K3CAN

I'm Adam. This is my Blog.

This is intended as a public journal of my hobbies.  This is probably my 5th blog. As much as I like the idea of documenting my activities, I can't seem to ever keep up with it long term.
Maybe this time will be different?

Confession: I'm a bit of a nerd.

Since I was young, I've been a a bit of a tinkerer. From taking apart old VCRs to building PCs, I've enjoyed toying with technology and refusing to "leave well enough alone". If it ain't broke, it just means I haven't fixed it yet.  My first linux distro was Mandrake. I own soldering irons and I know how to use them. I host this blog (and my other services) on a miniature server cluster. I have a ham radio license, and I still keep a shelf of O'Reilly books (the Camel book, included).

Confession: I'm a millennial.

I remember 9/11 and Y2K. I my first game console was a gameboy and I begged my parents for Pokemon. To answer the burning questions:  Blue. Charmander. 151, but used a gameshark for that last one. My first cell phone was a Motorola V150. My first website had red text on a black background. I joined Facebook and Gmail when they were still invite-only. My first memories of TV are the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, and I've seen every episode of the X-Files. 

My current "hobbies"

Can you call these hobbies? 

Homelab

I enjoy over thinking and over engineering simple things. This blog, for example, could easily be hosted on a simple SBC. Instead it's served from a high-availability cluster, behind a reverse proxy, on a dmz'd network.  The SBC route would have been simpler and induced far fewer headaches, but I chose pain instead. 

Amateur Radio

I'm a ham. Yes, I enjoyed being on stage in highschool, but I also have my amateur radio license. General class. As of 2024, I've made over 800 contacts through a number of various modes.  I've chatted with the locals on my drive home from work,I've made digital contacts with stations over 10,000 miles away, and I've even used satellites and the ISS to relay voice and data from a tiny hand-held radio. 

Vehicles

I've also had several project vehicles over the years, all Jeep Wranglers. As of this writing, I don't currently have any, but that might change in the future.