About

And now for the most important part of this website: an extremely detailed description of my hobbies.

I enjoy baking and cooking, and always appreciate people who are willing to taste-test.  The most important thing I bake each year is my entry for the Pi Day contest hosted by the AMS Student Chapter.  

I also make a lot of non-pie foods:

When not in the kitchen, you'll often find me cycling around the Twin Cities.  The views over the Mississippi are not to be missed. 

My two roommates are Littlewood and Richardson. I adopted them from Feline Rescue in April 2023 at 7 years old. They enjoy naps, treats, opening closet doors, and monitoring all of the neighborhood activities through the window. Their time together is split equally between cuddles and wrestling. 

The real truth, of course, is that I actually spend most of my time watching sports.  I am a founding member of the Unofficial Math Department Minnesota Lynx Superfan Club and will happily fight anyone who thinks there is a better professional sports team in Minnesota.  I root for UConn when it comes to NCAA basketball, but only because they keep sending amazing players to the Lynx.  

I am a long-time gymnastics fan, both college and elite.  This is entirely the fault of Aly Raisman's roundoff-one and a half stepout-roundoff-back handspring-double arabian-punch front layout.  I am always up for a long discussion of the Belgian floor rotation if you are interested.

My primary obsession at the moment is motorsports, particularly Formula One.  My favorite teams are McLaren, Mercedes, and Williams, so it's been a bit of a struggle the last couple years.  I'm also way into Indycar, partly because it's where F1 drivers go to have fun and partly because the timezones are much more conducive to sleep.  But really, anything with 4 wheels will do (yes, even NASCAR) (no motorcycles, those things are death traps).  

It probably tells you quite a lot about me that I really enjoy building model racecars.  I have completed a 2001 Ferrari, a 1978 Brabham, and a 1991 Jordan.  My next project is a Tyrell P34, the infamous six-wheeled car.  

2001 Ferrari

Michael Schumacher drove this car to his fourth world championship, taking eleven pole positions and winning a then-record nine races in the season.  It is considered to be one of the most dominant Formula One cars of all time. 

1978 Brabham

Niki Lauda drove the BT46 during most of the 1978 season, but this car is perhaps most famous for the one race that season it didn't run.  During the Swedish Grand Prix, Brabham introduced the BT46B, better known as the "fan car."  This innovative and controversial design took advantage of ground effect aerodynamics and won the race by a comfortable margin under strenuous objection from their competitors.  While the design was deemed legal by the FIA, the team chose not to run the BT46B and reverted to the BT46 for the rest of the season.

This model features a clear cowl allowing easy visibility of the Alfa Romeo engine, and driver Niki Lauda's 1978 helmet design.  

1991 Jordan

Michael Schumacher made his Formula One racing debut with Jordan at Spa in 1991, temporarily replacing Bertrand Gachot.  While his Jordan 191 would suffer a mechanical failure on the first lap of the race, his impressive qualifying performance turned heads.  He would spend the rest of the season racing for Benetton,  the team that would take him to his first two world championships in 1994 and 1995.  

This model has been stickered to approximately match Schumacher's debut race at Spa.  The Jordan 191 is consistently ranked as one of the best liveries in Formula One history.  

My collection also includes a number of LEGO models, not all of which are racecars