Greetings visitors! Sheppe here. On this about me page I’ll walk you through both personal and professional chapters of my life. My life has been a wild journey that has not been easy, but hardship and trial and error is what defines us and builds our character. Sometimes you have to lose everything in life to see the world without constraint. Any single person on this planet can become successful, and truly shatter their limits, even If they come from nothing.

I grew up in the Bay Area, California, I am a 90’s kid and do miss that era of no cell-phones and limited internet. I actually REALLY miss how the internet looked from 1999-2004, the retro look back then was pretty amazing. The older you get, the more you do crave for nostalgia. I always took a passion for building things, even at a young age. I would always have someone dissemble my toys and electronics with a screwdriver, and then I’d put it back together myself. It was the most accomplishing feeling ever as a kid and perhaps I was always meant to be a builder/engineer looking back at this. In 2001 I started playing a game called Starcraft: Brood War and a couple years later: Warcraft III. These were a big part of my childhood and I would make Starcraft Custom Maps and Warcraft II Custom Games, my first taste of engineering. Designing the maps, making all the triggers/functions, drafting a story element, making the unit attributes, etc. I played these up until 2009 and further on and off until 2011. I’d also make my friends a lot of websites, dating all the way back to Geocities. If you don’t know what Geocities is, be grateful for your youth!

While I attended community colleges part-time when I was 18-19, I never did end up going to a four-year university because I didn’t want to go $30,000+ in debt. So, I avoided a college degree for a long, long time. I lived paycheck to paycheck for ten years from 18 to 28 with just about no savings to my name, always worried about getting sick or losing my employment, as I couldn’t afford to miss one paycheck. Financial stress is absolutely terrible. I would have nightmares of losing my job, not because I was bad at my job, but because one missed check and my life would be in shambles. That is why I do my best to educate younger people when picking a college major, find more of a middle-ground of something you like and something that has good salary potential, not just your most passionate subject. I didn’t end up graduating college with a Bachelor’s Degree until I was 32 years of age, and it’s never too late to go back and get a degree. During COVID, my job closed down, and I was left without employment, one of my worst fears. I researched tirelessly, how could I get a degree fast and affordable, thousands of hours into it. I found out about ACE Credits and ACE-Credit Transfer-Friendly schools like Thomas Edison State University and Western Governors University. I was able to get my Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science in 12 Months while working on school 8-10 hours a day. Traditional four year university takes four years because it is at the universities pace, it really is about 12 months of information spread out over four years. If you worked like a madman, you really could get that four year degree done in one year instead. I explain this with my brands UniBoost & Major Mash. This degree helped change my life and it can also help change many of yours.

I took a passion for iOS Development specifically. I enrolled in an iOS Programming Professional Certificate Program at University of California – San Diego, where I completed four college courses: Introduction to Swift Programming, iOS Programming I, iOS Programming II, and iOS App Development. While I do enjoy Web Development (I had fun building this website), I could get lost in iOS Development all day long, to the point I had to create a schedule for myself to work-out, maintain my house, and meditate before any coding work. If a bug surfaces at 2 a.m. you’ll find me fixing it until it compiles normally without issue, even if I don’t sleep. I just can’t leave something not working, I get this “unfinished” feeling. That is why some of my apps feel “polished” in the tiny places users wouldn’t notice, but engineers always do. Although I still have A LOT of growing and improving to do. A lot.

I’m a big sports fan, specifically Football, MMA, Basketball, and Baseball in that order. I’m a big Raiders, Warriors, and A’s fan being a Bay Area kid. I could talk to you about football and/or fantasy football for hours on-end without getting tired of it a single second. I won my fantasy co-worker league last year and retiring as the champ (too busy). As for Basketball, I went to a Warriors playoff game recently and it was AMAZING. In my opinion, nothing beats going to a sporting event! I like to get loud, have fun, and make some memories. Watching Stephen Curry live was truly amazing. Besides Michael Jordan, I think Curry is the greatest player to ever play. At least the most exciting and entertaining. You’re always welcome to disagree! As for MMA, I’ve been watching since about 2005 before it was that popular and have always loved the sport. It’s amazing to see how much it has grown, UFC as a company specifically.

One of my passions in life is Physics & Space. I’m always up-to-date on new discoveries like new exoplanets, new developments in theories on Dark Energy, etc. Reading things like are we really just in a Black Hole is always fun and engaging. The Earth is just a grain of sand in the universe (possibly unlimited universes) and I’m always curious of the bigger picture of everything. How does everything exist? Why does everything exist? Mixing in a little philosophy as well. There is SO MUCH we have not discovered yet and it really bums me out I may not be around to see so many amazing discoveries, including meeting other Intelligent Life.

A.I. is another thing that absolutely fascinates me and peaks my interest. From both a LLM perspective (e.g. ChatGPT) and walking/house robots kind of AI that are likely coming soon perspective as well. I think it’s only a matter of time before we go true Westworld type of A.I. where A.I. is fully conscious with emotions and true human thinking in the next few hundred years. Although consciousness itself is always a highly debated topic (although fun). I’m currently specializing in AI Engineering in my Software Engineering Master’s Degree as my curiosity and interest forever grows on the subject.

When I was 24, I developed a really bad Autoimmune Disorder. I couldn’t be in the sun at all for a couple years of my life as I was very sensitive to UV radiation, even normal lighting in houses and electronics made my hands swell up like a balloon. I would show my friends how even holding my phone for ten minutes made my hand extremely swollen, and was confirmed via biopsy. I basically had to live in darkness for a couple years, no electronics, and I honestly wasn’t sure life was ever going to return to a normal state for me. I still worked as my place of work was dark enough, but still a considerable challenge. Eventually I learned my triggers, exactly what I can and can’t eat, discovered probiotics, and maintain a very healthy lifestyle with no alcohol. I now rarely ever have a flare-up and can fully tolerate UV including the sun. I am truly thankful and blessed. While I am NOT a Medical Doctor or Professional, if any of you have an Autoimmune Disorder, and want to know what helped me, feel free to email me.

My biggest passion is actually futurology, to the point I want to start a full podcast on it soon, although my time is so limited lately. Thinking about future technology innovations, future events like space-travel and dyson-spheres around our sun to harness energy, etc is just super fun to talk about and think about. Just think how far we have come in the past 200 years… the next 10,000 years will be truly astronomical. Discovering unlimited energy sources, how to travel light-speed, etc. I truly think everything is possible. Even in the short term in the next five years: Sidewalk robots delivering lunch, next twenty years: VR headsets that fool every sense. Push the timeline out centuries and I’m visualizing Dyson-swarm power grids and wondering how society shifts when most work is done by machines.

While I’ve always been told I am an extremely private person, the older I get, the more I am comfortable sharing about my life experiences, especially hardships. Why? Because I want everyone to know no matter what hardships they are experiencing in life, they can overcome them and succeed. They can succeed financially, succeed healthily, and truly prosper in every imaginable way. You have no limits. You are your only limit. And it’s once you realize that, you will be on your true path.

- Sheppe