culinary Arts

Growing up on a hunting ranch means that we also cook a lot of hunted food. The ranch was primarily Quail, and I got pretty good preparing it certain ways. I enjoyed it so much that I decided that I wanted to become a chef. So that's what I did, went to culinary school. I learned a lot, and I had a lot of fun. I learned how to cook, how to run a kitchen, and how to manage a restaurant. I loved it, even though I was working 70-80 hours a week. I was working as a sous chef at the Baylor Club, part of the Mclane Stadium in Waco TX. Running the banquets, private events and the high end catering during football games was exciting and I could see myself do very well. However I didn't see it as a long term career, and I wanted to get into the IT world.

Jacque Pepin and Myself, 2011 (I was 19)

IT

Started working in IT for a company in Austin, TX. It was a great company, and I learned a lot. I was working as a Systems Administrator, and I was doing a lot of work with Linux, Windows and specializing in hardware deployment. On the side, I would work on software projects, initially for my company but I was also quite involved in an online game EVE-Online. After a couple years of playing that game I decided that I should create a web application for it. In EVE Online, everything is player driven including the economy. I was getting pretty active in the market, doing arbitrage, day trading, making risky bets / losing a lot of money. I eventually got tired of doing it manually, so I decided to create a web application to help me out and track my progress. First version was coded in PHP using a framework called CodeIgniter. It did it's job, but every couple years I'd do a re-write as I learned more about programming. Next framework was Laravel, which served its purpose for 8 years until I finally retired the application. The last version I learned a lot about frontend frameworks, utilizing Vue.js for the user interface, and Laravel as the backend using REST api endpoints.

Currently, I don't do much web work anymore but whenever I need to I utilize Next.js/React. For example, I built an accounting/report dashboard for my new company Manatee Bingo using Next.js, and am currently learning a lot about the new "serverless" craze that's taken the industry by storm.

useEffect(() => {
  fetch('some sanity').then((sanity) => {
    insertIntoBrain(sanity)
  })
}, [life])

Game Development

Which leads us to my current venture. For the past 4 years or so, I've helped distribute a software where I handled all the installs, tech support, basically everything. Well, for the past 2 years we have received barely any updates to the system, and it's been a struggle to keep it running. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and start building our own. Started in June 2022 I started learning game development in Unity3d. By October I had a pretty decent prototype which I showed some partners and they were impressed. By November I had a MVP which allowed me to start testing the product in the field. I've been tweaking the system ever since, and I'm happy to say that since February it's really been picking up steam. We've been getting a lot of positive feedback, and we're starting to see some real growth. I'm excited to see where this goes, and I'm excited to share my journey with you.

Married life

I met Laura, my wife in 2019 online through an app, but we both feel like we are soul mates. We love to travel, and we love to cook. I've traveled to Italy before in 2018, and really wanted to go back so 5 months into dating I asked Laura to join. We travelled all around northern Italy, from Milan to Venice, to Florence and the Cinque Terre. We truely fell in love there, and we both feel a great connection to that country. We got engaged and decided to elope to Italy to get married. We brought along an amazing photographer Emily Reedstrom to Amalfi who definitely did not disappoint.

Our biggest strengths is the fact that we both push on eachother to be better. We both have a lot of drive, and we both have a lot of ambition. She's a hospice RN, on track to finish her BSN this year. We currently have 2 dogs, which take advantage of the pool we installed into our house last year.

Time Flies

Another exciting development throughout my life is the ability to fly. I am fortunate enough to be able to have gotten my Private Pilot Certificate, and have since gotten my instrument rating and multi engine. Currently fly a 1969 Cessna 182, and just recently upgraded a lot of the avionics in it.

I've taken a few trips now, back and forth to Texas as well as up to North Carolina. I primarily fly for work, as Florida is a large territory to cover and being able to fly back to Texas on my own schedule is a huge benefit.

Conclusion

Now that you're mostly caught up with my life, I hope you'll join me on my journey as I continue to learn and grow as a software engineer, game developer, and as a person. I'm excited to share my thoughts, my projects, and my life with the world.. or whoever ends up reading this.