Speaker 1 (0:0) Hey Hey there, and welcome to the IT guy show. (0:17) I'm your host, Eric, the IT guy Hendrix, and this is episode 14. (0:20) Today, we're going to be talking about a a topic that is near and dear to my heart, that is life as a systems administrator. (0:27) I knew when, when I was in, gosh, probably even in elementary school, I knew I wanted to work on computers and working on hardware, building things was always a joy of mine. (0:38) And so as as I kinda alluded to last last episode, you know, that was that was kind of the career path I went. Speaker 1 (0:43) I I tried c sharp and was like, there's no way. (0:47) Found out that that there's actually a degree program to work on all the all the boxes with the blinky lights. (0:54) Check out episode 13 if you wanna hear my career story. (0:57) But I I wanted to get another perspective as well. (1:00) And probably one of my favorite sys admins out there is none other than the iron sys admin, mister Nate Lager. Speaker 1 (1:08) Nate, Speaker 2 (1:08) welcome to IT show, my friend. (1:11) We we were having me. Speaker 1 (1:12) We were just talking during the preshow that this feels very, very familiar. (1:16) Like like, we've been in the space before together. Speaker 2 (1:19) It does. (1:20) It does. (1:20) I mean, the platform that we're on, the the background is different, and the channel Speaker 1 (1:25) is different. (1:25) Decorated. (1:26) My my office is decorated now. (1:32) So why don't you, I know who you are, at least, I think. (1:35) So why don't why don't you introduce yourself for the audience and, tell us what you're doing and what you do for fun? Speaker 2 (1:41) Sure. (1:42) So, I'm Nate Lager. (1:44) I, currently work for Red Hat. (1:46) I have worked for Red Hat for almost six years now. (1:50) The last three or so of those, I work on the same team that Eric was on, and we used to work together. Speaker 2 (1:55) We even did livestreams together, which is exactly what he was referring to. Speaker 1 (2:00) And and rebuilt Windows laptops to run Linux while at conferences. Speaker 2 (2:03) Oh, yeah. (2:04) Yeah. (2:04) We did a lot of conferences together. (2:06) Yeah. (2:07) That that first conference I did as a TMM. Speaker 2 (2:09) Right? (2:10) I remember that. (2:10) We walk in and all of them all the laptops in the in the RHEL booth are running Windows, and we're like, we can't have this. (2:19) Scrambled to find a USB Speaker 1 (2:21) or stick. (2:21) Something. Speaker 2 (2:22) Download RHEL and install RHEL on them and yeah. (2:26) Totally didn't catch fire or anything. (2:28) Worked perfectly the whole show. (2:32) So, yeah. (2:33) I've been a technologist and a bit of a nerd for pretty much my whole life. Speaker 2 (2:38) There's lots of other topics I'm sure we're gonna get into as we go, but I guess that's that's the short short version. Speaker 1 (2:45) And, what what do you do when you're not technologying? Speaker 2 (2:48) Sure. (2:48) Well, so when I'm not technologying, I'm also sometimes technology technology ing because it's also a hobby. (2:54) But I also have this passion for off road and outdoor sports, and that turns into things like hiking and mountain biking. (3:03) But the thing I spend the most money on would be the Jeep. (3:06) I have a Jeep down in the garage that's currently running, although it wasn't for about four months this year. Speaker 2 (3:12) Oh gosh. (3:13) That's that's about the, the average. (3:16) Right? (3:16) I get maybe two thirds of a year where it's not torn apart for a project, because I'm one of those guys. (3:21) I wheel it for the year, and then when winter comes along, I take it apart and improve stuff. Speaker 2 (3:28) And then the next year, I do it all over again. Speaker 1 (3:30) Allegedly. (3:31) Allegedly improve stuff. Speaker 2 (3:33) Allegedly. (3:34) Right. (3:34) Okay. (3:34) Tinker with stuff. (3:35) How's that? Speaker 2 (3:35) Right. Speaker 1 (3:37) So when you're not tearing apart computers or servers, you're tearing apart jeeps. (3:40) I love it. Speaker 2 (3:41) Yeah. (3:41) Yeah. (3:42) And, you know, of course, on top of that, it's like the usual life stuff. (3:45) I've got two little girls and a wife and oh my