Below you'll find my post archive sorted by Category. I try to write posts that should stand the test of time (as long as they're not technical), so I've decided to sort by category instead of date.

100DoC (13)

100 days of code - day 1

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 2

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 3

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 4

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 5

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 6

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 7

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - vacation

I didn’t bail out of 100 Days of Code, I’m just on vacation :D

100 days of code - day 8

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 9

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 10

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 11

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 12

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

3D Printing (1)

unsuckifying my ender 3 v2

For Christmas 2021 my wife bought me my first 3D printer, an Ender 3 V2. She chose that model because it was my first printer and I always live by the tried ...

ADHD (1)

job hunting while adhd

It’s no secret to anyone that follows me on Mastodon, or that bird site, that I’ve been looking for a new job since the beginning of the year. I’ve been cond...

AnselOS (1)

building an operating system | anselos - it begins

On the list of things I thought I would be doing in my free time at the end of 2022, I did not expect to find Write my own operating system, but there it sit...

Billionaires (1)

on elon musk

I’m going to start out this post by saying, I don’t believe billionaires should exist. I believe you should be taxed into oblivion the close you get to that ...

Building in Public (4)

starting over

I’ve always believed that there are many things more important than tech and always viewed tech as an enabler for other things in life. That doesn’t mean tha...

choosing a mission statement

One of my first tasks for building out my new Indoor Air Quality Consultancy was to put together a mission statement. This seemed easy enough, innocuous… It ...

on developing a company vision statement

A company Vision Statement differs from a Mission Statement slightly, because it focuses on the boots on the ground details, the actions. I found that workin...

the power of visualization

A few weeks ago when Antoni and I were talking, he asked me to visualize what a day in the life would look like once I had started $COMPANY and we had been a...

Burnout (1)

burnout

Burnout is a common discussion point in the tech community, for some it never happens, for others it happens once or twice in a career, for some of us though...

Career (13)

on nutanix

Looking for a desktop support engineer in Columbus. Start part time moving to full. Message me for details #jobs— joshobrien77 (@joshobrien77) August 2...

starting over

I’ve always believed that there are many things more important than tech and always viewed tech as an enabler for other things in life. That doesn’t mean tha...

just do good work

Employers have very high expectations of their employees and will rarely stop to ask how you’re doing with your workload. I’ve been fortunate to have some re...

signal vs noise

In the last few years I’ve worked for three companies, all with varying cultures regarding communication. In the first company, I found that the signal vs no...

what is your life's work?

At NVIDIA there is a saying, “NVIDIA is where you can do your life’s work,” which I think is a very valuable thing to think about. Rarely do we step back and...

on having multiple careers

Humans are an amazing, multi-faceted group of organisms with interests that span from watchmaking to Dungeons and Dragons, gardening to medieval architecture...

saying i don't know is okay

After years of working, many people have been conditioned to think that you always need to know the answers - that conditioning is wrong. One of the things I...

sometimes you just need to do the work

We spend so much of our days talking about the work that we’re going or need to do. We attend endless waves of meetings where we seem to talk about the same ...

don't let the industry pass you by

The tech industry moves fast. If you don’t pop your head up every now and then you’ll miss what’s happening. When you’re heads down for a long time inside of...

on being a technical product strategist

I’m finding myself at a place in my career where I need to grow into what’s next, for me, that’s growing into a title I’ve given myself - Technical Product S...

technical product strategy, pt 2

Back in October I wrote On Being a Technical Product Strategist, where I discussed the need for someone who focuses on the holistic view of technical product...

job hunting while adhd

It’s no secret to anyone that follows me on Mastodon, or that bird site, that I’ve been looking for a new job since the beginning of the year. I’ve been cond...

the hunt completes - a new chapter

A while back I posted about job hunting while ADHD, and I’m happy to report that I was able to make it work! I am now a Principal Technical Marketing Enginee...

Customer Service (1)

just say no, to big box stores

TL;DR; Don’t use a big box store, especially Lowe’s, for something as important as your kitchen appliances - they will not fulfill their warranty guarante...

Engineering (1)

how to manage an engineer

I’ve been an engineer for a long time and in multiple capacities.

Gear (4)

moving countries - a thought exercise

A few days ago I wrote looming change where I described how my wife and I have this feeling that we might eventually move countries - most likely Europe. Thi...

my nixos setup w/ an encrypted amnesia-tic zfs filesystem

I have had a personal Lenovo T480s running around the house for quite a while. Traditionally I’ve run Ubuntu on it, but it’s also run NixOS, Fedora, and a fe...

moving countries - a thought exercise 2022 edition

Since I wrote Moving Countries a Thought Exercise several things have changed: I no longer work for Druva, our home equipment has simplified a bit further, a...

well done framework

After running a Lenovo T480s as my personal daily driver for a number of years, it was time to replace it. I had inherited the Lenovo from a previous employe...

IAQ (13)

100 days of code - day 1

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 2

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 3

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 4

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 5

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 6

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 7

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - vacation

I didn’t bail out of 100 Days of Code, I’m just on vacation :D

100 days of code - day 8

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 9

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 10

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 11

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

100 days of code - day 12

I’ve done a few rounds of 100 Days of Code in the past, but never really made it past 2 weeks. Part of the reason for that failure is the weekend portion - I...

