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My dad grew up and became this guy. He’s an engineer. He’s an Electro-Optical Engineer.

What Engineers do? 

Find a problem and solve it. My dad’s role model has really carried on through my life, because this guy’s got a bucket of patents in electro-optics. Like, Large format camera light baffle apparatus. What the heck is that? I don’t know, but it was a problem that no one else has solved. So what did my dad do? He solved the problem.

Even after he retired, he and my mom are out there traveling the world. They go to Machu Picchu. This happened in 2011, they’re taking him out on the tour, they get to this courtyard, where you’ve got these two round things that are raised on the ground, on the floor level. 

When you look at them closely, you realize something really unique about this. These were not built up on top of the floor. The entire floor was ground down to leave these two round things sitting there. 

In 1911, when this place was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham, he wasn’t sure what they were. So he looked at them and he said, these were mortars for grinding corn. You’re gonna grind down the entire Granite floor of a plaza to leave two circles. So, you can grind corn? 

It turns out that it had rained and so, my dad is there and he’s looking at this and he thinks to himself. I don’t think so, in his mind, what he sees is optics, electro…What would happen when the Sun hits these reflective surfaces or the moon and then it casts a light up onto the wall and I wonder if I do the calculations, this is actually a lunar and the solar calendar?!

He does all the mathematics, He sends my brother who speaks Spanish back down there with the dates, etc. and all the guides are hovered around and sure as heck, at that certain moment, *Ping!* Light goes up and it goes right through a window on the wall.

Solved an amazing problem, from 1911 and to have 2011, a hundred years. Nobody knew what those things were for. 

Now there’s a little sign right there that says water mirrors and the story that the guides tell is not about grinding corn. They explained that my dad’s solved the problem. 

It’s part of my history. I love it. Let me take that into the world and who I am, what I live and the future I’m creating.