About

If you’re here, you’re likely curious about me. Why this page? Life is short, and if it helps someone connect over shared interests, that’s a win. This page also serves as a sort of ever-evolving auto-biography. See something interesting? Have questions? I’d love to hear from you!

Hobbies & interests

Some things that inspire me, in no particular order!

Technology (fascinated by retro systems and obsolete protocols)
Urbanism (with a focus on liveability, walkability, and transit)
Listening to music (all genre, but tend towards progressive rock and metal)
Playing music (drums, though nowadays mostly guitar)
Travelling (visited 16+ countries, 60+ flights)
Photography (usually a Pentax K-50 with a 35mm lens)
Learning about new topics and novel scientific findings
Hiking, rock climbing, and spending time in nature (or in botanical gardens)

Assorted fun facts

It’s like two truths one lie, except I’m only listing truths! Again in no particular order.

Came across someone I know by chance while solo travelling in Montenegro.
Walked the 15km of roads and highway interchanges separating Brussels and its airport.
Did some urban exploration photography, breaking into abandoned factories and schools.
Piloted an airplane while the pilot was busy taking video footage.
Traveled to Europe (and missed school) primarily to see a one-off music show.
Slept overnight in a Walmart parking lot.
Hitchhiked and was picked up by a former Navy in the north of Japan.
Reliably traced my lineage in two direction going back to the early 1600s.
Organising and tracking my life in a large notebook (3,200+ notes worth of information).
First computer owned was a Pentium 3 machine with 64MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive.

Favorite media

Everything listed below, I could re-listen / re-read / re-play / re-watch over and over again!

Music

Ayreon
Between the Buried and Me
The Dear Hunter
Haken
Leprous
The Pineapple Thief
Porcupine Tree
Rush
Tool
Yes

Books

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Harry Potter (series)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (series)
The Little Prince (in French)
The Lord of the Rings (series)
Nineteen Eighty-Four

Video games

Age of Empires II
BioShock
Deep Rock Galactic
Factorio
Final Fantasy (series)
Outer Wilds
Stardew Valley
Trials of Mana

Films

Airplane!
Back to the Future (series)
The Breakfast Club
The Dark Knight (series)
The Lord of the Rings (series)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Soul
Star Wars (series)

Series

Adventure Time
Freaks and Geeks
Futurama
Game of Thrones

Anime

Angel Beats!
Bakemonogatari (series)
Clannad
Kaguya-sama: Love is War
Nichijou
Spy x Family
Toradora!

Brief timeline

Here’s a very brief timeline of major events of my life. Non-exhaustive, of course!

Growing up

1994 (0y): Born in Québec (QC).
1997 (3y): Moved near Shédiac (NB), where I’d stay for much of the next 20+ years.
1999 (5y): Started attending school.
2001 (7y): Got my first computer (a beat-up Pentium 3 machine). Learned HTML and made my first “websites” (coded entirely in Microsoft Notepad!)
2004 (10y): Around this point, I wanted to become an astronaut and got very interested in everything space-related.
2005 (11y): Started learning English more in-depth.
2006 (12y): Started playing drums, getting my first ever kit (an Alesis DM5-based one).
2007 (13y): Also started playing guitar. Coincidentally, the Taylor I went on to aquire a decade later was built that same year. Learned C++ and got into programmation as a hobby.
2008 (14y): Graduaded from middle school and started highschool. Got into photography as a hobby. At this point I thought I’d get into robotics or electronics as a career.
2010 (16y): Attended my first LAN party. Later that year, I would host my own, a yearly tradition I kept up with friends for the following 11 years before moving out of the province.
2011 (17y): Started learning Japanese on and off.

Entering university

2012 (18y): Graduated from highschool, moved to Québec (QC) alone to attend Université Laval in software engineering. Boarded my first ever flight (a two-seater Cessna 140).
2014 (20y): Transferred university to Mount Allison University in NB (for a variety of reasons) to pursue computer science. Went to the USA for the first time. Climbed my first 5k+ ft mountain (Mount Katahdin in ME, a hair short from being an ultra). Went skydiving. Attended my first big convention, PAX East in Boston, MA.
2015 (21y): Took my first ever (commercial) flights, visiting university friends in Calgary (AB), Banff (AB), Los Angeles (CA), and Montreal (QC).
2016 (22y): Hired for my first summer tech internship, at EMC Corporation.
2017 (23y): Spent 3 weeks travelling Western Europe as my first truly solo trip (and first time being outside North America). Completed a second summer internship at EMC (now acquired by Dell). Flew out to Mountain View (CA) for interviews with Google.

Starting my career

2018 (24y): Graduated from university, spent 3 weeks in the Balkans solo, and started working at Dell EMC full time.
2019 (25y): Did trips to Boston (MA), Seattle (WA), Vancouver (BC), and spent 2 weeks in the UK solo.
2020 (26y): Accepted an offer to work at Google in their developer relations team. Really got into Final Fantasy XIV while everyone was stuck home. Did a lot of local roadtrips in NB.
2021 (27y): Started working on and released XIV ToDo. Relocated to Waterloo (ON) to work from the Google office in-person.
2022 (28y): Visited New York (NY) for the first time.
2023 (29y): Started rock climbing. Attended my first tech conference as a staff worker, Google Cloud Next in San Francisco (CA).
2024 (30y): Started getting back into travelling, doing trips to Vancouver (BC), Montreal (QC), Boston (MA), Salt Lake City (UT), and spending 3 weeks in Japan. Released a fully revamped version of my website (you’re reading it now!)