I've been meaning to build a personal website for years. Genuinely — years. I'm a software engineer, which means I'm professionally equipped to do this, and also means I've had every excuse not to. Too busy. Not sure what to say. Waiting until I had something worth saying.
That last one is a trap, by the way. You're always waiting until you have something worth saying, and then the years go by and you realize you had things worth saying the whole time — you just didn't write them down.
I'm a born and raised Angeleno. I've watched this city change, stayed when others left, and found myself more attached to it than I expected. I'm a husband of almost thirteen years, which sounds like a long time until you're in it and realize it's gone both slowly and impossibly fast. I'm a dad to two kids who are eight and six, and who are — I say this without bias — extraordinary small humans.
I've also had a hard couple of years. I'm not going to get into all of it right now, but I want to acknowledge it because I don't want this site to be a highlight reel. The internet has enough of those. I want to write about the real stuff — the joy and the difficulty and the in-between. The music that got me through things. The moments with my kids that I want to remember. The thoughts I have at midnight that feel important and might be wrong.
So here we are. Hello, world.
I built this site because I wanted a place that was mine — not a social media profile designed by someone else's algorithm, not a LinkedIn page optimized for recruiters. Just a place where I can think out loud and share what I'm into and tell the occasional story about being a Cowboys fan in a city full of people who find that confusing.
I don't know how often I'll write. I don't have a content calendar. But I'll be here, and I'll be honest, and if something I write resonates with you, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks for stopping by.
— Stephen