Professionally I am an engineer. It comes with a nagging itch of taking on difficult problems and beating them down to pulp. If my sleep is not interrupted by what I am dealing with, I am have not taken enough risks. Boundaries are meant to be challenged and growth is always possible and often happens in the climate of adversity. I work for a small team within a big company. Well smallish, we used to be small when I started, but the growth mindset, it’s worked out well. We have had our hands in tough, yet relevant problems. Working with a team of extremely intelligent people and strong leaders has really helped me hone my own potentials and pushed me forward in my career faster than I imagined possible. More on that in the professional section.

When I was too young to ride motorcycles I dreamed of riding them. My dad had one and some of my favorite memories are working on his bike on Sunday mornings. Let me explain, he worked on the bike and I stood there, sometimes I would point the flashlight where he wanted me to point it and sometimes he would ask me for #17 wrench and I would hand it to him. At four/five year’s age, I felt that his bike ran partly on my mechanical skills. So, on Sunday mornings even before he would have finished breakfast, I would be scurrying around, asking if he needed me to fix something on the bike by any chance. When I was in eighth grade, I was sitting reading the newspaper one morning. They had published a full page spread on one of the best looking motorcycle I have ever seen and I was not too far from drooling. My father, seeing this, made a bet with me. If I were to make it into one of the top five engineering schools he would buy me that bike. Four years later, I did. So did him. In the last ten years I have put over a 100,000 miles on two wheels alone. Three different motorcycles. Crossed the continental North America from Pacific Coast to the Atlantic coast and back, twice. From Oregon to Florida, back through the Virginias and the Carolinas. More on that later. Sometimes we just ride for a quick escape on the twisty back roads of nearby Mt. Hood Oregon, sometimes we ride until the road meats sea again. Irrespective of where life leads me, I’ll always dream of a warm sunny day, sun on the leathers, dry pavement, no cars ahead of me, and the smell of fresh flowers and the sound of VTwins. I will write more about my rides on the travel section.

Photography speaks to my artistic side. My scientific brain deals with the concepts of focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance as if they were natural characterization of capturing light. But what really draws me towards photography is are concepts like, leading lines, framing, composition and lighting. My philosophy has always been one of minimum post production work. With time as my photography skills have improved and the equipment I can afford have gotten better, so has the quality of work I produce. Photography has really been a lifelong journey. Photography in some sense is more than what we see. When we see something we see in it in the context of the whole surrounding. But the photograph, when done right can cut out the distractions, noise and lead the audience to focus on certain parts of the context that are uniquely beautiful. Sometimes that perfect picture is al allure in its own right. Hiking in pouring rain for hours to capture a waterfall going crazy with the affluence of water from the downpour. Waking up in the small hours of the morning and getting to that perfect spot where when the first rays of sun brings out beautiful colors in the sky. Some pictures end up being more than their surroundings. And it’s worth the work. There are some pictures in my creative section. I’ll add more along the way.

Living in the Pacific Northwest has many perks. One of them is fishing. In the winters when the skies are troubled and the ocean is rough, schools of salmon and steelhead enter the Northwest waters to spawn in the rivers. We humans have fished for as long as the species existed. Archeological evidence shows fishing spears and hooks made of stones and bones that date back to thousands of years ago. It’s an ancestral calling. On a day where most people would stay in due to the weather, I’ll be hiking along a river bank for miles, fishing and hiking, finding complete peace in pursuit of the wild.

There is something about growing up in the midst of two different cultures. It makes one more understanding and more curious. For me, it has taught me to appreciate the values of other cultures and explore them deeply. To an extent that it has become my primary motivation for travel. Whether it be Copenhagen or Seoul, Berlin or Kuala Lumpur, my greatest joy of traveling comes from the people I meet and the conversations we have. In that journey, it’s often more fruitful to wander off the beaten path. Ending up in a small island south of Sicily, Italy, and spending a say with local marine biologist students, chasing dolphins, enriched my experience much more than traveling to well-traveled Rome. I have often left my camera at home on some of these trips. It gets in the way of mixing with people when I am wearing a “big time tourist” stamp around my neck. More of my stories will soon be added to the travel section.

If you have made it up to this, I admire your patience and I thank you for inventing your time in me. While an attempt has been made here, to dissect my identity and break it into smaller, more understandable pieces [as engineers often do], the system works a bit differently. The existence of “self”, in this case, me, has only one identity. That is, I could be riding my motorcycle down a twisty road and thinking about how just like riding, my work needs both velocity and agility. How I need to work on my plan-B. And at the same time, my eyes could be watching out for photographic opportunities where a peculiar combination of light and weather has created an interesting photographic opportunity. I could be wondering about who plants the lands around the road that are blooming with lush greenery and imagine what they aspire to be someday. Did they grow up here? Do their children live here or have they moved to the cities? Is it a good business, can he increase his profitability? And that stream over there, flowing alongside the road, its gathering some momentum now, I see some awesome trout waters. Man, I wish I had my fishing rod with me, I would spend a couple hours standing on that rock and throw a few spinners. You get the idea.

Its been a tremendous journey so far. For all that I have received, I am thankful. Thank you for your interest in me. For without you, all success in life will be worthless. In that, I count my blessings every day.