👋 Hi, I'm Carter.

I'm a musician, software engineer, artist, adventurer and human being splitting my time between Juneau, AK and Grand Marais, MI (but mostly Juneau).

🗞️ My newsletters are where my heart's at and I'd love to share them with you. You can subscribe here.

⚡ If you'd like to know what I'm up to right now, head over here.

📚 I love reading and if you're interested in some good books, look here.

I'm a Musician 🎻

I do my best at a variety of styles and instruments. I play Old Time fiddle in a string band called Big Chimney Barn Dance. We've been fortunate enough to tour England, Wales, and Ireland (twice now), play Festivals across the US and more gigs in Alaska than I can recall.

We have a couple albums out at this point. Support us by purchasing one in our shop or on Bandcamp. You can also listen on most streaming services. Here's our latest on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music.

I teach workshops, private lessons and every so often I play guitar or fiddle for a studio project.

Prior to Big Chimney I played in a bluegrass band called High Lonesome Sound. The band technically still exists... we just haven't played a show in a real long time.

I also dabble in Django style guitar and played for many years with an Anchorage based swing group called The Hot Club of Nunaka.

My guilty pleasures are metal, punk, pop music and EDM. I wish I had more opportunity to play that stuff.

I'm a Software Engineer 🖥️

My experience lies across the stack but historically I'm most comfortable on the backend. Node.js and React are my sweet spots but professionally speaking I've done everything from DevOps work in AWS to Django, Rails and ASP.Net. I like design/UX but styling is my nemesis and as important as it is, writing documentation is not my favorite either.

I'm lucky (and good) enough to be a freelancer these days. When I worked for companies it was mostly under the "Bay Area Startup" paradigm (about.me, Broadly, Bevy). Before that I spent some time freelancing after a 5 year stint building GIS web applications at Resource Data, Inc. And, going back further, it was all computer science degree all the time.

Engineering topics that float my boat: AI, cryptography, video game development and struggling to relearn all those computer science concepts you forgot the day after the exam.

I'm an Artist 👩‍🎨

I love to draw (traditionally) and paint (digitally). I work hard at it and try to create something daily. Right now, it feels like the thing I'm most "drawn" to creatively.

Mostly I'm interested in people. I like drawing portraits of strangers I find online and I'm still pretty stoked on this John Singer Sargent study I pulled off.

I'm an Adventurer ⛰️

I grew up in Northern Michigan and was fortunate to be surrounded by a family who instilled within me a love of the outdoors. I moved to Alaska in late 2008 because, in my mind, it had to be the most outdoorsy place a person could be and still be in the United States. I think I was right.

I've spent a lot of time exploring the Chugach and the Talkeetnas (near Hatcher Pass). Now I'm excited to learn what southeast Alaska has to offer. In the fall, I usually head back to Michigan for a stint, spending my days on the shores of Lake Superior.

In 2016 I got real obsessed with mountaineering and during the summer of 2018 I achieved a long time dream of attempting to climb Denali, North America's highest peak. Unfortunately the weather wouldn't let us pass 14,000 feet but I was just so happy to be there. Perhaps someday I'll try again.

I also love skateboarding and want to land a 360 flip before I die.

I'm a Human Being 💁‍♂️

I try to keep an open mindset and a small identity but I also understand that telling ourselves stories about what we are (or are not) can have profound effects – even if those identities are an illusion. I'm trying to thread that needle.

Mostly I just love life, the world, the people in it and the grand experiences it provides.

Thanks for stopping by.

❤️