Hey, I’m Michael! You might know me as the name my daughter calls me, Baba. Hopefully from Instagram, too!

If you haven’t heard about my daughter, or that I’m a Pacific Northwest transplant, you haven’t truly met me.

Born in Olympia, WA, I’ve moved 20+ times in (enough) years & have set up camp in the Chicago, Indianapolis, & Harrisburg, PA metro areas at different times.

After a rocky time in grade school, I went to IUPUI for Secondary Education (later swapped to US History) to experience city life.

There, I found a shocking lack of local coverage of our successful D-1 sports programs… & Student on Sports, my first DIY project, was born.

Due to SoS’s success & sizable audience, I was later picked to lead SuperIUPUI during Super Bowl XLVI & the revamped student paper, the Campus Citizen, which is still alive & doing very well today.

That audience also led to the ability to monetize my website, at a time when the thought was still brand new. I taught myself how to pitch & add advertising space across the site to local businesses. This would fund my writing trips to away IUPUI sporting events – the rest is history.

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Like my work, my personal life is eclectic & varied. On any given night, you can find me at my favorite local dive bar, hiking a trail at the Dunes to watch the sunset over Lake Michigan, a pop punk/EDM show in Chicago, or driving something way too fast on my racing simulator.

When I started using cannabis medicinally, it was after over a decade of refusing anything but a doctor’s prescription.

Not even caffeine, really.

But around 2015–16, a business partner overcame serious health obstacles with the help of cannabis, & at that point, anything that could help was worth understanding.

From there, the focus turned to research. What used to be “just weed” became cannabinoids, terpenes, strain differences, & real effects. My Weed Journal started as a way to track it all, quickly turning into a hands-on education in how cannabis actually works.

That curiosity led to writing. Early “101” content covered everything from rolling a blunt to breaking down RSO, building a foundation for making complex topics simple & useful. Post-COVID, that experience carried into cannabis marketing, including work helping develop the Dragonfly brand in Michigan.

Medicinal cannabis sits at the core of High Aesthetic because cannabis should do more than just “work.” It should be understood, used with intention, & trusted.

Too often, dispo visits are frustrating.

THC-heavy labels, inconsistent strain names, & limited guidance leave people guessing. High Aesthetic exists to change that, translating cannabis science into clear, real-world information.

The focus is always on outcomes over hype. Better sleep. Less anxiety. More control over daily use. When cannabinoids, terpenes, & product types make sense, better decisions follow.

Through blogs, videos, & brand collaborations, the goal stays simple: help people feel confident every time they shop at a dispensary.