IAQ Business (3)

choosing a mission statement

One of my first tasks for building out my new Indoor Air Quality Consultancy was to put together a mission statement. This seemed easy enough, innocuous… It ...

on developing a company vision statement

A company Vision Statement differs from a Mission Statement slightly, because it focuses on the boots on the ground details, the actions. I found that workin...

the power of visualization

A few weeks ago when Antoni and I were talking, he asked me to visualize what a day in the life would look like once I had started $COMPANY and we had been a...

Internet (1)

i miss the weird internet

When I started working in IT in 2010 or so, I created this awesome list of blogs that were written by individuals who had something smart, funny, or weird to...

Life (6)

you're not just your career

I hate the question, “What do you do?” even though I’m sure I’ve asked the same question hundreds of times in my life. In the United States, we’ve aligned ou...

looming change

My wife and I have been talking about a feeling we both have been having on and off for the greater part of the last year, there is a huge change in our near...

starting over

I’ve always believed that there are many things more important than tech and always viewed tech as an enabler for other things in life. That doesn’t mean tha...

i'm very tired.

I’m very tired.

i believe

I believe that every single person deserves a fighting chance in life.

pour one out for your homie

CW: Miscarriage, Abortion, Blood

Management (1)

how to manage an engineer

I’ve been an engineer for a long time and in multiple capacities.

Media Center (1)

home prod

I’ve been running Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, NZBget, Ombi, and more for a long time at home. It’s lived on my QNAP goofynewton for as long as I’ve had it....

Media Collection (1)

own your content

I’ve been a pretty adamant self-hoster for a long time. I love the concept of just throwing in the cloud, paying a low monthly fee to use it, and not dealing...

NixOS (4)

replacing pi-hole with nixos & coredns

Recently my Pi-Hole decided it was done living which caused all sorts of havoc for my network since it was the primary DNS server listed on my Ubiquiti produ...

managing wireless networks in nixos

I like to manage everything I can in an explicit fashion on my NixOS machines, meaning even on my laptop I make sure to declare the wireless networks that I ...

managing syncthing in nixos

As a continuation of my posts on NixOS, I thought I’d write about how I use and declare Syncthing to manage data syncronization and replication across my mac...

my nixos setup w/ an encrypted amnesia-tic zfs filesystem

I have had a personal Lenovo T480s running around the house for quite a while. Traditionally I’ve run Ubuntu on it, but it’s also run NixOS, Fedora, and a fe...

OS (1)

building an operating system | anselos - it begins

On the list of things I thought I would be doing in my free time at the end of 2022, I did not expect to find Write my own operating system, but there it sit...

Personal (1)

2020, a review

A lot of bad happened in 2020, and a lot of 2020 Review blog posts will talk about those bad things. I’m not going to focus on the bad in this post. I’m tryi...

Plex (1)

plex media server setup

I recently went through the process of wiping my QNAP of the awful QNAP OS and install Ubuntu Server 22.04. It was shockingly simple, although there was a sm...

Product Strategy (2)

on being a technical product strategist

I’m finding myself at a place in my career where I need to grow into what’s next, for me, that’s growing into a title I’ve given myself - Technical Product S...

technical product strategy, pt 2

Back in October I wrote On Being a Technical Product Strategist, where I discussed the need for someone who focuses on the holistic view of technical product...

Projects (1)

too many projects

I believe that having personal projects is extremely important and use them as a way to satisfy my curiosity in a subject without needing to completely dedic...

Rust (1)

building an operating system | anselos - it begins

On the list of things I thought I would be doing in my free time at the end of 2022, I did not expect to find Write my own operating system, but there it sit...

SingleStore (1)

the hunt completes - a new chapter

A while back I posted about job hunting while ADHD, and I’m happy to report that I was able to make it work! I am now a Principal Technical Marketing Enginee...

Social Media (2)

on being disconnected

A little over a week ago I posted this Tweet:

it's been real twitter

Like so many other people, I have decided that it’s time for me to bail on Twitter. This hasn’t been a decision I’ve taken lightly, because a large majority ...

Stoicism (2)

stoicism of the day | 20-apr-2022

“Here’s a way to think about what the masses regard as being ‘good’ things. If you would first start by setting your mind upon things that are unquestiona...

stoicism of the day | 25-apr-2022

“If anyone can prove and show to me that I think and act in error, I will gladly change it – for I seek the truth, by which no one has ever been harmed. T...

Tech (1)

ssh notes

Below you’ll find my SSH tips and tricks. These are mostly as a note to myself, but you might find them interesting.

Tech Industry (1)

don't let the industry pass you by

The tech industry moves fast. If you don’t pop your head up every now and then you’ll miss what’s happening. When you’re heads down for a long time inside of...

Writing Daily (1)

writing daily

There’s a lot of value in publishing often. I have a lot of thoughts on what to write about but often struggle to put things out. I want to write 300+ words ...

Year In Review (1)

2022

I’m going to preface this post with this, 2022 sucked.

i3wm (1)

saving an i3 workspace layout

In my office I have a small portrait display off to the side that I like to keep a few of our security cameras up on during the day. Two are exterior cameras...