god. (3:49) My wife and I have been married for over twenty years. Speaker 2 (3:51) Can you believe that? Speaker 1 (3:52) Oh gosh. Speaker 2 (3:53) Twenty we celebrated twenty one years last October. Speaker 1 (3:57) Your your marriage is old enough to drink. Speaker 2 (3:59) It is. (4:00) It is. (4:01) It is. (4:01) We coach youth soccer for my youngest daughter. (4:04) My older daughter is, believe it or not, just got accepted to a digital marketing program at our local trade school. Speaker 2 (4:11) Oh, that's awesome. (4:12) Well, might Speaker 1 (4:12) have to talk about that offline. (4:13) I'm I'm curious. (4:14) Yeah. (4:15) But, yeah, congratulations. (4:18) Twenty one years is nothing to scoff at for sure. Speaker 2 (4:21) It's been a dream. (4:22) Perfect dream. (4:24) No arguments along the way. (4:25) Nothing. Speaker 1 (4:26) She she made you say that. (4:27) Right? Speaker 2 (4:27) Yeah. (4:28) If you believe that. (4:29) Link twice if you're in trouble. (4:30) Right? Speaker 1 (4:32) Yeah. (4:33) Cynthia and I are just a few months shy of five, and I think we're gonna try and take a cruise next year. (4:38) First time Awesome. (4:39) We've been away for more than, you know, three or four days. (4:42) It's the joy of having young kids. Speaker 1 (4:44) They I I keep getting told by people that children are a blessing. (4:48) So we'll They are. (4:50) Still waiting on that part to happen. Speaker 2 (4:51) I I think the blessing comes when you're the one that needs care and they're old enough to do it. Speaker 1 (4:58) Well, there's there's definitely that. (5:00) And I plan on paying my kids back for everything that they put us through. (5:04) But I'm you know, putting the facetiousness aside, I think the blessing is really has really been in the last few years because I've been corrupting my kids with things like Linux and Dungeons and Dragons and video games. (5:20) Like like that that picture over there we go. (5:24) That picture over there is the Super Nintendo version of Mario Kart. Speaker 1 (5:29) So anytime we anytime we play Mario Kart on the Switch and I get first place, they're like, you're so good. (5:34) How did you get so good? (5:35) It's like, y'all, I have been playing this game or a version of it since long before you were ever born. (5:42) Probably since I was the same age as you guys. (5:44) So Speaker 2 (5:45) Mario Kart is the game that everybody talks about trouncing their kids. (5:48) I have not played a lot of Mario Kart in my life. (5:51) Oh, well then you Mario Brothers, plenty. (5:53) I've played every Mario game, I think, on the planet. Speaker 1 (5:56) That one I've I've fallen off of. (5:58) But Yeah. (6:00) So we we apologize folks. (6:01) We'll we'll try and keep this podcast below about three hours. Speaker 2 (6:05) Sure we will. Speaker 1 (6:08) Although, to be fair, I came on your show once and and the main segment went for almost an hour and a half I don't know. (6:15) You've all no. Speaker 2 (6:17) We had our we had my crazy cohosts to make that even worse, though. (6:20) They you you would think that I would have surrounded myself with people that that that, like, filled in the gaps in my own production quality. (6:29) No. (6:29) I just I just brought in people that made them worse. Speaker 1 (6:33) Yeah. (6:33) Yeah. (6:34) There's there's always that. (6:36) So why don't you don't you tell us a little bit about how you came to be a technologist? (6:44) You know, you said that, that you've been a technologist a long time and you you are taking things apart. Speaker 1 (6:49) So how did how did that journey start for you? Speaker 2 (6:52) So my my god. (6:55) We're gonna go back to before I knew my alphabet. (6:57) I'm just warning you right now. (7:00) My dad worked I mean, as far back as I can remember like, he's told me stories about when he was first out of high school. (7:10) He worked for, what was it? Speaker 2 (7:15) He he actually he literally repaired teletype machines. (7:19) Like, that was his first job. (7:20) He repaired teletype machines. (7:22) And he got into communications. (7:24) He managed a telephone company, which then, of course, they had a partner company that was the local Internet service