Interests & Hobbies

I enjoy being out in nature, going on hikes, visiting plant nurseries, greenhouses and botanical gardens. To bring a little bit of nature home I also have a collection of indoor plants as well as a bog garden! You may be asking what is a bog garden, well…

“Carnivorous plants can be found in the swamps of eastern North Carolina. Some of the more well-known bog plants are the venus flytrap, pitcher plant, and sundew plant. While these plants are found in nature, it is illegal to dig them up! Instead, you must buy these from a grower.”
— greensideupgifts.com

Pitcher plant (Sarracenia Purpurea) from my bog garden

Many people do not realize that NC is the only place in the world that venus fly traps grow in the wild. We have swamps/bogs that are not nutrient dense therefore several plants adapted to be carnivorous and receive their nutrients from bugs/insects. Pitcher plants are big bowls with a digestive enzyme pool at the bottom. They expel a sweet liquid at the top so when a bug crawls up to get the liquid it falls into the the enzyme pool and is digested. Pretty cool stuff! The pitcher flowers (long stems) are shown in both the above and below images. The pitchers flowers look very different than your average flower and open upside down.

Pitcher plant (Sarracenia Psittacina) from my bog garden

Butterfly Garden at The Museum of Life and Science

Visiting Greenhouse at Wageningen University & Research WUR

  • St. John's-wort

    These only bloomed for a season or two but they were beautiful when they did.

  • New Pitchers

    This shows some early season pitchers, this type (Sarracenia Alabamensis) stays more of a lime green and grows taller and thinner than the other pitcher plants I have. You can see the newly opened flowers.

  • Bog Garden

    Two barrels each with pitcher plants. The back barrel has two types. The purple picher is bolting/flowering while the furthest pitcher has bolted but not opened yet.

  • Pre-Picked Peppers

    Ready for harvest!

  • Picked Peppers

    Cleaned and ready for pickling

  • Pickled Banana Peppers

    Fresh pickled bananna peppers from my garden with some garlic and jalapeño. Fun fact if you break a garlic clove and pickle it an enzyme called calledalliinase will break down into acidalliin intoallicin. Acidalliin turns garlic blue! I did not know this during my first pickling and thought my garlic had gone bad and ruined the batch!

  • Picking up some new plants

    Finally found a plant nursery that has a decent selection of carnivorous plants

  • Gardening meets Engineering

    I was a bit enthusiastic at the plant nursery to the point that there was no room for the excess plants, so they ended up on a work desk.

  • Coral Honeysuckle

    Vining and climbing plant. Depending on the type of honeysuckle you can pull the stem out and eat the drop of nectar that comes out with the stem.

  • Caged Carnivore

    Unfortunately squirrels kept digging up the venus fly traps so I built this cage to keep them safe.

  • Venus Fly Trap

    Thriving and ready to eat!

I’ve always been a big animal person. Growing up we had multiple cats and dogs in the house. Apartment life makes having big animals difficult so chihuahuas, birds and guinea pigs it is!

Timmy

Chewy

Canela and Bella

Bella (This was taken during Halloween and she has no idea what kind of danger she is in)

Sadie

I have always enjoyed cooking but getting a grill really enhanced my passion for food. I was a meat cutter for 12 years. During those years I found that learning new cooking methods not only enhanced my culinary skills but also enabled me to better serve our customers.

Enjoying the Process

Coulde’t ask for a better view while relaxing outside and cooking some dinner.

I would use my time grilling to disconnect and enjoy just listening to the birds, relaxing and focusing on being in the moment.

  • Herb Mustard Chicken with Avocado and Rice

    Delicious

  • Chicken Galantine

    Galantine has all of the bones removed from the chicken while keeping it in tact. I had a customer who wanted this done so after watching a YouTube video on it I gave it a shot. The customer was happy and I had to go home and give it a shot to see if it lived up to the hype! Now my opinion is that this is the best way to cook a whole chicken… well whole minus the bones haha.

  • Chicken Galantine Cut

    Cajun seasoned and stuffed with Cajun rice. By removing the bones and stuffing it you completely remove the void inside to help prevent the chicken from overcooking. Even the drumsticks are stuffed with rice! The wings are left in tact.

  • Grill

    Fresh canvas

  • Mustard Chicken and Nature

    Just enjoying the process.

  • Grilled Mustard Chicken, Elote, and Sweet Potato

    The first time I heard about elote I was not convinced but after trying my first bite… I’m a believer. Elote is Mexican street corn. For my Elote I grilled the corn, covered it in mayo, then parmesan cheese, followed by tajin.

  • Tofu Stir-fry

    Just because I was a meat cutter doesn’t mean I need meat with every meal.

  • Visitors

    A real treat while cooking was when the deer would stop by.

  • Salad Anyone?

    Sweet potato and chicken cooked in a balsamic and honey glaze, on top of a salad.

  • Friendly Neighborhood Meat Cutter

    Here we see a wild meat cutter in his natural habitat.

  • Well Hello There

    I do not miss the days of mandatory masking up. Mask + glasses + cold meat room was no fun.

I used to be very focused on gaining strength. My previous maxes were 475 squat, 500 deadlift, 340 bench, 225 seated overhead press. Currently I focus on maintaining strength but focus more on cardio and mobility.

Deadlift 475 x4

Squat 460 x1

Safety First

For my cardio I prefer cycling, indoor cycling at that! I use an application called Zwift that gamifies cycling. Basically you remove your rear wheel and attach your bike to a smart trainer that can adjust the resistance required to pedal. So in a virtual “game” you can cycle through environments or race people and the resistance will change appropriately depending on hills and terrain. I’m a numbers guy so getting accurate and consistent data for each ride really motivates me to keep improving.