Ahoy!

More About Vic

Every code wrangler has an origin story.

When I was 9, my parents bought our first computer—a PC running Windows 3.1. I remember sitting down in front of the big clacky keyboard, grabbing the chunky mouse, and going straight to Control Panel. I explored every setting and option. Eventually, I discovered Minesweeper, but it's telling that my first instinct was to peek under the hood.

A decade later, as an art and philosophy student at NYU, the art history department hired me to digitize their massive slide collection. By day, I meticulously removed microscopic scratches and hairs in Photoshop; by night, I built meme sites with Dreamweaver for fun.

I didn't earn my first dollar from web design until almost a decade later. While working as an ESOL teacher and studying at seminary—when money was tight—a friend needed a website for a contract bid. I built him a clean, simple site, and he won the job.

If you do good work, people talk.

For the next decade, I built websites as a side hustle, supplementing first my teacher salary, then my chaplain salary, as my wife and I started our family. Each late-night project brought new creative and technical challenges. I pored over forums and tutorials, learning as I went, expanding my skills into other domains of digital marketing.

By the time our three daughters reached school age, my design and marketing income covered their private school tuition in Baltimore. Since we’ve moved across the Chesapeake Bay to the countryside where we grew up, it has supported our family entirely.

There's a quote tattooed on my right arm in ancient Greek. It's commonly translated "What do you have that you did not receive?" I wake every day with gratitude, thankful that I get to show up to serve people I love and care about: my family, of course, and you.

Yes, you, dear reader. If I can do my best Mister Rogers and look straight into the camera: here we are, connecting through words pushed through pixels on a screen. You've just read a slice of my story. I hope it's encouraged you. I'd love to hear yours.