How did you land in Cook County?  What journey led you here?
I grew up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and moved to Seattle for the nice weather when I graduated from high school.  A college education, some tech jobs, and a marriage & divorce later, I decided that I wanted to come back to Minnesota and be near my family.  By then, my dad and one of my aunts had moved to Grand Marais, so I moved here in Autumn of 2020.  

We have heard some pretty amazing things about you volunteering at The Hub to provide tech support for the community.  Will you tell us a bit how you became involved with this?   What days and hours are you there at the Hub?
Come to The Hub on most Tuesday afternoons, between 1:00pm and 3:30pm!  If your laptop, iPad, phone, Kindle, app, webpage, or whatever tech thing is acting up (or if you just need help understanding something), come pull up a chair and tell me about the problem.  I’ll do my best to explain, fix, and commiserate.  Help happens first-come, first-served, and if you need a longer or guaranteed session, I am available for hire.  

Jake (John Jacobsen) has been doing volunteer tech support for folks on Friday afternoons at The Hub for a while, and in early 2024, he had to miss several sessions.  Chris Bautch asked if I would like to substitute for him (since I had demonstrated my tech skills a few times while hanging around at the Hub), and I agreed to.  I enjoyed the volunteering, so when Jake returned, I added another day to the weekly tech support schedule.  

Has technology always been a passion of yours?  
I have been using drawing software since the early-1990s, and I started programming in the late 1990s.  The first things I programmed that weren’t just copied from the manuals, were fractals.  These are mathematical images that have more and more detail as you zoom in (see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set.jpg#/media/File:Mandel_zoom_10_satellite_seehorse_valley.jpg for an example).  I used some printouts of the images I made, to fold origami.  I love merging tech and art/craft, and keep finding new ways to do so.

What are some of your favorite go-to spots in the County to unwind and relax?
I love sitting on the deck over Sydney’s and watching the water while eating ice cream.  I’ve taken a couple classes at North House Folk School, and while the classes have been busy, I love the moments of chilling amid the activity – and even in the busyness, the focus on a single task is its own relaxation.  

If you could teleport to anywhere, where would you choose to go and why?
I’m not much of a traveler.  I guess teleporting would solve most of my problems with traveling, but . . . I have a silly use for a teleporter.  

When I lived in Seattle, I would go to farmers markets.  These markets had local, extremely fresh produce from the wide variety of climate zones in Washington State.  They grow cherries there, and they also grow peaches!  Amazing, fresh, sweet, juicy, picked that morning, peaches the size of softballs.  And there was a brand of ice cream for a while that had a ginger flavor with real ingredients (they don’t make that kind anymore).  No chunks of ginger, just a nice simple warm gingery flavor throughout.

So I don’t actually need to teleport myself.  I just want a peach teleporter.  I’ll make the ginger ice cream, get on a video call, choose the peaches, and vwoooop!  The best treat ever.  Ginger ice cream and sliced peaches for dessert.  Or breakfast.  Preferably weekly for a couple months in the late summer!  

What is a surprising fact about you that would surprise people?
I think the surprising thing about me is the way I cross between tech and art/craft.  My hobbies include origami, knit, crochet, kumihimo (disk braiding), hardanger (a type of embroidery), watercolor, pop-up cards, 3D cardstock models, laser-cutting wood, spoon carving, basket weaving, computer aided drawing, programming, robotics, cooking, gardening, and I’m sure I’ve missed some.  

Some people won’t be shocked by that collection, but if you’ve only ever seen me doing tech or only seen me doing fiber crafts, the other side of the coin could surprise you.