What is this?
This website is both a learning exercise and a place to share. I've decided to improve my web fundamentals and rebuild my personal site using simple HTML, CSS, and my favorite text editor. I intend to have fun with this and make enhancements over time as a sort of never-ending-project. My goal is to keep this website evergreen; I don't want to rely on any heavy frameworks that will cause rot without regular maintenance. My guiding philosophy is to add enhancements only when I need them, such as pagination once the Archive page gets too long, a related posts section at the bottom of a blog post once I write enough posts, etc.
Plans for this website
This site is under construction 🙂 🚧. Some pages and features do not exist yet. I intend to build out the following:
- ☑️ Gallery of my photography
- ☑️ Project page
- ✅ RSS Feed
- ☑️ Build feed automatically
- ✅ Tag pages
- ☑️ Improve style in browsers other than Safari, which I used during initial development
- ☑️ Script an automated blog post publishing workflow (an invisible upgrade)
- ...and more!
About Me
I like to tinker. I'm drawn to technology because of the problems it enables me to solve. What I enjoyed most about my academic experience was writing code in R and Python for statistical computing and I found that my love for solving problems with code manifested itself again when I joined the workforce. I worked as a Web Infrastructure Specialist at a banking software company in Connecticut starting in September 2018 where I had the opportunity to support critical enterprise applications and learn a whole lot more about web technologies and infrastructure than I ever knew. At the same time, I learned there was so much more that I didn't know. What started as a level 1 position focused primarily on supporting a million+ user web application with on-premise infrastructure—doing sometimes repetitive but critical work—blossomed over a few years into a role where I learned the power of automation, I discovered the joy of code through learning PowerShell, and I served as a force multiplier for my team by enabling them with custom tools that reduced toil. My ultimate goal was to transform my role into one that aligned with what I had discovered about myself: I like to a) question assumptions, b) solve real problems that you can only identify by doing the actual work, and c) learn new things for the sake of knowledge: I value competency, and strive to improve mine.
In September 2022, I began a Full Stack Coding Bootcamp that taught me modern web application development practices and provided an environment to work collaboratively on small software projects. Given I was still working full-time, this was both a thrilling and exhausting endeavor, though it was invaluable experience despite the latter. After the end of the program, I decided to leave my current employer to take a break and pursue the next phase of my career. In hindsight, I can say that—given the tech job market—this wasn't my best idea! It was a tough job search and I didn't find exactly what I was looking for: a small, product-focused company where I could use my new skills and begin the rest of my career. I had a brief stint at a local university doing application support, and decided to return to my former employer in a new role and a new domain, focused on technical risk and security.
I'm professionally experienced with supporting distributed applications, application deployment, automation, tool development, and incident management. I love the power of shell scripting, whether it is PowerShell or Bash. I like to build tools to solve my own problems. I'm constantly looking to fill the gaps in my knowledge. I'm particularly interested in web development, Linux system administration, and the command line interface. I have a low-stakes homelab: I run Debian Linux on some old hardware with too many hard drives, which primarily serves as my network file storage. I really enjoy using macOS for my main workstation and I've been using a Mac alongside Windows for over a decade. I love the UNIX Philosophy. I'm also a fan of free open source software and the ethos behind it.
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