Hi, I'm Kyle.

I enjoy learning.

Kyle Hawk Selfie

Featured project

RandomAnime.org

A top-ranked niche site with a wonderful community

An example anime page on RandomAnime.org for the anime Frieren showing an image of the show, description and other information RandomAnime.org home page showing the anime of the day, an about section, and generator form

A simple concept. Help people find new anime to watch.

Random anime has gone from a side project used to learn and experiment, to a useful tool utilized and suppported by many in the anime community.

Users can discover new anime through unbiased randomization based off selected preferences.

Latest posts

Writing about this and that.

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Catan

The Daily Life of a Married Couple - Chapter 2 - Catan. My wife and I play Settler of Catan.. so of course I get wrecked.

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Let's connect

Feel free to reach out to me for a chat.

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About me

Hi, I'm Kyle. I'm a person that enjoys learning new things.

Whether it be professional or personal, I like to adventure out into the unknown in an attempt to improve myself. It could be trying out a new framework, such as Nuxt, learning a new language (German!) or even trying to grow random plants (lemon trees from a seed!).

I also enjoy being a part of a team; at work, communicating ways to improve ourselves as well as at home, with friends who decide to learn something new, like Python.

Professional

The majority of my professional career has been spent as a more front-end orientated developer. My journey started right out of college at Buckeye International, where I helped create Shopify and Wordpress websites for clients.

After a couple years, I was offered the opportunity to work closer to home at a local university, SIUE. As part of their marketing department, I created various custom home pages for departments as well as targeted landing pages for PPC campaigns. I was also able to create some useful tools to help semi-automate some work, such as pulling in degree and course information into a PDF for the annual catalog.

After nearly four years, I made the tough decision to move on and accept a position at AT&T as a software developer. It was there I learned to work within a scrum team and was given the opportunity to expand my skills in practice. I was able to pick up various technologies such as TypeScript, Angular 12, Java Spring Boot and many soft skills. It was great to be a part of such a terrific team where I could ask others for help or advice, as well as return the favor.

Now we are present day. After nearly 2 years, I parted ways with AT&T due to relocation mandates. I am now starting my journey as a software developer for Mercy and look forward to starting this new chapter.

Personal

Outside of work, I have quite a number of hobbies, some more productive than others. First and foremost, I'm an enjoyer of anime and casual gamer. Battlefield is my game of choice. My favorite anime is up for debate.. Sword Art Online would have to be the one with the most influence over me (despite its shortcomings and gaping plot holes). It was my gateway. I had watched anime before, but after SAO, I truly joined the community.

Gardening is a seasonal activity for me. I have a couple above ground beds, a strawberry patch, blackberry bush, an apple tree and a couple of lemon trees. Sounds like fun, right? It would be if the squirrels would leave it alone.

Language learning is one of my healthiest hobbies, I'd say. I have a 1650+ Duolingo streak in German, of which I also study on the app Busuu. I'm attempting to pick up ASL but haven't been as dedicated to it. I do know the alphabet, which is pretty cool (what's funny is I definitely do not know the German alphabet).

I guess I should also include occassionally writing rambling articles and silly stories. If you've read any of them, I'm sorry. If you made it through all of that, I salute you.

Feel free to reach out.