Mark Jardine

As a child, I wanted to become a professional baseball player. Sports was my life. But I also loved being creative. I loved building my own ideas out of Legos and sketching elaborate mazes on paper. As I got older, I became hugely fascinated in reading manga and watching anime around sixth or seventh grade and naturally I wanted to draw characters in that style. By the time I was in high school I was creating my own character designs and continued to sketch throughout college. I really wanted to become an illustrator, but when it was time to pick a major, I just felt my skill level just wasn’t where I wanted it to be at that point. I definitely wanted to do something in the art field, but something that would give me a much safer chance at having a successful career in. The answer was 3D modeling and animation. I was so set on going to Academy of Art college in San Francisco, especially after the tour of the school. But the insane cost of tuition scared me and so I ended up choosing my backup and study Graphic Design at Cal State University at Long Beach. While identity and print design was the main focus of this program, I became heavily interested in web design and spent most of my time outside of school learning to build websites while learning design fundamentals in school.

Building websites was so exciting for me I ended up dropping out of school and getting a job as a junior web designer at a small company in Los Angeles. As my experience grew, I hopped around to a few more companies while freelancing on the side until I landed a job as a UI Designer at Oakley, Inc. in 2006.

My primary job there was designing product pages, building out a design system, and writing html/css. While at Oakley, I had developed a huge fascination in designing software and icons for the Mac because of inspiration from companies like Panic, Delicious Monster, and designers like Max Rudberg, Mike Matas, and others from the days of Macthemes.net. This was also around when the iPhone was first introduced. Because I was already tinkering with designing icons and Mac OS themes, I was tasked with designing one of Oakley’s first iPhone apps. I also met Paul at Oakley and we joined forces to create an iPhone app for fun outside of work. Our app, Weightbot, was such a success that we created Convertbot which also became a big hit. When we started working on our third app, Pastebot, we decided it was time to take the leap and go full time creating apps. We’ve been doing it since 2008 and it has been a wild ride ever since.

I’ve had a love for cars ever since i was old enough to drive, but I wasn’t able to afford anything fun until I got my first job outside of college. The first car I bought with my own money was a 2000 Celica GT-S with a 6-speed manual. I was in love with the Honda S2000 at the time, but I could not afford it. I still loved my Celica because it was my first performance-oriented car and I paid for it myself. I ended up selling it when I got married and bought a used 2003 Lexus IS300. It wasn’t until another 10 years later that the continued success of Tapbots allowed me to follow my dreams of getting into motorsports. In 2009 I learned to autocross (with my 2008 BMW 135i) and started taking high performance driving schools. I ended up replacing the 1 series with a 2011 BMW M3 and continued to take it to driving schools and track days across the Bay Area. It was a fantastic car and I even won a few time trial competitions. I also spent a lot of time on my driving simulator at home and bought a used go kart to get more seat time at a much lower price point. Motorsports just gets so expensive especially in a heavier, premium car.

After 5 years of the M3, I wanted to drive something cheaper (lower cost of consumables, and lighter weight), more reliable, and that would challenge me more as a driver. The only real option was the Honda S2000. It was the best decision I could have made. It was extremely fun to drive, reliable, and running costs were just so much lower. While I did win a couple time trial competitions in the S2000, it was a much more challenging car to drive than the M3. I ended up spinning and crashing into a tire wall at Laguna Seca, which was the first time I ever lost control of a car on the race track. Luckily it was just cosmetic body damage and I was able to bring the car back to looking new again and drove it for many more years. While owning the S2000 as my track car, I was lucky enough to also own a 2016 Cayman GT4 and a 2017 Shelby GT350 for about a year each. Both cars were sold because my family planned to move (to Austin and then Dallas).

Around 2018, my passion for mountain biking started to equal my enjoyment on the race track. The better rider I became, the more fun I was having and endless challenges arose. In the spring of 2021, I reluctantly sold my beloved S2000 and had no more cars to take to the race track. I do have a driving simulator at home that I’ll jump on every once in awhile and I love a good session on arrive-and-drive go karts. I may buy another affordable sports car to enjoy driving again someday, but for now I drive a Toyota 4Runner and love the biking life.

