"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
January 2nd, 2026
For those who took the time to translate the tiny bit of greek on my homepage, you would have seen it is from the story of Peter walking on water. This passage was a part of
my confirmation verse and is my favorite story in the Bible. The verse in the title of this post is from Matthew 6:34 KJV.
I recently graduated with my Bachelor's degree from SIUE! I was not sure if I would ever have a college degree, so this accomplishment means a lot to me. One of the
things that kept me on top of homework, studying, volunteer work, and my part-time job was reminding myself to stay in the present. This verse has helped me a lot in
that regard. I have certainly been applying this verse to my job search. As I apply and explore job roles in my immediate area and those farther away, I am
doing my best to focus on what needs to get done *today* and not what may or may not happen in the future. This has helped me stay productive and reduce my stress.
I am really excited to begin chess classes again! I really enjoy working with kids and growing the game of chess. I am a big believer in the benefits of chess
for people of all ages, but especially for kids. Chess has been a great addition to my life, and I hope I can share its impact with others.
I decided to take the style-sheet out of my contact page. While I enjoyed the look, I felt it clashed with the rest of my webpage's simple design. I will also be
exploring PHP contact forms in the future to have complete control over the design and functionality. The service I use is very convenient, but it would be a fun
way to learn more backend processes.
For 2026, the resolution theme I have picked is Focus and Seriousness. I am proud of my professionalism in the workplace, but I occasionally find myself
people-pleasing more than I would like. Laughing and having fun with others is a great joy of mine, and I will not be removing this from my life. However,
it is important to balance this with serious determination towards goals and objectives. I believe I have started 2026 off on the right foot in this regard!
The pwnagotchi is up and running. All that is left is to put a case around it and find a decent power source. Unfortunately my pi sugar battery is no longer
holding a charge, so I will need to find an alternative. I am considering a small power bank or a lipo battery pack. Time will tell!
I have also been building out my homelab more. I am currently running Proxmox on an old HP desktop, and have one raspberry pi three running World Community Grid.
I am continuing to tinker with my SAMBA fileshare and my fish-net containers. I decided to forgo Docker as the Proxmox LXCs appear to work just as well for my needs.
Thanks for reading.
"Frustration is the enemy of success" - Master Tom
December 19, 2025
When I was younger, I was enrolled in a local kickboxing studio. I was a little shy at the time, so being involved in a combat sport helped build my self-confidence.
The studio had a younger class that was primarily focused on fitness and confidence building. One instructor always reminded everyone that "Frustration is the enemy of success." When
I find myself feeling frustrated, especially when troubleshooting technology, I always remember this quote.
I have run into problem after problem setting up my Pwnagotchi. I have had the equipment to set up the Pwnagotchi for almost two years, yet the business of life always seemed to get in the
way. Not only did I lack time, but I always seemed to run into issues with the simple construction of the device. Thankfully, this holiday break has given me the time to push through the
frustration, and I am having a blast troubleshooting this technology.
I have been able to flash the ssd, SSH into the pi zero, and configure the device via its helpful wizard. The next step is to solder the pin header to the pi zero and connect my waveshare v4
screen. Recent community forks of Pwnagotchi seem to have better support for different waveshare screens, so I am hopeful that I can get that aspect working. After that, I will try to get my pisugar2
connected to the board and powering it. I have unfortunately lost the screws to the pisugar, so I will need to swing by home depot to pick up some m2.5s.
Progress is being made!
Welp
December 17, 2025
Absolutely SCRAPPING the first idea of a raspberry pi docker running multiple passive applications at once. That was a little silly in hindsight, but
lessons were learned. I will be exploring those options on my Compaq 8200 Elite Small instead. This will allow me to play with a NAS, Docker, and more intensive
applications (intensive being relative here).
I did not give up on utilizing my Raspberry Pi 3 though! I will be installing the World Community Grid on it. This is a fun way to
make my little pi useful while I explore other projects. Who knows, maybe I will keep it running long term. I stumbled across this project
on a whim and find it very interesting.
More to come soon!
Diving Back into Technology: Raspberry Pis, AIs, and CompTIA Certifications Oh Me Oh My!
December 17, 2025
After graduating Summa Cum Laude from SIUE, I have been spending some free time exploring IT projects and certifications. This has been pretty fun to do, especially since I have had some raspis in my storage for over a year now.
While none of the projects are large in scope, I have enjoyed doing passive research into what I can pull off with the equipment I have. I am a big believer in re-using old technology, so my homelab consists of a facebook marketplace
HP Desktop, a $15 Latitude E6410 (that has a broken wifi card and failing internal battery), and 3 raspberry pis. I am fairly locked in on what I will be doing with two of them, but I am still searching for a purpose for the third.
I will paste some links for homelab projects below and will be sure to update this blog when able.
Unfortunately I must admit that AI was rather helpful in assembling this webpage. I have never been a fan of AI. I witnessed so much cheating at my university using AI tools, and I worry about AI's impact on our society. Even with
these negative perspectives, AI has been useful in my personal life, taking away a lot of friction for the mundane tasks. When I had annoying snags in my HTML, W3Schools was my main reference
point. When I found a snag, I cynically turned to the copilot vscode extension to see what it could offer, and my expectations were blown away. This being said, creating an ugly html and css only personal webpage is a lot simpler than debugging
a failed prod deployment, but I am still impressed with its capabilities. A future project of mine will be to dive deep into web development standards and really make this webpage shine.
I have obtained the CompTIA A+ in an attempt to bolster my personal resume for entry level IT jobs. This has great to refresh my knowledge after a break from the IT industry. My next task is to pass the Network+ exam in the near future. Studying
for this exam has proven to be a little more difficult, but it feels great knowing that I am learning new things.
Here are my potential projects: Pwnagotchi, Fish-Net, and some sort of NAS in the future.
Thanks for reading my first blog post!