• August, 1986
Born in Arlington, Washington. Spent most of my childhood between playing videogames and hacking shit up in the forest with a machete.
• October, 2004
I began training Aikido at Tsubaki Shrine of America. This was probably the greatest life-altering decision I ever made.
• June , 2005
Graduated from Arlington High School.
• September, 2005
Entered Western Washington University. I wasn't really interested in school by that point but I went through the motions because I thought I was supposed to. I chose chemistry as my major.
• June, 2008
The summer after my sophomore year I got a job as an intern in the laboratory in one of the local oil refineries (ConocoPhillips at Ferndale, WA). This ate up any remaining time I wasn't actively in school and I was promised a full-time job upon graduation if I was interested.
• December 29th, 2008
With six months left to go in my college career, I took a look at my bank account and realized I had saved up enough money from working to ride out the rest of the school year sans refinery. I thus quit and lived the remainder of my school days in ease.
• June, 2009
I graduated from Western Washington University with a Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry and minors in Japanese and classical Greek. If you think that's weird I'll add that I studied Sanskrit for a year, too.
• July, 2009
I became uchi deshi (something like "live-in student") for my Aikido Sensei at the shrine for six months.
• January, 2010
My time as uchi deshi ended and I spent the next five months driving around between Bellingham, Arlington, Granite Falls, Everett, and Seattle doing Aikido, parkour, and going hiking, what the average individual would probably consider doing nothing.
• May, 2010
I sold my car, packed up a small amount of necessities, gave away anything that was too much of a hassle to deal with, and bought a one-way plane ticket to Vermont to stay with some buddies on a whim.
• October, 2010
I had found two jobs in Vermont: delivering pizzas and teaching math and chemistry at a private high school for girls who play ice hockey. I'm serious. That actually exists..
• March, 2011
With my teaching job coming to a close in Vermont, I realized I was getting bored there. Instead of going back home to Washington, I decided to go even further and bought a one-way plane ticket to Europe.