I like learning, doing, creating, and building things in my spare time. Here’s some of my side projects.
2023
In Process
Being a mentor for LCLC
Serving at my church on the kids ministry team, the ushering team, and the prayer team
Running a nonprofit, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Learning photography
Learning German
Completed
Built an outdoor walking desk
Reading – The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life (abridged) by Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Body (abridged) by Tim Ferriss, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jerry I. Porras and Jim Collins, God Owns my Business by Stanley Tam, Longing to Know by Esther Lightcap Meek, Obviously Awesome by April Dunford, Start with Why by Simon Sinek, 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout, Built to Move by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz PhD, Atomic Habits by James Clear, Outlive by Peter Attia MD and Bill Gifford, Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller, Founder Brand by Dave Gerhardt, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs by Carmine Gallo, Loving Jesus More by Phil Ryken, Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity by Kim Scott, DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson, Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
2022
Completed
Reading – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, Radical Candor by Kim Scott, Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman, Pinnacle by Steve Preda and Gregory Cleary, Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard, Nudge: The Final Edition by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Lincoln by David Herbert Donald, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon, High Output Management by Andy Grove, Martin Luther King Jr.: A Life by Marshall Frady, A Black Theology of Liberation by James Cone, Tough Choices: A Memoir by Carly Fiorina
Being a mentor for LCLC
Serving at my church on the kids ministry team, the ushering team, and the prayer team
Running a nonprofit, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Learning Christian Byzantine iconography
Learning photography
Learning Spanish and German
2021
Completed
Reading – Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, The One-Life Solution by Henry Cloud, Republic by Plato, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Tactics by Gregory Koukl, Foreign to Familiar by Sarah A. Lanier, Russia: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture by Anna King and Grace Cuddihy, Playing God by Andy Crouch, Love Does by Bob Goff, Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Being a mentor for LCLC
Serving at my church on the ushering team and the prayer team
Running a nonprofit, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Leading a startup, Roam – a flight deals app
Learning Christian Byzantine iconography
Learning photography
2020
Completed
Reading – The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, Gettings Things Done by David Allen, Dream Big by Bob Goff, When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love by Anthony Kennada
Advisory Board Member of the RoundUp App
Being a mentor for LCLC
Serving at my church on the ushering team and the prayer team
Running a nonprofit, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Leading a startup, Roam – a flight deals app
Learning Christian Byzantine iconography
Learning photography
Taking two Harvard courses online
2019
Completed
Continued being a mentor for LCLC
Continued being an Advisory Board Member of the RoundUp App
Reading – Love Wins by Rob Bell, Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias, Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles by Kathy Keller, The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, The Cure by John Lynch, Bruce McNichol, and Bill Thrall, The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen, Living the 80/20 Way by Richard Koch, The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, Felicity by Mary Oliver, Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church, That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Forgotten God by Francis Chan, What the Fortune 500 Read by Grant and Julia Hensel, Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality by Henry Cloud, The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller and Kathy Keller
Competed and was sponsored for enduro mountain bike racing
Started Grace Projects – a church ministry in which people use their vocational skills to help the church in one-time projects
Started testing a startup idea
Continued to grow a nonprofit startup, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Served at my church on the ushering team and the prayer team
Started learning photography
2018
Completed:
Advisory Board Member of the RoundUp App
Reading – Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore, Play Bigger by Al Ramadan, Dave Petersen, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney, Inside the Tornado by Geoffrey Moore, The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, The TB12 Method by Tom Brady, Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People by Bob Goff, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin, The Mountain Biker’s Training Bible by Joe Friel, The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, Behind the Cloud by Mark Benioff and Carlye Adler, Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About Personal Growth by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Animal Farm by George Orwell, The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Hosted Wheaton College students on a student-led trip to learn about life and work in Silicon Valley
Stanford / Y Combinator course on How to Start a Startup
Growing a nonprofit startup, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Serving at my church on the ushering team and the prayer team
Being a mentor for LCLC
Training for enduro mountain bike racing next year
2017
Completed:
Camping and rock climbing trip to Joshua Tree
Reading – Smarter Better Faster by Charles Duhigg, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail, Michael Malone, and Yuri Van Geest (much of the book), Do All Lives Matter? by John Perkins and Wayne Gordon, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Rings (Lord of the Rings Part One) by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers (Lord of the Rings Part Two) by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (Lord of the Rings Part Three) by J.R.R. Tolkien, VoIP for Dummies by Timothy V. Kelly
Planned and hosted a field trip to Slalom for underresrouced high school students
Helping a SaaS startup create analytics for its customers to increase customer success and a new potential revenue stream
Planned my brother’s bachelor party
Helping with AWS for a big data / real-time streaming side project with Slalom
Spoke at a work event for the Facebook Workplace Transform Event
Wrote a white paper about how to choose the right analytics tool, with a deep dive on Tableau vs. Power BI
Started a nonprofit, Theology Impact, to help people learn how Christian leaders from centuries ago answer today’s spiritual questions as well as help people learn new skills and put them into practice
Served at my church on the ushering team and the prayer team
Being a mentor for LCLC
2016
Completed:
Reading – The Surprising Power of the Coil by Greg Campbell, The 5-2-1 Principle by Greg Campbell, The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
Passing the AWS Technical Professional Accredidation
Becoming a AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Hosting at Slalom for the Wheaton Externship Day
Moving to the Bay Area from Chicago
Passing the Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certification
Being a mentor for LCLC
Serving at my church on the security team, ushering team, and the prayer team
2015
Completed:
Consulting for a non-profit helping them with analytics and data visualization to create new insights and make more actionable and informed decisions
Backpacked Europe for 7 weeks with my brother. Trip of a lifetime! #euroduncs
Built a website for a SaaS startup
Attended the CCDA Conference
Advised dozens of Wheaton College students about vocation, career, and life
Buildt 2 wooden lamps from tree stumps
Continued running Backbone Local
Co-founded the Slalom Christian Fellowship
Created Chicago crime data visualizations using Microsoft Power BI
Swift iOS Development course through Treehouse
Free reading – Making Neighborhoods Whole, The Case for Reparations, and many others I’m forgetting