Michael Kahn

The Story

I got my start behind a camera, not a keyboard. My first real gig was shooting MotoGP at Laguna Seca, learning to anticipate a moment at 165 mph. That turned into years of motorsports photography, brand campaigns, and OEM content for manufacturers and agencies. Somewhere along the way I realized I had as much to say about the things I was photographing as I did pictures to take of them.

I started MK Library because I kept running into the same problem: I’d search for help with a home project or a restaurant recommendation and get a wall of generic advice written by someone who clearly never held a drill or tasted the food. So I started writing the articles I wished I could find.

I also publish The Weekly Driver, which reaches 350,000 monthly readers across the website, newsletter, and a podcast with over 280 episodes. Every vehicle review is tested in real California conditions: rush hour traffic, road trips with too much luggage, mountain storms, and desert heat. No manufacturer press routes. Just how the car actually lives.

Everything on MK Library comes from firsthand experience too. When I write about installing a heat pump water heater, it’s because I stood in my garage for three days dealing with permits, rebates, and a contractor who kept changing the estimate. When I recommend a restaurant, I’ve eaten there. Probably more than once. When I write about paddle boarding, I’m drawing from years of racing on Northern California lakes and rivers, not a quick Google search about the sport.

I’m based in Sacramento, California, which shows up in a lot of what I write. NorCal has this incredible range: world-class food, trails that empty out twenty minutes from downtown, lakes where you can paddle board in January if you’re stubborn enough. I’ve lived here long enough to have strong opinions about all of it.

The food and travel writing grew out of a lifelong obsession with eating well in unfamiliar places. I’ve chased espresso through Italian hill towns, eaten my way across Mexico City, and mapped every late-night happy hour worth visiting in Sacramento. I travel the way I write: focused on the details that actually matter and honest about the parts that didn’t live up to the hype.

On the tech side, I’m deep into self-hosting and digital infrastructure. I run my own NAS, tinker with home automation, and have opinions about photo management software that nobody asked for. If it plugs in and can be configured, I’ve probably spent a weekend with it.

The gardening came later and surprised me. What started as a few raised beds turned into a full garden with fruit trees, native plants for pollinators, and an ongoing battle with whatever keeps eating my tomatoes. Turns out getting dirt under your fingernails is a decent counterbalance to staring at screens all day.