About

Hey there. I’m Justin.

I’m a chronic list-maker (something I picked up from my mother) and a chronic parenthetical user (not sure where I developed that, but I’m not going to try to stop it). I have a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Arkansas and a MS in Cyber Security from the University of Tulsa. I now live in Northwest Arkansas with my wife, daughter, and two dogs. My interests are varied, but not too out of the norm of what you would expect from an obsessive nerd with that background - board games, puzzles, personal finance, music, photography, sustainability, homebrewing, coffee, reading, gardening, camping, and cooking to name (more than) a few. Professionally, I do a little of a lot of different things in IT - Windows and Linux system administration, cyber security risk management, network configuration, programming (Python and Bash mostly, with some rusty C# and PowerShell from previous projects), and really just whatever needs done. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at technical writing and explaining complex topics. I’m hoping some of that comes through here as well.

Why a blog?

Enough about that though and back to my list-making tendencies. My big list that I’ve been grappling with for a while now is an ever-growing to-do list. The list includes basically everything that I want to do, need to do, should do, and otherwise am interested in doing. So everything from “solve world hunger” to “polish my shoes”. It’s so old that I can’t remember quite when or how it started. It evolved from scraps of paper to notebooks, to (in various combinations) Trello, Asana, todoist, and TickTick. And in addition to various applications, I’ve tried different methods to tackle this list - Getting Things Done (GTD), Procrastinate on Purpose, Pomodoro technique, Eisenhower matrix, and I’m sure many more that aren’t coming to mind right now. But the same problems persist - 1) None of these methods fit exactly what I need and 2) none of them actually help me accomplish things, and 3) the things I do accomplish are checked off and they vanish, never to be seen again. This blog is yet another attempt to fix some of this. In part to help me accomplish more, but more specifically, as I complete things and put them here in the form of write ups and tutorials, I can see the things that I have already accomplished.

What do you write about?

I’m hoping that when I write things for this blog, it will be mostly in the form of tutorial and how-to content covering things that I have done, providing some value to you. The obvious exception is this about page to just tell you a little about who I am and the purpose of this blog. I’m not going to rule out posts musing about what I’ve been reading or what’s been on my mind though.

About my Projects

Just a quick note here about my projects. Some of them are things that are small, one-and-done, and others are long-term ongoing projects. For things that are long term and ongoing, I’ll give an overview and leave a link to where the project lives.

Get in Touch

If any of my content or interests resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out for collaboration, consultation, or just a friendly chat.