Background
If you've made it this far, you've likely already noticed I'm a software engineer, web developer, maker, and YouTube content creator. I started my engineering journey at Iowa State pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. A year and a half in, I took an introduction to MATLAB course, which had us "programming" games and simulations using the MATLAB language, and I was hooked! The next semester I switched to a software engineering degree and never looked back.
Somewhere along that path, I became interested in web development, and a friend and I started the Web Development club at Iowa State, of which I became the president in the club's second year. This interest helped me to secure a job at Iowa State as a student web developer for the Admissions department, which introduced me to PHP and expanded my professional web development experience. Shortly after taking the job at Iowa State, I was hired as a web developer at Saltech Systems, which is a growing ColdFusion web development company in Ames. Again, the professional experience I gained both in web development and client communications during this job has proven to be extremely valuable in my career.
In 2017, I graduated from Iowa State and continued working for Saltech Systems for a few months until I accepted a position as an embedded software engineer at John Deere. After 3 years at John Deere, I accepted a position as a Software Engineer at a “small” company called Workiva in Ames, IA, where I still work. Well, I should say I work from home in sweatpants, but Workiva pays me…
Modern Hobbyist
Despite the variety of jobs I've had, there is always one more thing that I'd like to try, or one more hobby I want to deposit some time into. Web Development, video game development, Arduino projects, 3d printing, triathlons, sports... too many hobbies to count, really. This constant restlessness, combined with COVID lockdown, has provided me with the time and motivation to put a little more energy into some of these hobbies I had been neglecting.
Enter Modern Hobbyist.
In early 2020, I created my Modern Hobbyist YouTube channel to help document some of my projects so I can share them with the world. While I have several goals I'd like to accomplish with the Modern Hobbyist "brand", the overall goal has always been to share the projects I create. The way I see it, I'm going to spend time making electronics, 3d printing stuff, developing websites, and who knows what else anyways, so why not try to share my projects and see where this channel takes me!
Currently my channel focuses primarily on 3d printing and electronics, but as my interests are all over the place, who knows which direction the channel will go. In the end, as long as I'm enjoying my hobbies and enjoying making videos of my hobbies, I'll keep outputting content for my viewers to enjoy, and hopefully we'll all learn something in the process!
Other Hobbies
As a man with too many interests, I find myself drawn to trying new things outside my comfort zone. It was this calling that caused me to sign up for a triathlon in 2017, a sport that I had never tried before. My whole life I have been a sprinter, and anything over 1 mile was completely foreign to me. In college I took the academic route so I fell out of shape, and out of touch with sports. Realizing how chubby I had gotten and how much I missed competition, I signed up for my first triathlon and began training. Converting my body to an endurance-type was a long, grueling, and still-in-progress process, but once I crossed the finish line I was hooked. The whole event was amazing, from the actual swimming-biking-running, to the crowd cheering me on and the bananas and Gatorade after. I left my very first race already having decided I was doing more, and since then I have completed 7. If you have never "tried a tri" I would strongly recommend it, the community was incredibly friendly and welcoming, and the rush of completing it was totally worth the work put in. Plus, you may even lose a few pounds and end up healthier than you started!
Triathlons I have done:
University of Okoboji Homecoming Triathlon (4x)
Ames Triathlon (3x)
A Look Into My Life
