Personal
Raised in a mechanic's shop in the San Gabriel Valley. Still taking things apart — though these days I usually get them back together.
The short version
Born at Whittier Hospital and raised in West Covina, in a part of town that taught me a few things early. My parents later moved us one city over to Walnut.
My father was an automotive mechanic, so I spent my summers and most afternoons after school in his shop. It started with sweeping the garage. Then tire rotations. Then the occasional oil change. Eventually engine and transmission pulls, valve adjustments, and full rebuilds. That shop is where I became a tinkerer.
It came with a cost. As a kid I'd take apart anything in the house to see how it worked, and I almost never got it back together. Something that had been working perfectly well would sit in pieces until my dad found time to fix it.
My mother wanted me to become a doctor. I split the difference and took a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering — close enough to medicine for her, close enough to machines for me. These days my spare energy goes into personal projects and building a consulting practice of my own.
A watch lets me watch time pass. A photograph lets me keep a piece of it. Most of what I'm drawn to sits somewhere between those two.
Interests
Watches
It's the mechanics of the thing — an engine small enough to wear. And the fact that you can actually watch time pass on your wrist. There's a beauty in that.
Cars
Cars have personalities. They feel like living things to me — pure, raw, and no two of them the same.
Motorcycles
A different kind of creature altogether. Their own beauty, their own experience, nothing else quite like being on one.
Racing
Drifting, Formula 1, MotoGP. The chase and the battle are the obvious part; the strategy each team runs underneath it is the rest. MotoGP is the purest thrill of the three.
Photography
Learned it from my father — another tinkerer, who shot film and later a Canon 5D Mark III, and took extraordinary photos with both. Landscape, cityscape, and astrophotography are where I've landed. A photo holds a moment that will never happen again.
Hiking & Travel
Adventure, mostly. Seeing more places widens how I see everything else — and nature is worth the trip on its own terms.
Snowboarding
My friends dragged me into it and I fell for it hard. Closest thing I've found to drifting a car, except you're drifting on the earth itself.
A few things about me
I started in my dad's shop sweeping floors and worked my way up to full engine rebuilds before I was out of school.
As a kid I dismantled working household items purely to see inside them, and left a trail of things my father had to reassemble.
My mom wanted a doctor in the family. Biomedical engineering was my compromise, and I'd argue I honored the spirit of it.
Everything I know about a camera came from my father and his film bodies — I just pointed them at mountains and stars instead of people.
I describe snowboarding as drifting on earth, and I stand by it.