Some Words About Me

I was born in Phillipsburg, New Jersey a while back. My parents came to America from Brazil a few years before I was born. Through a couple of moves, I grew up in the Somerville/Bridgewater area with my younger brother, Marcus.

My father was a carpenter and my mother is, to this day, a seamstress. They bought a window coverings business in Somerville where the family worked together. At an early age, I realized I liked taking things apart and putting them back together in the workshop of the family business. It became apparent quickly that I liked to work with my hands, building and fixing things. With the push of my high school physics teacher and my mother, I decided to go to engineering school.

After high school, I took a year off to clear my head. The next year, I was accepted and started college at the college of engineering at Rutgers University. After four years, I finished and received a fancy piece of wall art with my name on it.

With my mechanical engineering degree in hand, I worked for some years as an engineer designing everything from baby bottles to queue line railings for the house of mouse in Orlando to analytical chemistry equipment housings used on DSV Alvin, the research submarine owned by the US Navy.

In 2011, I completed my MBA in Finance and Marketing at the Rutgers Business School as a part time student. Again, I received another fancy piece of art with my name on it.

Lisa and I met on Match.com. After a some emails, texting, and a phone call, we met in Prineton on July 2, 2012. The pictures lisa posted to Match were quite small and really pixelated. I really had a different picture in my head when I met her. I'll admit, there are very few times in my life when I've been speechless, but she did take my breath away when I first saw her. I seem to remember pointing and grunting instead of saying, "Lisa? I'm Mike, nice to meet you." I then pointed and grunted towards the door of the restaurant. It wasn't until we got to the hostess station that I actually introduced myself properly.

I never beilieved in love at first sight, but I do now. We saw each other alot that summer and the next year I bought her a ring and asked her to marry me. There's a video on YouTube of it here. At first, she didn't get it, but she did eventually say yes.