I haven’t written anything here in… several years. Still been quite active/busy on a handful of different fronts, but this particular blog fell off the horse pretty hard. Funnily enough, I’ve drafted several entries that are basically 95% complete, everything in place except for simply proofreading and looking up the relevant citations. I suspect it’s a product of being busy, the blog not really being urgent, and the “pileup” that happens when you’ve neglected a piece of writing (or a phone call) for so long that there’s so much to say that it feels easier to just keep neglecting it. I figured I’d just write something to break the ice, and then I’m hoping to start dumping/cleaning out a bunch of other articles that I’ve got on-deck and are still (hopefully) somewhat relevant to the world. One nice thing about telecom architecture – it evolves slowwwwwwly.
Personal
On the personal front, lots of updates. We moved from Seattle to Olympia, went on a few big trips, sold our old house, bought a house (more on that below), and got married. We both are doing quite well, and Audrey (my wife) has recently joined the local circus studio as a co-owner. We both feel quite rooted in our life here and are really thriving in Olympia.
House Blog
Approximately two years ago we bought a hundred-year-old house in need of a lot of work. It’s been a lot of fun, but has absolutely dominated my free time and focus. Highlights include re-plumbing and re-wiring the entire house, refinishing all the surfaces, building a kitchen, and a basement flood or two. Since starting this project my blog-writing has almost exclusively been housework related. For general sanity/clutter purposes I kept these updates as a separate blog so if you’re curious, many more details can be found here.
Treetop Networks
By now I think most people know that I have all but left the University of Washington, and now make all my income consulting in the same general space as before (open-source telecom, remote network deployments, affordable Internet initiatives, and teaching/training, plus anything else people want to pay me to do). I tend to stay pretty busy but am also always looking for work, so don’t hesitate to reach out with any interesting projects that make you think of me. In this year (2025) I’m particularly interested in getting back out in the field, as I haven’t built a network abroad in a couple years.
Ulukhaktok
Despite COVID making transportation logistics very hard, I managed to continue my slow-burn love affair with the Far North, and built/maintain a free-to-use LTE network in Ulukhaktok, NWT, Canada. At slightly over 70*N I assume this is the worlds northernmost community network – anyone reading who knows of something further north, or even just anything else in the Arctic Circle, please reach out as I’d love to talk to you! This topic clearly deserves its own post, and will hopefully get one soon.
Althea
I spent a large amount of effort over the past three-plus years architecting and building out a decentralized LTE network for Althea/Hawk Networks. I’m quite proud of what I’ve built, and it will certainly merit a few articles on this blog later on. By now, the architecture is quite stable, lends itself very well to 5G evolution, and my work is mostly a mix of fixing increasingly obscure open5gs bugs and helping them research/deploy new technologies. For this particular project I am actively looking for smart graduate students interested in telecom architecture, so if anyone knows anyone please reach out.
Bootcamps
Last but far from least, I helped Matt Rantanen and Chris Mitchell start the Tribal Broadband Bootcamps, a series of three-day workshops where we get hands on and work with Tribal participants on how to build/deploy/maintain their own Internet infrastructure. The project has been incredibly rewarding and really just lots of fun. I’ve made some of my favorite professional and personal connections and have seen some beautiful land all over the States, from Aguanga, CA to Akwesasne, NY.
Trailer Trip
As with many other folks, COVID cancelled all my work throughout 2020, and by the end of the year I was going stir-crazy. Me and Audrey made the most of it by packing into our fiberglass trailer and spending several months on the road touring a good part of the American Southwest. The route was heavily influenced by the time of year: we were traveling January through April, and I knew trailer life would only work if we could be somewhere relatively dry and warm (sorry PNW). The context was a bit rough but it was one of the coolest trips I’ve ever taken in my life, and really put a silver lining on an otherwise shitty situation. Particular highlights include Joshua Tree, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and the entire southern half of Utah.
Search And Rescue
Shortly after moving to Olympia, I started volunteering with Olympic Mountain Rescue, our local search-and-rescue group. It’s been an incredibly rewarding position, combining my love of outdoor adventure with real, viscerally important goals and reasons. A big part of volunteering has been getting trained, and then maintaining proficiency, in a wide range of certifications, and it’s pretty cool to have certifications in everything from U.S. Government Incident Command System to Field Helicopter Operations to Wilderness First Response. Particular highlights thus far include riding a Navy helicopter to one of the most remote parts of Olympic National Park, bushwhacking the Olympic coast on one of the wettest days on record (9 inches in 24 hours!), and helping rescue a group of 12 kids in their 20s who got stuck on top of a mountain during a birthday party gone sideways.
