my interests
I love working in tech, but I’m also into plenty of other things. A few:
[1] I love visual culture, and always have. I shoot 35mm film for fun. I mainline great movies, new and old. I dig for good design work, good ad creative, interesting fashion design, compelling art. My visual sensibility really informs my work.
Here’s a pic I shot on my vintage Olympus XA on Ilford HP5 film at Versailles:
[2] I really enjoy learning about deep technical concepts. I will happily read a whitepaper or play around with coding something for fun. I’m equally interested in hardware and engineering (I watch automotive and aviation engineering videos on Youtube for fun all the time). I love space. I can nerd out on all this shit.
[3] I’m a lifelong dancer. I grew up doing competitive highland dancing. These days I do a lot of heels dance.
[4] I think a lot about cultivating feminine energy as a practice, particularly when working in a ‘masculine’ field (I mean that in the energetic, eastern ‘yin/yang’ sense, not as a politicized commentary on ’the patriarchy,’ nor as some Andrew-Tate-ified ’trad’ view of the world.) I’m currently really interested in Jungian thought on anima/animus, and the work of Marion Woodman. I’ll probably write more about this soon, but suffice to say this is a huge area of philosophical interest for me. Few people seem to grapple with it at any level of depth, though I think there’s a lot of juicy exploration to undertake here.
[5] I’ve always loved perfume, and after a recent trip to Paris really re-ignited that obsession for me, I gave in and started indulging it more. I collect perfume, I love to learn about it (it’s really quite complex, artistic, and creative – you can go as deep on perfume as you can on wine!), and I write about it a little on a perfume blog I have. I’m also building a perfume app for collectors. I’ll share more on that soon.
[6] I’m passionate about animal rescue. I have two beloved FeLV+ cats who I adopted from The Meow Foundation in Calgary. Prior to this I had an FIV+ cat with kidney disease named Flash, who was an older guy. I adopted him through the Cat Rescue and Therapy Society in Vancouver. And before him, I had an older cat named Booboo from the Calgary Humane Society. I warmly encourage anyone who’s inclined to adopt an animal to consider senior animals, and/or those with manageable special needs. They’re so often overlooked, needlessly. My current cats are bonded brothers, they’re super happy and healthy, and they waited over a year for adoption. If you have any questions about adopting and caring for seniors and/or special needs cats, by all means please reach out to me.
[7] Lastly, I really love Formula 1. I’m pretty good at F1 Fantasy. Like, in the top ~0.5% of people who play globally. This fact is embarrassing but true and I’m always delighted to nerd out with other people who are also into it.