Welcome to my hometown: Oswego, NY.

Long before the gym sessions, the competitions, or any of this, I grew up right here. Oswego used to be a gritty, hard-working factory town — packed with paper mills, starch factories, window shade operations, boiler works, and even two candy factories. Today? Every single one of them is completely gone.

But growing up here was an absolute playground for a curious mind. This is the exact grid where I became a "professional map maker" at just 10 years old, meticulously drawing out my entire neighborhood. 🤣

This is also where the physical foundation started: climbing trees (do boys even do that anymore?), joining the high school men’s swim team, and walking into my very first gym. It’s where I spent Sunday afternoos visiting the cemetery with my great-grandma, where I lost hours playing the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision, and where I sat down to write my very first computer program.

Still under construction, but this is exactly where the architecture of my life began.

Drop a comment below — where did your story start?