In The Beginning
I was born in 1976 in San Jose, California and have lived there most of my life. I have also lived in the cities of Davis and Santa Cruz (while attending the University of California), and I spent three years in Austin, Texas. I am the oldest of three children. About one year after I was born, my parents and I moved from the house they had been renting (which is, in a rather ironic twist, located on the same street as our first apartment) to their current residence.In my youth I spent a great deal of time playing outdoors; I was an avid tree climber by the age of five and master fort builder by ten. Around this time I began to appreciate the importance of natural environments, recognizing both their power and vulnerability.
I was a bright and capable child, but I often had difficulty focusing at school. All of my teachers, from kindergarten through fifth grade, noted that I often seemed to have my head in the clouds.
Growing Pains
My middle and high school years were mostly uneventful. During the last two years of high school I was painfully and chronically bored at school, even while taking five Advanced Placement classes in my senior year. I just kept hoping college classes would be more stimulating. They weren't. They were all, of course, just more of the old "drill-and-grill" routine. I often took refuge in libraries, reading journals, jotting down ideas, and using the Internet to research various topics of interest to me.Thanks to a sweet, beautiful girl I met at the end of my senior year in high school, this period in my life was not completely empty. Lizzette and I first met in our Advanced Placement Spanish class. She was only a sophomore at the time, but after an interview in Spanish with the teacher, she was admitted to the class. As it turned out, I didn't really talk to her that much until the last two months of school. When I finally decided to share my sentiments with Lizzette, it took me a few days to build up the courage to talk to her. After pondering how to reveal my feelings, I composed a short poem and gave it to her after class. I soon found out that she had been romantically interested in me the entire school year.
Lizzette was two years behind me in school, but she enrolled at UC Santa Cruz the same year I transferred in as a junior, so we were able to spend a great deal of time together in college. During this time I also realized I was sick of being in school and decided it was time to try something new.
In 1999, after completing all but the senior thesis requirement for my bachelor's degree from UC Santa Cruz, I took some time off from college and engaged in various volunteer activities in Santa Clara County (California). Among other projects, I created and taught computer and Internet classes for adults at the San Jose Public Library and also tutored adults in reading, writing, and basic math through Vision Literacy, a program started by the Santa Clara County Library. By this point I had finally accepted the fact that I simply don't like being in (traditional) schools, despite the fact that I love to learn—and teach, as I had also recently discovered.
I reluctantly returned to UC Santa Cruz the following year and completed the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology BS program. During this time I was also working full-time as a freelance web developer. Lizzette and I got married in February of 2001 and we both graduated in June of that same year. Lizzette took a job as an elementary school teacher while I continued to do web programming and design for various companies. In April of 2002 we moved into a tiny studio apartment—we had been living with my parents since the day after we got married in order to save up some money. It was around this time that I decided to trade in the lucrative jobs for the more satisfying work I had discovered during my year away from school.
Life Goes On
For the 2002-2003 school year I was a teacher (algebra and general science) at my alma mater, Willow Glen High School, so it seemed like life had played another one of its little jokes on me. After wanting to escape from school for so many years, I found myself going back—this time through the stage entrance. Sadly, my first year of teaching at Willow Glen High School was so stressful that I decided to take a break from teaching for the 2003-2004 school year in hopes that I would not burn out as most new teachers do. On top of that, Lizzette was pregnant and due in December of 2003 so I wanted to switch to a job with a more flexible schedule.I briefly returned to the private sector as a web developer, during which time my first son was born. In early 2004 I geared up to finish my teaching credential and go back into education. I was in the teacher credential program at National University and nearly ready to start my student teaching (after which I would be able to apply for my California teaching credential) when Lizzette and I finally decided that the San Francisco Bay Area just was not going to work out for us. After five years of watching real estate prices soar into the stratosphere, we accepted the reality that it was time to move. After much deliberation, we decided to relocate to Austin, Texas. We packed up our handful of humble possessions in April of 2005 and found our way to Central Texas.
We started out renting a place in South Austin but soon purchased a small house in North Central Austin. A year later, our second child (and second son) was born. I started a landscaping business called Home Harvest Organics and continued to teach classes in the evening at Austin Community College. Business was a little slow at first, but it eventually picked up as the idea of edible landscaping became more accepted by the general public. Things were going well with the new business until torrential and seemingly endless summer rains washed away limited cash reserves and forced me to return to teaching almost full-time.
In November of 2007, my father was visiting us and asked if we would consider moving back to California. In early 2008, Lizzette and I started to seriously discuss the possibility of moving back to California. My parents wanted to be able to see their grandchildren on a regular basis, and the long, hot, humid Texas summers were killing me. In March of 2008, we finally decided to head back to California.
In May of 2008 we moved back to California. It took some time to adjust to living in the San Francisco Bay Area again. Lizzette and I both wanted to continue teaching, and I also wanted to keep getting more involved in ecological agriculture. I taught adult education classes for a year as I prepared to go back to National University to finish my single subject credential program. The following year (2009-2010) Lizzette and I both had full-time jobs as teachers; I was back at Willow Glen High School (teaching biology) in SJUSD and Lizzette was in her second year teaching sixth grade core classes at Union Middle School.
Since coming back to California we've considered moving back to Austin several times, but I don't really want to live in Texas again. Houses in most areas of San Jose are still relatively unaffordable for people earning modest salaries like ours. Our total monthly housing payments would be very large compared to our monthly income, even on a home priced around $450,000. To me that is still a princely sum and an absurd amount of money to have to pay for a very simple house in a rather uninspiring city.
I still want to find a place on the edge of a metropolitan area where we can have a modest homestead and also have some of the advantages of living in the city. As a farmer (even part-time), this would be an ideal location. Even if I never quite make it to farming for a living, I would still like to grow as much of my own food as possible. For now, though, home will have to be a rental house in the city.
