Now

Last updated 5/22/2024 in between work emails.

What am I doing?

My main professional focus right now is leading my team through a some significant projects, such as migrating online banking providers and some major infrastructure upgrades/cloudifications. I’ve also gotten the time to build some tools to improve our contact center team’s life in .Net and Powershell-based API integrations. I forgot how nice it was to code!

Personally, I’ve been experimenting with various HomeKit automations and integrations such as Homebridge and Scrypted. I’ve replaced my vmWare homelab infrastructure with ProxMox VE, including adding one more node to my environment. My goal here is to build my own HA cluster, but I’m still working out how to setup the storage. I’ve also been dabbling in entertainment improvements such as Plex Live TV/DVR, building my legal movie archive, and trying to find cheaper access to college football. Go Tigers!

How I organize my day

  • Weekdays
    • Outlook Calendar
    • Microsoft To Do – Planned tab and My Day if I need more focus.
    • Microsoft Planner – Mainly for organizing 1:1s and other regular meetings and small projects. Anything assigned to me flows into To Do.
    • ‘OpenDaily’ Script – Opens all my daily programs and the websites I use daily in Safari.
  • Weekends
    • Maybe a reminder or two for things I need to get done, but otherwise I leave my weekends free for time with my wife & family.

Information Intake

  • Lobste.rs – Mainly programming and development related but I still like staying hooked in to some of this.
  • Twitter – Mostly garbage but I’m working to purge the crap and stack my feed with good leadership, IT and InfoSec folks.
  • Ycombinator News – Usually a couple cool reads.
  • Newsify & Various RSS Feeds – I’m working on sorting these out after deciding the actually read news in my feed. That was a BAD idea. I’m also looking for an RSS reader worth its salt without a ridiculous monthly fee.
  • LinkedIn – Not as dedicated as I should be, but this is my social network of choice. It’s a positive influence, unlike the other two.
  • Security Intel Feeds
    • FS-ISAC IntelX – If you are in the financial space, an FS-ISAC membership is worth the yearly costs.
    • Shadow Server – I use both the public mailing list and the scan results. The former helps stay up-to-date, and the latter is great CYA.
  • Mailing Lists
    • CUNA Technology Council – Another membership that is worth the money if you work in the credit union space. Loads of opportunities for knowledge sharing and networking.
    • Users Groups for various important apps – It pays the be in these groups. You get a lot of valuable info but it takes some time out of your day to process.
  • Podcasts
    • Daniel Miessler’s Unsupervised Learning – I subscribe to both the newsletter and the podcast. I normally listen to the free podcast then use the newsletter for any links that I missed during the podcast.
  • Newsletters *

Information Sharing

  • My blog is the new place for me to share. I’ve decided that posting everything interesting that I read gives me at least one reason per day to post.
  • Our internal chat at work.
  • Social media

How I stay plugged in to my team

  • Daily Stand-Ups – each morning we go around the table using the standard SCRUM methodology: what did you do yesterday, what are you doing today, and what roadblocks do you have. I take the time right after the meeting to dig in to any roadblocks or redirections that need my attention.
  • Weekly priorities emails on Mondays – I ask everyone individually what their priorities are, and what they need from me to ensure they can accompish them. This keeps both sides in the loop with a minimal time need from both sides. The intention is to keep our 1:1s focused on coaching, development, and the big issues.
  • Weekly 1:1s – At least 30 minutes each week with everyone on my team. The goal is to focus on development, coaching, and planning.