Hey, I’m Mike
I’m a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades and my work history is certainly proof of that but it only tells part of the story. In all my trades and hobbies and practices a common thread connects things; and that is a chance to solve problems, shift my understanding, learn something new, and work with my hands.
Personally my hobbies include photography, coffee, motorcycles, travel, and generally making/breaking things. Professionally I have experience that spans customer service, food service, construction, and software development. Robert Persig in Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenence says that:
The range of human knowledge today is so great that we are all specialists and the distance between specializations is so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them almost has to forego closeness with those around themselves.
This certainly seems apt and while the book is aging the sentiment seems to only grow more relevant. I believe it’s valuable to close these gaps from both a personal and social perspective.
My adventures in mechanics started when I bought my first car, a baby-blue nineteen-eighty Fiat Spider that I spent more time working on than driving, and only continued with the subsequent half-dozen or so vehicles. I currently own a two-thousand Suzuki SV650 bike and while it needed essentially a entire front end rebuild has been solid and has helped ignite a love for bikes. There’s something particularily freeing about accepting discomfort on a bike, whether it’s hot or cold or dry or wet. It’s okay to be uncomfortable because that’s how you learn about yourself.
I’ve spent a decent chunk of time working in coffee, but it has been many more years of seeking out, preparing, sharing, and enjoying specialty coffee. One of the things I enjoy most about coffee, and specialty coffee in particular is that all over the world you have a chance to share the experience of an amazing cup that transcends any language barriers. Living in Egypt and travelling to places like Romania, I’ve been able to meet great new friends through coffee and it’s always something I enjoy.
I graduated with a B.B.A. in corporate finance, interested in putting my skills to use performing research and analyses on investments. When I turned to the job market I found banking careers to be sparse in Vancouver, and the connections and credentials required to land them lacking on my end. I turned to my previous summer job in construction where I was invigorated by working with my hands and managing the process of building a house from nothing but a stack of wood. Framing houses is a job I thoroughly enjoyed (although the weather some days tried to solve that) and it is still something I miss doing.
In the summer of twenty-twenty-one I had the incredible opportunity to move to Egypt and step back from a job and focus on upgrading my technical skills. The hope was that in a few months I could land an entry-level remote position in tech and leverage that to move into development roles. Through Codeacademy I took several courses in Python, SQL, JavaScript and web design and felt decently equiped to take on a new role. Eventually I found a job as a solutions engineer and worked in various capacities including engineering manager and a standard software developer.
In December twenty-twenty-three I left Canada to travel and spent the next six months between Asia, Europe, and North Africa. Before I returned to Canada for the summer I had already decided that I needed to continue this and so after spending the summer seeing friends and living between Vancouver and Calgary I set off again. This time I started in Japan before spending four months in South East Asia, a month in Melbourne, and two weeks in India before arriving in Europe in April. Because of the limitations of the Schengen visa I spent the spring, summer, and fall of twenty-twenty-five between Germany, France, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzogovina, and Montenegro.
The new year will hopefully bring a new adventure; starting a life in Europe. I’ll be applying for working visas in Germany and France, looking for work and ultimately searching for a place to call home. It’s not the end of travel but it is the beginning of building a consistent social circle, and a space to relax that I don’t need to check out of.