About me

raidz started as my AOL screen name in fifth grade. It was summer, ants were everyone’s enemy, and I’m pretty sure I spotted a can of Raid bug spray at home. I added a z, thought it was cool, and kept using it.

For better or for worse, the name stuck. The storage connection is a coincidence.

My mom went to the same lake as a kid, and I grew up going every summer. Now we have a cabin there that I can share with my own family.

I love hanging out on the deck, heading into town, spending time at the beach, and improving the cabin. It’s my sanctuary and a slower way of living, with fiber internet, backup Starlink, and an office for when work calls.

I wired the cabin and built a server rack for the systems there. Automations cover water shutoff and temperature, along with travel conditions and nearby fire warnings.

Before tech, I spent seven years moving furniture. I enjoyed it. It taught me hard work, the value of a dollar, and how to work with people from all walks of life. It also got me into refinishing furniture, something I still enjoy when I have time.

I originally planned to become a firefighter and keep computers as a hobby. I chose technology as a career because I wanted to keep exploring it. Both paths appealed to me for the same reason: helping people and fixing problems.

I collect knives for their design and materials, and I customize titanium handles through anodizing. I like working on hardware, tweaking systems, and finding ways to make things work together.

Personal projects can keep me experimenting for a long time. Family and friends are good at telling me when something is already good enough. Sometimes I listen.

I archive and restore family video from the 1980s and ’90s. I use AI and other restoration tools carefully, aiming for how the recordings might have looked with better equipment at the time.

Faces should still look like the people in the footage. Trees and grass should keep their natural detail. I care about preserving the character of those recordings as much as improving the picture.

Porcupine Tree is my favorite band, and Steven Wilson is my favorite artist. Haken and Caligula’s Horse are regulars, too. Prog rock and prog metal are a big part of my life.

Getting our first family computer opened up more information than I knew what to do with. I could follow a question as far as my curiosity took me. I still learn that way, reading about something until I want to try it for myself.

I read about history and current events, following whatever subject catches my interest. I want to understand how decisions shaped what happened, especially the consequences people didn’t expect.