provider in this area, and he helped design their first network. Speaker 2 (7:33) Right? (7:34) So as far back as when I was, like, mid teens, he was helping build wide area fiber networks for the state. (7:43) Right? (7:43) So my dad was a nerd long before I was is what I'm getting at. (7:47) Right? Speaker 2 (7:47) He he has an electrical engineering degree. (7:50) He had a basement workshop that had all kinds of cool things in it that I was able to tinker with as a kid, and I I credit so much of my nerd dom to having been raised by him. (8:00) Right? (8:01) My mother was great. (8:02) Don't get me wrong. Speaker 2 (8:02) Like, I got a lot of great qualities from her too, but the things that really defined my life, a lot of them came from him. (8:11) My first memories of computing were literally sitting in the living room. (8:15) We had a Texas Instruments computer that was connected to the TV, and that's how I learned my alphabet. (8:21) So I was at a keyboard before I knew what the letters meant. (8:25) There you go. Speaker 2 (8:26) So, he had later an Atari computer. (8:31) We did not have game systems when I was a kid because, you know, it was the eighties and game systems were really expensive. (8:37) And my parents not that they were opposed to me playing video games, but they were just an expense we couldn't afford. (8:44) But he had this Atari computer, which played Atari games. (8:48) And this was my first introduction to software piracy as well because he had a friend at work that had, like, floppies and floppies and floppies of Atari games that were literally on five and a quarter inch floppies. Speaker 2 (9:02) And we he brought a whole crate of floppies home, and we spent a weekend copying each and every one of them. (9:08) So this that was my game system when I was a kid. (9:11) And And your first film? (9:13) Computers at the time, they weren't it just it wasn't easy to just fire up a game. (9:19) You had to learn how. Speaker 2 (9:20) You had to, like, okay. (9:20) How do I get the computer turned on? (9:22) How do I get the disc loaded? (9:24) How do I get it to run the game? (9:25) Right? Speaker 2 (9:25) This wasn't just popping a cartridge and hit a power button. (9:29) So, yeah, I I think that's a lot of why I got into computers to begin with because that that turned from, okay. (9:35) What else can I do with this thing? (9:36) Right? (9:37) And I'm, like, writing up reports for school on it, and I'm, like, doing all the things you do with computers. Speaker 2 (9:42) And I got my first personal computer when I was, like, 14 or 15. (9:48) It was, like, gateway 2000 to April, and I did so much with that thing. (9:54) And, yeah, I just developed a passion for computing in general. (9:57) But electronics, computers, you know, I used to do all kinds of stuff. (10:03) My my dad and I built a flashlight together so I could bring it into my second grade class, for show and tell. Speaker 2 (10:09) It was like a a light bulb with wires all over it on a board that had battery connectors. (10:16) And, I mean, it's a pretty simple circuit, but still, I I had a flashlight that was on a piece of wood. Speaker 1 (10:24) Oh, that's so cool. Speaker 2 (10:25) Melted at home. (10:25) It was cool. Speaker 1 (10:28) I love that. Speaker 2 (10:29) So but yeah. (10:30) So it's it basically it goes back that far. (10:32) It really it really is a lifelong thing. (10:34) I joke about it. (10:35) I have the Texas Instruments tattoo right here on my forearm because that was the first computer I ever touched. Speaker 2 (10:42) I Speaker 1 (10:43) I have a feeling we'll be working our way up your arm quite a bit tonight. Speaker 2 (10:47) Oh, yeah. (10:47) I got others that are from different I have the Atari on there too. Speaker 1 (10:53) There you go. (10:57) So how did that, how did that play into, into your college years? (11:01) Did you did you go to school for computing? (11:03) What did what did that look like? Speaker 2 (11:05) Here's the cool thing. (11:07) In the little town that I live in, there is a trade school. (11:11) When I was in high school, it was called a vocational technical school, which they have since shed that name because it a lot of people