My Hobbies
A lot of my personal interests circle the same idea as my work: worlds, systems, tools, and the joy of figuring out how something is put together.
Games and systems
Gaming is still one of the easiest ways to explain how my brain works. I like games that give you a world, a set of rules, and enough freedom to create your own problems inside them. RuneScape was the first one that really pulled me in, but that same interest shows up in Escape from Tarkov, World of Warcraft, Total War, city builders, and the classic Battlefield and Call of Duty games.
Some of my favorite gaming now is much slower and more shared. My wife was not always a gamer, so playing two-player games together has been a fun shift. It gets me out of my usual habits and reminds me how good couch co-op can feel when the point is just being in the same world together for a while.
Server bench
My home server runs Proxmox, and I spin up Ubuntu VMs for tools, experiments, and whatever technical rabbit hole I am in at the time.
Old worlds
A lot of my creative taste leans medieval: knights, castles, old worlds, political drama, big maps, strange houses, and stories that feel like they existed before the camera showed up.
Making things someday
I keep circling back to the idea of making a game or a short film someday. Both are intimidating because the final result hides how many disciplines are underneath it: writing, design, programming, modeling, editing, sound, pacing, and a thousand small production choices.
Becoming a parent has changed the center of gravity for all of this in the best way. My son is almost two, and being outside with him brings me back to the same kind of discovery I loved as a kid. Watching him notice the world makes ordinary places feel new again. He lights up my world.