About
The person behind
the early alarm
I'm Mathew — a CTO who builds distributed systems by day and chases tangible things the rest of the time.
My hobbies rotate. That's by design. I've gone deep on climbing, deeper on scuba, played music since I was a kid, and I keep coming back to the family farm in Montana because nothing in my career compares to watching 4,000 acres of wheat disappear into a combine. You know when the job is done. There's no iteration, no retrospective. The field is empty and you go home.
I build this site because the professional version of me — the CTO, the architect, the "Strategic Technology Leader" — is only half the story. The other half is the guy who sets an early alarm for sunrise photos, argues about board game rules, cooks things he can't pronounce, and thinks the best debugging happens 130 feet underwater where you literally cannot check Slack.
Getting back to what makes us part of this planet and away from the things that tear us down — that's the whole point of this corner of the internet.
At a Glance
The Chapters
Things I've gone deep on, in no particular order
The Farm
The greater family has a 4,000-acre wheat farm in Montana. I go back for harvest because nothing in tech compares to watching a field go from full to empty and knowing it's done. Actually done. No retro. No next sprint.
Rock Climbing
Got deep into climbing — competed at a mid-level competition and did well. Reading a wall is a lot like reading architecture. You plan the route, commit to the move, and if your holds are wrong, gravity doesn't negotiate.
Scuba Diving
Deep water, advanced, nitrox, plus a handful of other certs. Underwater is the only place where being completely silent and doing nothing is the optimal strategy. The opposite of every meeting I've ever been in.
Photography
Not a real photographer — mostly phone shots and sunrises. Some camera work, a pinhole camera phase. I keep showing up early because the sky doesn't care about my excuses and the light is honest.
Music
Played instruments most of my life. Music is the one creative output with no version control. You play it, it exists for a moment, and then it's gone. No diffs, no deploys, no rollbacks.
Flying & Travel
Love being in the air. Love being somewhere new. Every culture has something to teach you, usually through food, and usually in a language you don't speak. That's the best part.
Cooking
I travel to eat and I cook what I find. Every culture has a dish that tells you more about a place than any history book. Food is storytelling with a shorter feedback loop than software.
Board Games
The collection is... substantial. There's something great about problems with clear rules, defined end states, and opponents who are physically present. Also, no one has ever filed a Jira ticket about a board game.
Why This Site Exists
The professional site is the polished version — the CTO narrative, the enterprise case studies, the "Strategic Technology Leader" positioning. This is the other side.
Because the person who harvests wheat in Montana, sets pre-dawn alarms for phone photos, and thinks the best problem-solving happens at 130 feet underwater is the same person who architects systems handling billions in revenue. You can't have one without the other. The tangible feeds the technical.