About Me

I'm Johan Paul. You can call me Jp. It looks like "Jeep" but without the double e's.

1982: The Rise of Agent Double Eleven.

I am a senior web developer and a former lead engineer. At the moment, I'm rediscovering myself by working on projects and conducting research. 🔬

I have a degree in Electrical Engineering with a sub-major in Control Systems. Most students in that field pursued Robotics, but I chose to focus in the Active Noise Control (ANC) laboratory. For my final project, I implemented analog ANC on headphones.

Back in college years, I had an awkward experience in the laboratory. I played a nylon guitar out of boredom and confusion like a champ, alone. Suddenly, in the middle of my fingerpicking smooth-pop serenade, my professor barged in. His office was far away from the laboratory. So, I guess he was checking out something. As in, "This is a noise cancellation laboratory, why the harmonious echo?"

So then, he nodded and smiled, as for me too. "Outside academia fascination is yours", he perhaps concluded. I passed the final project presentation with grading negotiations punctuated by mutual wit and amusement.

The guitar knowledge I got first came from the intensive courses I did, starting when I was in my 5th grade. My sister enrolled me to the classical guitar course back then, Yamaha licensed course.

After I graduated from college, the first thing I did was auditioning for a pop guitar instructor. I was accepted as an electric guitar instructor (default) — but also taught acoustic/nylon (fingerstyle) by request — Yamaha licensed.

As time went by and I got older, I developed the habit of trying to translate what I heard into my guitar playing. It's something I still do. When I hear something that catches my interest, I try to replay the notes. It usually starts with humming or whistling, since I don't always have my guitar with me.

I taught guitar class from the middle of 2006 to around 2012 — electric, classical, and acoustic guitar classes. I also performed at places.

For some reason, I also play other musical instruments besides guitar. I guess it's because I just really enjoy music.

From an early age, I've liked drawing cartoons, or just drawing in general, as you can see from the characters I've included here. 🖼️

My Other Interests

Chess is my amateur interest, it's something I enjoy and practice regularly, but not at a professional level. Thanks to Lichess, I can watch games, study and broaden my knowledge about it.

I trained in various martial arts back in my teenage years. I have knowledge and experiences in taekwondo and Kyokushin karate plus a bit in kenpō and aikido.

I did plenty of tameshiwari and gyeokpa back then — controlled breaking of inanimate objects using precise martial strikes. It was simply part of the drills, quite a rigorous training.

But then, I realised, hm, those bottles, bricks, planks, I can build meself a pub.

Cooking is interesting to me. I know one cuisine — fried eggs.

Did you know the taste came from the oil?

I did fry eggs with polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) coated pan — no oil. I tasted the result. Well I never!

If there's a good honest boiled meal nearby, I'll take that over fried every time. 😄

That's a brief about me, Jp. Thank you. 🫡

🛠️ Infrastructure

Hi, there. Again. 👋

This is the infrastructure which might interest you:

This root domain application is hosted on Google App Engine.
The UI (User Interface) is using:
- Bootstrap 5.3 & Bootstrap Icons (overall UI).
- Plyr 3.7.8 (audio player).
- FileSaver 2.0.0 (for saving file).

The server is using Node.js 22 with Express framework and many awesome packages.
The database is using Firestore mode accompanied by Firebase Realtime database.
The storage is using Google Cloud Storage.
The (auto) deployment is done on GitHub workflow.
I bought this domain from GoDaddy (through Google) back then.
This site uses SendGrid service for emailing.
The traffic is proxied through Cloudflare.
SSL certificates are provided by Google App Engine and Cloudflare.