Big hair days at Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Born and raised in southern California, I left the west coast in 2005 to study political science at Harvard University. My fondest collegiate memories were born during track and field, where I competed in the indoor and outdoor 400m dash. After a 2007 summer internship on Capitol Hill, I realized politics wasn't for me. I love governing and practicing iustitia omnibus but I don't care for false promises and bureaucracy. I began my relationship with web development and programming shortly afterward.
I had always admired technology since building computers in my salad days. I defrayed my college loans by repairing laptops and recovering data but, technically-speaking, I was nowhere near the deep end. I find technology intrinsically mysterious, a spiralling abyss of details arranged into objects and patterns. Everyday I learn something new on NPR and Wired and my imagination just soars. Since 2009 I have been studying project management and design. I hope to someday lead a team in creating something truly miraculous, like the instant pizza machine in Back to the Future II, which is perfect for gamers, college students, and the terminally lazy.
I just finished reading Designing for Interaction by Dan Saffer and now I'm reading Kim Goodwin's Designing for the Digital Age and Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. I believe projects should be explored on technical, aesthetic, and whimsical levels. Too often I observe objects that lack any imprint, any form of serious contemplation or genuine human empathy. I speak not just of poorly-designed objects, but also of bland, throwaway ones that gather dust in closets and attics (or buried somewhere in C:/whocares/). Many strive for simplicity--elimination of choice--and the interaction boils down to just pushing a button on a box. I want better. I believe in building meaningful things that create lasting impressions and Keanu Reeves 'Whoa.' moments. I'm studying now but I'm excited to see what happens soon.
These days I'm quite interested in American race relations, postcolonial economic development, environmentalism, and playing the guitar (rhythm and bass). I'm fond of Hemingway, Vonnegut, drawing, The Wire, cooking Japanese dishes, Radiohead, The Magnetic Fields...on and anon...and secrets!
My best ideas come to me during bike rides.