About Me

Hi! I’m Lyza Danger Gardner. I’m female, and I was born in 1977. I have lived in Portland, Oregon, USA for all of my life except for a brief and bizarre stint in the UK during graduate school.

The most important thing in my life is my husband, David. On the site you will often see him referred to as Mr. Pencil. We live in an exceedingly narrow, vividly cobalt-hued Victorian house (built c.1890) in Portland’s inner SE neighborhood (technically Buckman). We share our home with a dog (Sydney), cat (Tephra), African Leopard tortoise (Chopper), greenhouse full of orchids and any number of saltwater tropical fish.

My very favorite things are learning, new adventures, beauty (creation and observation of) and love.

Books and Learning

I have amassed a small library and spend a slightly concerning amount of time cataloging and considering my books. I read and discuss literature with frenetic excitement. I am working toward a long-term goal of being well-read by 35, and an enlightened polymath by 40. Given a perfect world, I’d spend the rest of my days in paneled libraries and the halls of liberal arts colleges. All of this is the inspiration for my Books & Learning section.

Beauty

I love to look at things that are beautiful. I love to eat and drink beautiful things. My contributions to the world’s pool of beauty are minimal, and I recognize my own relative lack of talent. But I do very much enjoy photography, and one of my hobbies is letterpress printing.

Adventures

Me at Lake (Reservoir) Powell–on an adventure. I love this stuff!

Mr. Pencil and I love to go outside, go places, see and learn abroad. Many of our weekends are spent poring over rocks, plant matter, hiking trails, stargazing. I am doing very well at conquering a long-held, dreadful fear of flying. I think there is a lot of travel in my immediate future. We also have adventures at home with our various projects & hobbies: essential oil distillation, weather station tuning, wine cellar organizing, fermenting, printing.

Professional and Geekery

I am one of the co-founders of Cloud Four, a Web and mobile strategy firm here in Portland. Since our establishment in 2007, we’ve been lucky enough to be part of many exciting projects. Highlights include being part of the Obama ’08 iPhone application team, helping with the design and launch of OpenID’s updated Web site, the design of the Wall Street Journal’s Blackberry application interface, and assisting with the BCBG iPhone application. Cloud Four also helps organize Mobile Portland, a monthly community event covering relevant topics in the mobile technology space.

I have 13 years’ experience in Web development, ranging the gamut from production to full-fledged application development. My keenest interest lies at the merging of technology and beauty—I strive to make handsome, functional products for our customers.

As such, this site is an utter labor of love. Despite the widespread availability of a million tons of super-duper WordPress plugins and themes, I designed nearly every element on the site from sheer scratch. Read more about the site.

Me in a happy moment

Mr. Pencil and I got married in the middle of the nowhere-desert. This is part of what makes us tick.