I cut my teeth on BASIC and Pascal in grade school and high school respectively. I currently write a lot of Bash scripts and occasional Applescripts, know juuuuust enough Powershell to ask where the bathroom is, and I dip in and out of trying to learn Python-- I've got it down enough that one of my projects is in production on my home network.
Over the 2024 holidays and the first few months of 2025, I started learning Docker and redid my home network infrastructure with all services running in containers. For the last few months, everything is stable, reasonably well-documented, monitored, and backed up. I just need to get notifications going.
I love to tinker with Home Assistant. I started off controlling a couple lights, then came up with something so I'd get nagged to remove the clothes when my (dumb) washer and dryer finished their cycles. Most recently I created a couple sensors to read my iCloud calendar in search of "Vacation" or "Company Holiday", to determine if the current day and the next day are workdays. Any weekday I'm off from work, those two sensors prevent some automations from running unnecessarily. I also put a temperature/humidity sensor in every room of my house as well as the supply and return ducts of my HVAC system and studied the collected data to try to make my heating and cooling work more efficiently.
🖥 Mac admin • I've been a Mac user since 1991. After being a Tandy 1000 user from 1985, when I got my Macintosh LC it was love at first boot. A Mac has been my daily driver ever since, and I've made my living supporting Mac users since 1992.
☢️ Atomic tourist • Cold War history fascinates me. I've spent hours exploring a Titan II ICBM silo in Arizona. I've stood at ground zero of Trinity Site in New Mexico. I've toured the Nevada National Security Site, where I saw the remains of the houses built for civil defense effects tests, and stood at the rim of Sedan Crater. My most recent trip was to White Sulphur Springs, WV, to tour the congressional bunker that was hidden beneath The Greenbrier. I have a long list of other places I want to visit.
📖 Avid reader • Science fiction, alternate history, computer/video game industry history, and Cold War history are my genres of choice, but I also have shelves of Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and Stephen King.
🏃 Less avid runner • I lost a lot of weight a few years ago and so far I've successfully kept off 90% of it. I ran my first 5K in late 2019, and then... pandemic. I tried a "virtual" 5K but the experience was severely lacking. Haven't really gotten back into it since in-person races became a thing again. Even if I haven't gotten out and run that much lately, though, I've still done at least an hour of cardio every single day for nearly seven years.
👾 Retro tech fan • I collect classic computers and video game consoles. My flagship system is the Colecovision, because it was the first one I had as a kid. I still have it.