I loved riding my BMX as a kid. It was my primary mode of transportation and that was invaluable. But without the internet, my tricks were limited to the bunny hop and riding backwards on my handlebars. Once I turned 16, cars were a much faster way to get to places and I never rode a bike again. It wasn’t until 13 years later that I had an interest in bikes again. When I started working for Oakley, I was surrounded by visuals of extreme sports. Seeing videos of professional mountain bikers playing on screens everywhere was just so inspiring and I really wanted to get into it. But when I learned how much a real mountain bike costs, I gave up that thought.

It wasn’t until around 2013 when I was ready to spend the money on a proper mountain bike. I bought a 2013 Santa Cruz Nomad. It was an entry level bike, but full suspension and far more capable than my riding ability. I started out very passionate about riding, but it slowly diminished as very few friends rode and fun trails were at least an hour away from me. Driving in a bunch of traffic just to ride got old and so I never built up the fitness to really enjoy riding for a long time. I also hadn’t discovered YouTube as a source for learning how to ride better so I never knew how to improve my skills. When my family planned on moving from the Bay Area to Austin, I figured I wouldn’t need a mountain bike anymore with no mountains and so I sold it in 2016.

In 2017, my family moved from California to Cedar Park, a town right outside of Austin. Little did I know that there were more than 20 miles of mountain biking trails right next to my neighborhood. There weren’t any mountains in Texas, but the trail builders were able to make good use of the varying elevation they had. In excitement of discovering so many mountain bike specific trails, I went to the closest bike shop and ended up buying a 2018 Transition Scout. Being riding distance to all these trails, I rode every other day from my house. As my skills progressed I started to get comfortable with more technical features. Drops, jumps, and rock climbs. Jumps in particular captured my interest. It was such a great feeling to fly through the air if only for a moment. Eventually I bought a dirt jumper to hone my jumping skills at a local pump track.

Now I have 4 bikes (5 if I include my BMX) for completely different riding disciplines and I just love riding and learning new skills. Riding bikes has been crucial for my mental and physical health and it’s always a good time. I only wish I started riding much sooner in my life.

I was born on the east coast of the United States to a Korean mom and an American dad. My dad was in the military so I grew up in Japan (where my brother was born), South Korea, and Hawaii before settling in Northern California to finish middle and high school. Being a military brat had its perks. Moving and making new friends every 3-4 years was tough, but I got to experience so many different places and that was a good thing. Living on military bases gave us complete freedom as kids…sometimes a bit too much. In the summers we played outside well past sunset. We rode our bikes everywhere, swam in the ocean, fished in the streams and built the tree forts of our dreams. I played organized soccer and baseball from second grade all the way up until high school. I have to say, I had it good as a kid.

I’ve always had an endless amount of hobbies growing up. I played piano when I was young, and learned how to play guitar and drums in high school. I was also really into video games and watching anime which led to my interest in drawing. I played basketball & football with friends, rode bikes & skateboards, and even roller bladed for a bit. I’ve kind of always been the type that likes to try everything. I’ve never been afraid to learn something new. In fact, I love new challenges. On the downside, I never focused on anything long enough to become a master of it.

I’ve been married for 19 years now and have 3 boys. Our Shiba Inu passed away after 15 wonderful years in our family and now we have a Welsh Pembroke Corgi pup ruling the house. It can be busy at times with 3 kids, but it’s full of adventure and amazing to watch them grow and become individuals with their own personalities and talents. My family loves the outdoors so we spend a lot of time at parks and my kids love riding bikes which is good for me since that’s what I always want to do.

When I’m not working, spending time with family, or on a bike, I’ll either be playing video games or working on a project around the house. I recently acquired a laser cutter and 3D printer so I tinker with those on occasion. It’s very rare that I feel bored. There’s just endless things I can work on or learn. When I look back at my life, I can see the pattern and I feel like I haven’t changed much at all. I’m slightly more mature with more responsibilities, but I’m the same kid with too many hobbies and the same passion to learn new things.