Life Beyond Code

Training since I was five years old. Martial arts taught me discipline, patience, and the value of fundamentals long before I ever touched a keyboard. The parallels to software are everywhere: you drill the basics until they're automatic, you spar to test your understanding, and mastery is measured in decades, not sprints.

Over ten thousand jumps. There's a clarity you find at altitude that's hard to replicate anywhere else. Skydiving demands absolute presence—you can't be distracted at 13,000 feet. It also teaches you to manage risk methodically: assess conditions, trust your training, commit to the plan, and have a contingency.

There's a meditative quality to riding—the road demands your full attention and rewards it with a sense of freedom and flow. Long rides are where some of my best architectural ideas have taken shape, free from screens and notifications.

Building tangible things with your hands after a career of building intangible things with your mind. Woodworking has no undo button—you measure twice and commit. The patience it demands is its own reward, and the results outlast any codebase.

The study and collection of timepieces. A mechanical watch is one of the most complex micro-machines ever devised—hundreds of parts working in concert to measure something we can't see. There's an engineering elegance in horology that resonates with anyone who's designed complex systems.

Music and DJing are about reading the room and building a narrative over time—skills that translate directly to technical presentations and team leadership. There's something deeply satisfying about mixing tracks that weren't designed to work together and finding the transition that makes them feel inevitable.