A Little Bit About Me

Besides design, here are a few things I like to do in my free time.

Hiking

I've been a pretty avid hiker for the last 10 years or so. I also occasionally backpack but that is limited with work. After covid, since I was able to work remote, I spent a year and a half staying in Airbnbs and traveling around the US and Canada. So I was able to see a lot great places and do a lot of great hikes. Yet there is always more to do.

One of my goals, which still might take a while is to visit all the US and Canadian national parks. Right now I've been to 46 of the 63 US national parks. While it sort of seems like a lot, I mostly have the hard ones to go. Those that require a boat or plane to access. So I'll get them eventually but might not be finishing this list anytime soon.

A lot of people ask what's my favorite national park so far, and that's such a tough thing to answer. Many are so different from each other it's hard to compare. But if I have to here are a couple of my most and least favorite to date, in no particlar order.

Favorite US National Parks
Least Favorite US National Parks
USA National Park Pass

Some of my favorite international hikes have been:

West Coast Trail in British Columbia. Not the easeist one to do as the ticket system is pretty tough to get selected but a great experience. Slipping and sliding over duck boards, mud, and slippery ocean rocks. Think it only rained one day but it was wet and slippery the whole way. What you'd expect from a cold weather rainforest.

Salkantay Trek - So many good ones in Peru, but this was pretty memorable, as it was my first time at that kind of elevation and I did it solo in two pretty long days. The first of which was epic, and then you get to visit Machu Picchu to end it.

Ring Road - All things Iceland are great. A couple summers ago, got to spend a week camping and driving around Iceland, taking in all the waterfalls and everything else the island had to offer.

There are so many more I want to do, not worth trying to list them all.

Running & Cycling

Doing the work I do, you spend a ton of time staring at screens. And so, I try to do things to stay in half decent shape. I've on again off again been into both cycling and running for 6 years or so.

The longest ride I've done was Ragbrai, the ride across Iowa. I'd actually never been to Iowa and in my question to hit all 50 states (just 1 to go), this is the perfect way to experience all the corn and soy and more corn fields of Iowa.

Real Estate Investing

My other interest outside of design is real estate investing. I bought my first rental in 2015 and like to aquire more when I have the money and/or time to do so. Currently, I've been looking around San Antonio for fixers to turn into rentals.

In the summer of '24 I went to Little Rock, Arkansas and spent the summer rehabbing a house that really needed some work. It was only built in 1990 so not super old but the previous owner probably hasn't cleaned since 1990, and it had been vacant for a while. Cochroach and mouse poop everywhere. But after a couple month and a lot of cleaning and paint, it ended up turning out pretty well.

I'm not sure if I'll do that again but it was nice to get the experience. Probably now just pay other people to do all the work.

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