FAQ

What would you say you do here, Nik? I find little corners of science and human knowledge I can push out and put my shoulder into it. I learn as I go and am always looking for new products to develop. If the Venn diagrams of hard work, outdoor environments, and nerd-central overlap, I'm generally at my happiest.

What is your background? Are you an enginneer?

Started off in the military and served as both a soldier and athlete. From there I took a small sailboat from San Diego down through the Panama Canal, then back up to Florida, then to Kingston, where I sold it. Drifted around a bit, tried out community college. The formal education system wasn't (and isn't) for me. Went to Iraq to do contract security work and chase the elephant. Came back to San Diego and started a clothing company with my wife, ran that for a few years. Got into Nordstrom, Fred Segal, and enough debt to go bankrupt. I learned a lot about what not to do.

After the dust from the BK cleared, we started and ran an ATM business on our own and an online cookie company called Paleo Treats with a friend. We sold the ATM business after a few years; it was profitable but monotonous.

PT did (and does) well, in 2015 earning recognition from FedEx as one of the top 10 small businesses in the country. I sat on their Entrepreneur Advisory Board and helped shape some of their small business policy.

I went back and worked for the Navy as an instructor for a few years, then went off and worked on cargo vessels as part of an anti-piracy team. In between I picked up odd contracting jobs, from assessing the viability of travel for HNW clients in remote locations to working as the interviewer for a million dollar Hollywood ad campaign.

I got into ultra running and after 3 attempts completed the Leadville 100 in 2015. That satisfied the urge to run long distance, and amplified a love of the mountains and views. On a whim, I saw a movie about paragliding and was hooked.

In August 2020 I found Helium through a paragliding Search & Rescue effort in Nevada. I began my journey right as the Hotspot DIY/Alpha code program opened (long since closed) and started to build and place hotspots, including remote mountain placements. I started writing about the lessons learned on this blog in order to help other people step over some of the obstacles I'd had to get around.

Sometime in spring of 2021, as the blog posts were getting picked up on Reddit, Discord, Facebook, and the rest of the web, I began getting so many calls for help with hotspot deployments that I started a consulting company to manage it, and Gristle King was born.

After a few years deep in Helium I started a podcast on LoRaWAN and, having been steeped in the glory of nerd-work, began to explore and build out my own projects, which more or less brings us up to today.