I grew up in a small town in California, in a small family that held together through more than most people ever see. I spent time in foster care and learned early how to keep moving, even when the ground shifts under you. That experience made me resourceful and stubborn in the best way: if something needs doing, I figure it out piece by piece, no drama, just progress.

These days I’m in Sacramento, studying Computer Science at Sacramento State. I’ll finish in May 2026, and I’m trying to make the years between now and then count. I like computers because they’re brutally honest—your code runs or it doesn’t—but I stay for the bigger picture: how technology shapes people, how information flows, and how all of that intersects with security, policy, and power.

The thread that ties it all together for me is curiosity about the gray areas: how non-state actors work, how influence spreads online, and what counter-terrorism looks like in a world where a phone in a pocket can be both a newsroom and a command post. I’m not in love with the drama of that domain—just the responsibility of understanding it clearly enough to help build better defenses and better decisions.

Midnight Bureau is where I put that curiosity to work in public. It’s my place to write plainly, link to primary sources, and explain what I’m seeing without hype. I try to earn attention by being useful: fewer opinions, more evidence; fewer hot takes, more context; fewer buzzwords, more clear language and diagrams when needed.

I’m happiest when I’m building. I’ve shipped a real-time micro-expression analysis prototype, an early intelligence-platform concept, and multiple redesigns of my own site using Next.js and Tailwind, with some SVG/GSAP animation and scroll-aware UI sprinkled in. I’ve also explored a sovereign productivity-suite idea—modular docs, databases, tasks, and AI features stitched together on local infrastructure—and an automation pipeline that takes longform scripts, turns them into narrated videos, translates them, and publishes across platforms using n8n and Google Sheets for orchestration.

Those projects might sound different, but they’re all the same muscle: take something complicated, break it into pieces, make it repeatable, and show your work. If a system only works when I’m standing next to it, it isn’t done yet.

Outside the editor, I like simple things: time with friends, long walks, late-night diner coffee, and any excuse to be outside. The outdoors resets me. It’s the opposite of alerts and timelines—you can’t rush a sunset or negotiate with a trail. It also keeps me from taking myself too seriously. The best ideas tend to show up when I’m not trying to force them.

My “soul compass,” if I had to put it into words, is built on a few rules: do quiet work that matters; keep your word; choose clarity over cleverness; be useful before you try to be impressive; and don’t let ambition outrun integrity. I try to make decisions I’ll be proud of in five years, not just five minutes.

Counter-terrorism and security sit in my interests because they combine human behavior with technical systems. I care about how narratives spread, how small groups coordinate, and how defenders can separate signal from noise without trampling the openness that makes the internet valuable. I’m not here to sensationalize threats; I’m here to understand them well enough to help teams design better protections and better policy choices.

School gives me the fundamentals—data structures, systems, ML—but I treat class as a floor, not a ceiling. I read technical papers, follow incident write-ups, and keep notes like I’m building a field guide. I like conversations with people who run real systems—engineers, analysts, policy folks—because they live with consequences. That’s where theory meets the Monday morning reality of budgets, logs, and deadlines.

I’m also honest about trade-offs. Good engineering is less about perfect answers and more about choosing which constraints you’re willing to live with. That shows up in my code and my writing: clear naming, tests where they actually prevent pain, dashboards that favor the few signals that matter, and documents that someone can skim at 2 a.m. and still do the right thing.

A lot of my life has been a solo grind—learning to build my own momentum, making calls without a safety net, figuring things out from first principles. I’m proud of that. But I also know I stand on the shoulders of friends, mentors, and a small family that kept showing up. Any time I can return that favor for someone else, I try to.

If you’re here for a neat label, here’s mine: I’m a builder who writes, a researcher who ships, and a teammate who tries to make hard problems feel smaller. My objective is simple: contribute to systems—technical and social—that make people safer and more capable, especially when the stakes are high and the facts are messy.

In the near term, that means finishing my degree, growing Midnight Bureau, and taking on work that bridges research with operations—whether that’s security-aware software, analysis that guides real choices, or automation that turns fragile workflows into reliable ones. Long term, I want to be the person you call when the problem is serious, the time is short, and you need clear thinking that leads to action.

Thanks for reading. If any of this resonates—if you like primary sources, steady craft, good questions, and long walks—I’m glad you’re here. Let’s build things worth keeping.