Part engineer, fiddler, tinkerer, "hacker", maker, and breaker and a little Oil-Field Trash thrown in for good measure. I'm have a Mechanical Engineering background, but have been messing around with computers since I got my first Macintosh Performa 400 ~1992 and work on open-source software in my free time.

I have been taking things apart and occasionally trying to figure out how to put them back together for as long as I can remember, starting with a VCR I took apart while my parents were out to dinner when I was five. I have a firm belief that you don't need to know how everything in life works, but it's nice to learn as much as you can, and I enjoy trying to understand how the things around me operate at a basic level. I'm trying hard to be a 'jack of all trades, master of none': I mess around with everything from home construction down to designing and programming my own electronics and IoT devices.

I enjoy experimenting with projects from the ground up doing as much as I can myself, trying to teach myself as much as I can along the way. I am not ashamed to admit I rely heavily on Google and various online forums for inspiration and assistance, and I want to recognize anyone who has ever shared the details of their work online for others to use. Building on others that have come before me is how I've learned as much as I have.

As mentioned, I work on the software side of things all in my spare time to make use of it myself, and share what I can back to the FOSS community. If something I've worked on has helped you, please consider making a donation to help support more of my "free time" going to work on these projects.