Mike enjoys going for walks. It’s something that calms him from the stresses of the day and energizes him. He went for a rather long walk in Irvine one winter evening in 2013 to decompress from another long work week. Upon waking the next morning, he noticed a pain in his left foot. Being someone who takes bodily signs seriously, he proceeded to ignore it for several months. Eventually, he decided that it would probably be a good idea to make an appointment with a podiatrist as the pain had not gone away. An extensive search found an office that had decent ratings, but more importantly, was about 100 yards across the street from work. He went to his appointment in one of his nice Star Wars t-shirts to see Dr. Peter Kim, who proceeded to order all the diagnostics to determine that a small bone in Mike’s foot had fractured. He subsequently ordered weekly physical therapy at the office. Following the appointment, Dr. Kim told his favorite nurse Amani that she missed a patient who came in wearing a Star Wars t-shirt. Now, Dr. Kim was a big Star Wars fan, as indicated by his trusty lightsaber chopsticks and Star Wars scrub cap that Amani had gifted to him. He also knew that Amani was a fan and often lamented that young people did not appreciate the great series. At his second appointment, Mike was greeted by the short, soft-spoken nurse with an unusual name. Upon introducing herself, she told him that Dr. Kim mentioned someone in a Star Wars t-shirt and happily pointed out her TARDIS pen. They spent the next couple months getting to know each other as she administered physical therapy on his foot once a week...

Eventually, Amani decided that she enjoyed talking to Mike and offered him a copy of a Scientific American magazine to read during one of the therapy sessions. One of the stories in this particular issue was about how scientists discovered the mystery of how dinosaurs mated. Mike saw this as Amani making the first move, whereas she was just trying to give him a magazine to read other that "People" or "US". Mike also decided that he enjoyed talking to Amani and mentioned that he had some tickets to see the Tenderloins later in the year down in San Diego, wondering who he could take with him. He then proclaimed that he and Amani would go see a movie together and she wrote her phone number down on one of the appointment cards. A couple days later and they were on their first date that started with dinner at the Lazy Dog Café and then on to watch How to Train Your Dragon 2 at the nearby movie theater.

Five years, five different home addresses, a combined nine different jobs, a move from California to Arizona, a cat, and a one-eyed pug later, he finally proposed to her in Oslo, Norway while she accompanied him on a month-long work trip across Europe. They will begin the next chapter of their life as a married couple on November 7, 2020, six and a half years after that chance meeting at a podiatrists office. His foot finally healed several years later…