Facts and Hobbies

Hobbies

  • Photography - wildlife and urban. I have a small collection of lenses and a drone. See Samples!..

  • Stories. Gripping stories of any kind, from documentaries to sci-fi, from books to games. I wrote my own sci-fi novel!

  • Exploration. I enjoy places that subvert my expectations. The bottomless source of such places had been nature trails, informal architecture, back streets, empty roads, and hidden alleys.

Sport Teams

I enjoy getting my heart broken by the following teams:

  • Minnesota Vikings

  • Minnesota Wild

  • Minnesota Timberwolves

  • Minnesota United FC

  • Gophers Football Team

I had no sporting affiliations when I came to study architecture at the University of Minnesota. While I could have chosen to support ANY OTHER TEAM, my Minnesota friends made it clear that that was not an option. Now I’m in too deep to back out, and I dragged my fiancee in it too.

Cat Sage - QA Department

80% fluff, 20% claws.

Responsibilities:

  • Knock over the recycling bin, scatter the contents.

  • Eat flowers.

  • Knock all pens and pencils off the table.

  • Find something inaccessible. Fit in it.

  • During Zoom calls, get on camera.

  • If all fails, MEOW.

Secret Resume

Potato Farmer | 1994-2012

  • Thrower. The sequence of manual potato planting is as follows: dig a hole, throw a potato in it, and bury the potato. I was a toddler and I could not operate a shovel since it was twice my height. Thus my job was to throw potatoes in the hole. I missed a lot and kept throwing the adults off the digging rhythm. My aiming struggles continued on the basketball court in high school.

  • Picker. The sequence of manual potato harvesting is as follows: dig a bush, lift it on the shovel, pick potatoes, throw the bush away, and bury the hole. I was still too short for a shovel, so I picked the potatoes.

  • Digger. Somebody broke a shovel in half. It was given to me, along with the promotion. I was quickly demoted, as I could not stick the shovel in the ground deep enough.

  • Beatle Exterminator. We frequently had problems with Colorado Potato Beatle. I had to collect bugs in a jar and destroy them. I suspect the job was given to me just to keep me busy.

  • Fertilizer collector. Adults would drive a truck to a common kettle field. I would jump off the moving truck, scoop the dung, throw it into a barrel, then jump back on the truck. Easily the most fun I had at a job.

  • Fertilizer Engineer. Once the barrel was full of dung, we needed to make it the right consistency by adding water. My job was to mix it all with a long stick. Easily the least fun I had at a job.

Warehouse Loader | 2003

  • Once I grew sufficiently bulky, I became capable of carrying heavy stuff. My job was to load and unload trucks. The first money I’ve ever made doing anything. The money was promptly confiscated by authorities (parents) to buy salami.

IT Freelancer | 2003-2012

  • I received my first computer when I was a teen. I quickly defeated parental hardware and software protection to play games. The skills acquired were then used to repair computers and solve software problems of others, including, ironically, my parents. Even gaming skills were later useful when Enscape and Lumion took hold in the architectural industry.

Graphic Designer | 2008-2012

  • In-between gaming sessions, I learned Adobe Suite. I did a fair amount of posters. Doing one of them, I promised the client to “revise until he was satisfied.” I learned to never promise such folly again.

Mock-Up Designer | 2009

  • My college friend and I did a few commercial mock-ups. No laser-cutter in sight, only grueling manual cutting. It wasn’t too bad until we got to cutting trusses.

Tutor | 2008-present day

  • I tutored a wide range of subjects, from high-school math to architectural software. Once, my client could not defeat an equation and threw the study book over our heads. The study book flew into the ceiling fan and exploded, which did not solve the equation either. Nonetheless, the client later successfully passed the entry exam to Minneapolis Community College.

  • In the US, tutoring transformed into lunch & learns for my colleagues where I taught SketchUp, 3ds Max, Revit, Enscape, Lumion, Photoshop, and Illustrator among other things.

Technology Advocate | 2009 - present day

  • When I began my Bachelor’s program, computer-generated drawings were not accepted and were considered cheating. Our generation was among the first to successfully push for CGI and CAD to be accepted alongside watercoloring and pencil drawings. This experience was later used to transition the firm from Kerythea to V-Ray, and later from V-Ray to Enscape. I’m always on the lookout for a more efficient way to do my job.