Surf Roots, Software Thoughts A blog by Alex Loddengaard

More About Me

Savan inspired me with his post about himself to spend a quick bit to say more about myself.  I'll give you the short version.

I've made a few recent changes to my blog, namely I changed the title to "Surf Roots, Software Thoughts."  I did this because I've always considered myself as having a split personality.  When I'm home in Los Angeles I'm mostly outdoors either surfing, snowboarding, or doing something else active.  However, when I'm in Seattle I'm mostly indoors working on some sort of programming project.  Even my friends are considerably different in these two lives.  My friends from high school all share the same outdoor interests as me, and we always have a blast encouraging each other into big waves or down steep sloaps.  On the other hand, most of my friends in college are computer science classmates, and we tend to crack nerd jokes and talk about software.

I grew up in Los Angeles running between the snow, ocean, and soccer field.  I always wanted to spend my time with my family and friends doing the things that I loved doing.  School wasn't really one of those things until I started pursuing computer science.  I was inspired to learn more about computers while playing Counter Strike in 9th grade.  From there I learned some programming languages and started making awful dynamic websites (I wish they still existed for comedic purposes).  I came to Seattle to study Computer Science at the University of Washington and became much more of an academic.  I had a new found appreciate for learning, and Seattle was a great place for me to get started with my academic discovery.  I found myself being limited a lot by the Seattle Weather, so I spent most of my time indoors behind a computer.  I think this was good for me, because I always thought I could do better academically than I did in high school.

I've made some great friends in Seattle, and I'll be very sad to say goodbye to them eventually.  However, I'm looking forward to eventually being closer to my best friends and family and in a place where I can surf and snowboard regularly and also crank on some (hopefully) awesome software projects.

But before I head back south I have a minor to finish, some backpacking to do in Europe, and some work to do in Shanghai, China for Google.  I'm pretty excited about the next few months; all I need to do is stop buying things.

Bonus image: here's a good comparison: