The longer story
I grew up on a ranch in Garden Valley, Idaho...wide skies, long summers, the kind of quiet that grows your imagination. It was a beautiful place to be a kid, but not the easiest place to be yourself. Being gay in a small town back then meant learning how to exist on the edges…to watch, to imagine, to dream about somewhere bigger where you could finally breathe all the way out.
When I finally found the rave scene, it felt like coming home. The first time I stepped onto a dance floor (well, technically it was a field) under flashing lights, surrounded by strangers who somehow understood, something in me unlocked. Raving gave me language I didn’t know I needed...peace, love, unity, and respect. It taught me that community could be chosen, that family could be found, that freedom and care weren’t opposites.
That world shaped everything that came after. DJing became how I learned to tell stories out loud. Producing events became how I learned to build experiences that help people feel seen. The dance floor became a microcosm of everything I value: human connection, emotional honesty, shared joy.
Eventually I made my way to Seattle...the place where I finally came out fully, found my footing in both the LGBTQ+ community, and started building a life that felt like mine. I worked every kind of job you can imagine before launching my own event production company. It was chaotic, electric, and exactly the kind of “figure it out as you go” adventure I was born for.
Along the way, I met Brian. Some stories click into place like they’ve been waiting lifetimes...ours was one of those. We built a life together that’s seen its share of versions: new jobs, different homes, wild nights, quiet mornings. We married after eleven years together and nine years engaged...we were never in a hurry, just busy building the life we wanted to keep choosing.
Together, we spent years traveling...backpacking through new cities, staying in hostels, getting lost in side streets, and finding home in every kind of place. We learned the rhythm of the world and, in the process, learned the rhythm of us...how to move through uncertainty, how to make joy out of whatever we found, how to grow side by side.
In 2022, what started as a simple “you should see this world that shaped me” moment became something much bigger. I hadn’t set foot in the rave scene in almost twenty years and didn’t know what to expect...whether the energy, the openness, the heartbeat of it would still be there. But the moment we drove in to the Gorge for Group Therapy Weekender, it was like a door swung open inside both of us. For me, it was a homecoming…a part of myself I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. For Brian, it was instant connection... that electricity of realizing you’ve found a new language your soul already speaks.
That weekend changed everything. We drove home knowing we’d found something we’d never walk away from again.
Now our life is built around that same energy: music, chosen family, making things, caring for others, showing up. We share our home with Barry, the most emotionally intelligent dog on earth, and a circle of friends who’ve become our people. They’re the ones who fill our nights with laughter, our weekends with projects, and our lives with the kind of connection that makes meaning out of everything else.
These days, my world moves between creation and care: recording mixes, making art, trying to stay fit, cooking the kind of food that loves you back, building community. I work a very normal‑sounding day job in payments and merchant services, after years of running my own event production company and living inside the logistics of making parties, theatrical productions, multi-city tours, and weird little dreams actually happen. Some part of me is still that kid from the ranch, looking up at the stars, dreaming of connection and building it one mix, one meal, one show, one moment at a time.
This site is the home for all of that: the mixes that soundtrack real life, the food that nourishes both present and future versions of ourselves, the crafts and ideas made by hand and by heart. It’s a place for anyone trying to live fully and consciously...for the ones who still believe in magic, connection, and leaving things a little brighter than you found them.