Male, single. Birthplace: Saigon, Vietnam 1967

Since I was a child, I had always thought that I would become a painter, but I was a dreamer and had a penchant for sky gazing. My father was a software engineer, so I became an aerospace engineer (UCLA, 1990).

After a brief stint as an aircraft engineer, I realized that I was inherently unfit for cubicle work. I quit my job to pursue an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Engineering; however, graduate schools could not dispel my restlessness. At last, I abandoned my studies, and, saddled with debts, I tried my hand at writing for a living. I dabbled in technical writing and editing and spent several wonderful years as a starving artist while working as a restaurant critic for a local newspaper.

It has been a long arduous road, filled with dark abysses, marvelous heights, gut-rotting doubts, exquisite joys, heartbreaks, memorable feasts, and long stretches of hunger. The view ahead seems to promise more of the same.

But I have enjoyed the journey immensely. There is some truth in the old proverb: The rewarding path is never easy, the easy path never rewarding.

Along the way, I’ve held a dozen different jobs and lived in eight cities scattered across four states. I have been traveling and living abroad since 2002.

In a way, I have become a painter of sort. Medium: words on paper. Subject: life as I see it.

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