Hobbies
Bicycling
No high-speed spandex, just exploring. I like to ride around Chicago and visit the neighborhoods, making random stops anywhere that piques my interest. Sometimes I'll have a specific destination in mind, sometimes it's meandering to a general neighborhood area, and sometimes I won't know if I'll be turning left or right when leaving the garage until it happens. It's been a great way to try random food, chat with neighborhood locals, or have a random activity you weren't expecting when you woke up that day.
Snowboarding
After a lifetime of dreading winters, a friend introduced me to the activity and I've been hooked since. Too bad global warming made Chicago winters crazy mild right when I got into it, so the local Chicago season has been severely diminished. My favorite location is Breckenridge, CO so far. It's nice to spend a couple days in Denver, then head to the mountains. With some strategic AirBnb booking, you can get a room near the base of the gondola making for easy in/out access at a reasonable price. Whistler is the next goal on my to-do list, and there are good things said about Utah as well.
My loadout is largely Burton-based. Being inexperienced at the time, I took the plunge and went straight into Step-Ons, which has been an absolute treat and still gets comments on occasion. It provides ample scenic viewing time when you're off the lift and ready for action while your friends are still fumbling with their straps. Pair that with Anon M4 goggles with magnetically changeable lenses, a good shell jacket, padded shorts, and you're set for any condition.
Art
Where the physical meets digital
North Star
Photography
2015-present
During my bicycle rides around Chicago, I have an irresistible urge to take photos. Mostly of non-human subjects, yet still of human creation. Being the tallest building in the western hemisphere for generations and easily protruding above other buildings, one of the common subjects is of the Sears (Willis) Tower. The idea for this project was to take the embedded GPS data within each photo and plot that on a map. There didn't seem to be an existing photo service that would easily do this, so I struck out to create my own solution. You can find the opened sourced script on the code page under KML Generator.
As I was doing a lot of PowerShell at the time, that became my scripting tool. The script will auto-generate a KML (the format used by Google) map containing all the photos in a directory, with relevant metadata included in each location pin. This allows the viewer to see the tower from all the locations I've photographed for 10+ years.
[complete photos + map link TBA]
Shadowbox Brain
Sculpture
2015-2016
This project came from my time with Purohit Navigation where they challenged us to create a shadowbox containing key traits of our interests. I took this over the top and decided to create a miniature brain sculpture embedded with LEDs that would light up when a "key" (made to look like a pill) was inserted into the sculpture.
My process was to create an accurate brain sculpture with clay, then use that to create a silicon mold where I would strategically insert LEDs and fill with a red epoxy. The lights were controlled by an Arduino to randomly light them up. The key was a piece of metal made to look like a pill (we were in pharmaceutical marketing after all, but still had a double entendre) that would activate a capacitive sensor when inserted into the brain.
Comfort
Interactive Sculpture
2013-2016, ?
This one is ongoing and my most ambitious yet both artistically and physically due to its size. So far I've done the planning and some coding, but at the time I left off didn't have access to a welder or a space to weld being in downtown Chicago and all, though that has since changed now that I have a garage/shop. There was also a technical snag of finding capacitive sensors accurate and robust enough to withstand public interaction. Without giving too much away, the concept is to create two identical sculptures made out of metal about the size of a small tree. What happens to one sculpture will be reflected in the other, which will be linked over the internet.
Maker Shop
Tools!
After being creatively and functionally limited living in a downtown Chicago apartment, when it was time to buy a house I made sure it came with a garage. Since there is no car to put in it, it's become more of a shop and tinkering space.
Robotics
2018-present
With a dedicated physical space and the tools to stuff it with, my interest in robotics was really able to take off.
Landlord?
Not really a traditional hobby, but I do own a multi-unit property in Chicago. As any serious hobby, it takes up time and effort, but it also provides some enjoyable moments and the satisfaction of providing a good home for my tenants.
Duties include:
- Marketing and tenant screening
- Legal compliance
- Bookkeeping and taxes
- Tenant relations
- Contractor/vendor management
- DIY Property maintenance
- Renovations and improvements
- Emergency response
- Long-term planning and investment
One of the bigger surprises of the experience is the amount of DIY work I've been able to do myself. My background in the technical space and general tinkering has been invaluable. I've done everything from basic plumbing and electrical work to more complex tasks like installing appliance fixtures. It's been a great way to save money and learn new skills.
Homelab
[more details coming soon]
It could be said the story for this goes back to my earliest days as a teenage hobbyist web developer in the late 90's when you could easily max out storage space on a free web hosting account. That, plus other common limitations led me to explore running a server on my home computer. It never materialized in a serious manner due to any number of limitations at the time, not least of which was dial-up internet or usability of web servers given my limited knowledge at the time.
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