I was at work, but I got a patent on an antenna that is used to jam cell signals so that explosives experts could stay safe disarming IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was more compact than previous antennas that stuck up really high, making the guy with the radio a target for snipers. Or they would fold them up to get through doorways making them less efficient. I have no idea what happened to them but I came up with the concept, designed them, simulated them, built them, tested them and even shipped five of them myself. One of the best programs I had working for the man. I sincerely hope I might have contributed to saving a life.

I made this halloween costume out of scrap from a hospital demo I’ve been doing and I’m pretty happy about it.

I made a charging station/toolbox/catch tray thing out of cardboard to set on my nightstand and put all my pocket stuff in. Going to test that out for awhile and redo it in wood once I’ve confirmed I’m happy with it.

It was ridiculously expensive, I could have built an RTX 5090 gaming system for the money… in 2025. But what is the fun in that? (Almost) anyone ready to shill out that money can do that. I enjoy projects where I can design and build something to my own specifications, something that ends up being more or less unique, yet functional.

So I built a 7.5 L small form factor PC based on a Strix Halo with the best iGPU on the market (with RTX 4060 levels of performance), completely fanless, operating at 100W TDP sustained for CPU and GPU combined. This was rather nerve wrecking given the investment and how it could have easily ended up as paper weight or with my custom cooling solution just being not up for the job, as the first prototype is also the final thing. But it worked and that’s why I am pretty proud at it, even if it means something only to me.

https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/monochrome-2-my-custom-fanless-7-5-l-strix-halo-system-completed.20177/

Once made a game on my calculator. Not uploaded from my computer, literally typed it in and developed it on the calculator. Had to do some optimization and everything to get it to run reasonably since this wasn’t a very advanced system. It was a pretty simple game about flying a spaceship through an asteroid field, with collectables that blew up all the asteroids onscreen, and your score was how far you flew. It was just nice to actually finish a project for once, and on such limited hardware, and have it actually be fun to play!

https://remocon.tv/
It is a platform that lets people control robots from anywhere in the world in real time, with a live camera feed and everything. There is an API so people can upload their own robots and have others control them.

I contributed to this animation collaboration project over the course of several months. I worked on maybe 3 or 4 separate pieces, and the final product turned out incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vsMHNTQMDU

A few cool things I made of my own volition didn’t even make it in, like a power-fist attachment I modeled and rigged up, and a custom bootup screen animation for the computers.

Although, one main piece I worked on required redoing it like 3 times to get it right. The model we used for reference had a lot of very complex and challenging shapes. :)

It was super rewarding, at a time when I had a brief window where I quit the awful job I was in and could dedicate myself to being a 3D artist. I learned a LOT, collaborating with so many (~40-50?) artists from all over the world.

I received a lot of praise for being able to take feedback and critique well, because I didn’t lose spirit when being told “Your second attempt at this part still isn’t up to quality yet.”

I also received a commendation for going above and beyond, because I designed the rifle grip myself! (The reference model just attaches the rifle to the arm, but we wanted him to hold it.) It was a challenge designing something that looked like it belonged in the design and fit the hand the other artists designed for it.

I make music and I’m occasionally pretty happy with some of my guitar playing.

It’s no longer online in order to minimize data exposure, but during some major wildfires a decade ago, a small city was evacuated with my city being the nearest safe place to be (~4 hours away), so I built a site within a couple of hours to let people with spare rooms offer space to evacuees. For nearly a week I became the place to find vetted information about resources for everything an evacuee needed to know. It took the province and Red Cross 4-5 days to get their systems up and running so I was an important stop gap. I’ve since devised a system for evacuee information that I can deploy in less than an hour (it’s always running, but I confirm data for each deployment to make sure links and phone numbers are still valid).

Many moons ago I had the good fortune to get a contract job creating an online tournament system for a game company. When I asked if there was a requirements document or a spec they said, “The only spec is: we need a tournament system.” It was totally my kind of project - I had carte blanche to do it however I wanted. What I came up with was way beyond expectations. I got a letter of commendation from a small game company in Utah that produced games for them. We field-tested it in a couple actual game tournaments and it worked great. Sadly, for unrelated business reasons my system ended up never being used, but it’s still the project I’m most proud of because I pulled it off almost singlehandedly.

My name is on a plaque (along with dozens of others) attached to the Nancy Grace Roman telescope that just launched. I don’t think I’ll ever top that. I also had a hand in building the primary mirrors for JWST, seeing images come back from it has been incredibly rewarding! Working in aerospace definitely has its awesome moments, despite being “just a job” most of the time.

Something I’m still proud of was a diorama I made in 5th grade for Halloween. It was called the “Peanut House of Horror” and featured dried peanuts with little googly eyes being disassembled in every conceivable way on cardboard torture devices — think a stretcher rack pulling one in half, a “pit and the pendulum” device slicing into one, etc. with peanut shells all over the floor. My parents supported the creativity and humor. Other parents, not so much. But to paraphrase John Waters, you need to possess good taste to appreciate poor taste.

Years ago I was asked to make a website to educate the public and promote a campaign to bring back a formerly-declared-extinct species.

There were scientists, zoologists, researchers and volunteers in the field who did the REAL work. I had the easy part.

But when the website was launched, I received ‘thank you’ emails from all over the world. Reading all of those letters was one of the most rewarding feelings.

And the best part . . . Though it’s still a threatened species (I’m told recovery potential is strong), today there are more than 500 of these animals living in the wild.

A free mobile game “Wandering Alchemist” I’ve released on both Android and iOS. Free as in offline, no ads, no in-app purchases (Besides a fully optional “support the developer”). It’s a GPS walking game where you gather ingredients, brew potions, sell them to merchants and decorate your neighborhood.

On some days it’s awesome, on other days I ask myself why I do this to myself. But overall it’s fun :)

I’m currently working on a big update that reworks all the visuals, a lot of them are still from early on and look really shoddy. For example before and after:

Google Play Store

Apple App Store

Back in the 90s, we bought an 87 year old house that had been neglected for decades, but the neglect was what we liked. That meant that nobody had “upgraded” or modernized it.

We spent the next 7 years renovating it, fixing every wall, repairing plumbing, installing a cast-iron woodburning stove, etc.

When we were done, we had turned the ugliest house on the street into a museum piece, and sold it for far more than any house on the street had ever sold for.