E-Miner

I am an enigma: raised in the woods by loving blue collar parents and extended family, but socialized near high society. I swear like a sailor and know what spoon to use for soup. I listen to Björk while driving a tractor. I do fine woodwork, bake artisanal bread, wire a bonsai, solder a circuit, then rebuild my Scirocco engine. There are too many pursuits in life to focus on just one thing: fine cooking, fermenting, preserving, mushroom hunting, photography, horticulture, gardening, bonsai, woodworking, sailing, philosophizing, writing, piano playing, amateur radio, conquering of complex electromechanical systems, legit adventuring, gold prospecting, conservationing, greenhouse managing, lusting after other careers in geology or forestry, traveling, tripping, and sharing love. I am a connoisseur of all ways of cooking my soul via hot tub, sauna, or hot spring. I am a lover of ice cold plunges. I worship at the alter of mind expanding and consciousness altering experiences. I am turned on by technology and antiquity. The best workouts end in firewood.

I grew up in the Alta – Dutch Flat area of California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, lived in a cabin accessible only by snowmobile and skis in Truckee, then migrated to the Great Central Valley for school and work in agriculture. This mountain boy has had brief stints living in Florence, Italy and Madrid, Spain. When it comes to cities, I actually don’t mind urban life with robust public transportation; cities are miserable when they are built around exurban sprawl. But I am most at home when I am deep in the woods; I can’t navigate streets with signs to save my life, but damnit I know what gnarled cedar tree to turn left at after the big granite rock when I’m 12 miles out on a forest service road at midnight. Don’t forget your chainsaw and tow rope, kids. I am old enough to have learned chemical photography and remember the mimeograph and the overhead projectors in my K-8th grade school; I am young enough to think traveling to Vietnam is a pretty good idea.

I believe in practicality and respect: respect for the individual, respect for humanity, and respect for the natural world, so you’ll find I embody ideologies that do not fit cleanly into binary political categories. I have a hunch most people are this way; experience proves it. Public land access and conservation are important to me, but I don’t think that one way of using land is more righteous than another, again, as long is respect is the mindset. There is as much space for hunters in my world as there is for hikers, provided either isn’t trashing the land they are benefiting from. Keep it low key, keep it classy, keep it respectful. There is room for everyone.

Professionally, I am a greenhouse manager, builder, and horticulturalist working in the ag tech space and have recently gone freelance. I’ve worked in the public sector, at a breakneck Silicon Valley ag tech startup, and at a medium sized scientific research startup. Leaving the startup hype space recently has been one of the greatest decisions, as now I can focus on work that has substance.

Growing up in a house under construction with a carpenter father and near my gear-head uncles has been a huge advantage in my life and career, as has learning the intricate horticulture, cooking, sewing, and other skills of my mother and aunts.

Dirt bags are my people and there is nothing like connecting with the other rare creatures – rugged intellectuals – out there who dare live on the fringe and center their lives around creativity and art. The more people I meet in this world, the more I have learned that an expression of humanity, a proactive hello, and an earnest handshake unlock the door to shared experience and gratitude. The hardest attitudes melt and the grizzliest people show their heart. I love all people, as long as they love back. I am learning to love those who don’t love back.