associate the term Votech with, like, the stupid kids go there. (11:24) Right? (11:24) The kids who can't do math go there to do something meaningless, like learn carpentry Speaker 1 (11:29) Right. Speaker 2 (11:29) And build all the freaking houses that we all need to live in. (11:32) Right? (11:33) I'm I'm a little passionate about this too. (11:35) But it it's essentially a trade school, but it's a high school. (11:39) Right? Speaker 2 (11:40) So, yes, kids that don't do well academically will sometimes go to this kind of a school, learn a trade, because that's a great way for them to be a productive adult. (11:49) Not because they're stupid, but because it's what they're good at. (11:53) Right? (11:53) Electricians come out of these things. Speaker 1 (11:55) System was for for centuries. (11:57) You Yeah. (11:58) You would you would apprentice with someone in town, the carpenter or Speaker 2 (12:02) Right. Speaker 1 (12:03) A blacksmith or something, and you'd learn how to do something that the town needed. Speaker 2 (12:08) Right. (12:08) So, but, yeah, like, welders, electricians, like, whatever. (12:12) We had an electronics class at that school, and I decided to enroll in that when I was in tenth grade. (12:19) Right? (12:19) So I spent high school learning electronics, and then, they changed the shop around to be they merged it with what they called data processing at the time, which was the only real computer class they offered. Speaker 2 (12:32) And it became this thing that was like a blend of just technology in general. (12:36) And I got a taste of a whole bunch of different kinds of technologies. (12:39) And while they were doing that, they had to build a whole bunch of computers to do like, to run all of the modular class work. (12:48) And while they did that, they decided, let's put a computer in every classroom. (12:52) Let's run a network in the building. Speaker 2 (12:54) And me being one of the better students in the technology side, they said, you're gonna be one of the kids that helps us do it. (13:02) So before I was even out of high school, I'm running cat five, punching down, you know, cat five connections, learning how to set up a switch and run a server. (13:14) And I I got my first experience with Windows n t three while I was there in high school. (13:20) Right? (13:21) And I think a lot of that gave me this love of computer communication. Speaker 2 (13:26) Right? (13:26) And that's really what led me into not just a career, but a hobby. (13:34) Right? (13:34) Like, for several years after I got out of high school, I ran an old bulletin board system. (13:38) And I don't mean a message forum like you see on the Internet. Speaker 2 (13:40) I mean old school that you dialed into and got a text prompt and that you would play games or talk to people or whatever. (13:49) And that led to my first job, which was, tech support for the local ISP that my dad helped design that network for. Speaker 1 (13:56) So so cool. Speaker 2 (13:58) Yeah. (13:58) Right? (13:59) And, you know, I just kinda worked up from there. (14:01) I I really didn't like tech support. (14:03) No one really likes tech support. Speaker 2 (14:05) No one likes working in that job. (14:06) I was good at it because I had that sort of mind troubleshooting and problem solving, But it led really well into a career in systems administration, which is kind of a long way around of how I got started in the systems administration. (14:20) I really wanted to take that love of communication. (14:23) I wasn't quite a networking guy, although I probably could have taken that path. (14:27) It was probably like a razor's edge as to which path I was gonna take when I really got into a career. Speaker 2 (14:33) But servers and hosting services and whatever, that's really fascinated me. (14:38) So that's how I got into systems administration. Speaker 1 (14:42) Yeah. (14:42) I can I can I can kinda relate to that? (14:44) It was I I was at DeVry in the mid two thousands back when they had a Kansas City campus. (14:51) And I took, like, four CCNA related courses, bunch of Cisco gear, and then I had two operating system classes. (14:59) One that was a hell hilarious overview of Linux. Speaker 1 (15:04) It was might have even been Red Hat Linux at the time. (15:08) Yeah. (15:08) Gosh. (15:08) Mid two thousands probably might have been. (15:12) But, then then Speaker 2 (15:13) I think it was 2003 when RHEL well, Red Hat Advanced Server, I guess, was the first one. (15:21) But that was when Red Hat Linux kinda went away and became Fedora. Speaker 1 (15:26) Right. (15:26) But then you gotta remember the colleges and and whatnot usually drag behind the industry. Speaker 2 (15:32) That's true. (15:32) I've reached six Speaker 1 (15:33) years if you're lucky. (15:37) Yeah. (15:37) So the the first internship I got, they needed more help on the desktop support and active directory administration side. (15:45) So I like you, I I think had they needed more help with, like, a networking intern, I might have been a network engineer. (15:52) But Right. Speaker 1 (15:53) As it as it as it was, both either way, I would have been in a data center running cables, building systems, and and that kind of thing. (16:01) So it it was very appealing to me. (16:04) But I'm sure that that troubleshooting sysadmin mentality hasn't caused any relational troubles with your spouse at all. (16:10) Right? Speaker 2 (16:14) Yeah. (16:15) No. (16:16) No. (16:16) Never at all. (16:17) Never at all. Speaker 2 (16:17) It's it's been fine. (16:18) I mean, the staying up late at night trying to figure out why the HomeLab, Plex server isn't working right so that tomorrow morning the kids will be able to watch their cartoons. (16:27) Yeah. (16:28) It's my favorite call. (16:29) Or or Speaker 1 (16:30) Yeah. (16:30) Home HomeLabs are the worst on call I've ever ever been on. Speaker 2 (16:34) They are. (16:35) What's that? (16:35) Your day of work is over? (16:36) Yeah. (16:36) Fix the stuff you choose to run. Speaker 1 (16:40) Right. (16:41) Or when you get a text from your wife at work and she's like, I'm on my lunch break and I can't watch the latest episode of, you know, down Whatever. (16:50) It's you realize I'm on, a product call. (16:54) Right? (16:54) I'm trying to do trying to do my marketing job. Speaker 1 (16:57) You know, the thing that pays for you to sit around and watch downtown Abbey? (17:01) It's like, why am I getting trouble tickets in the middle of my workday? Speaker 2 (17:05) Yeah. (17:05) I when I obviously, I work at home. (17:08) I wanna be maybe it's not obvious, but I work at home now. (17:11) But, when I one of one of my longest gigs as a systems administrator was working for a college based in Easton PA, and I was their senior sysadmin for quite some time. (17:23) And, it's like a fifty minute drive from home to there. Speaker 2 (17:28) So I'd get a call in the middle of the day. (17:30) The Internet is down or whatever, and I'm trying to walk my wife who's here with, like, a screaming child through how to reset the router, right, or the cable modem or something. (17:40) And, yeah, I don't miss those days. (17:42) I'm happy I'm here. (17:43) So when things go wrong, I can just fix them. Speaker 1 (17:47) And I'm I'm sure you can relate to the pre conference travel network reboot where you shut everything down and start everything back up the day before you leave town just in case. Speaker 2 (17:57) Just in case. (17:58) Yep. (17:58) Yep. (17:59) Everything a good fresh reboot. Speaker 1 (18:04) So you you kinda talked about going through college and and and ended up on on the operating system side. (18:10) What about life as a sys admin? (18:12) What what what types of work had you done? (18:14) You mentioned college. Speaker 2 (18:15) Yeah. Speaker 1 (18:16) What did that look Speaker 2 (18:17) like? (18:18) While I worked at that ISP, they had a systems group just like you'd expect. (18:22) Right? (18:22) They also had a much larger networking and network engineering group, but the systems people were like the ones running the DNS system. (18:28) They were running email, you know, the systems things that you'd expect. Speaker 2 (18:33) And I tried four years while I worked there to get into that group. (18:36) And for whatever reason, I just couldn't. (18:39) Every time I interviewed probably six times get into their systems group, and they just wouldn't hire me. (18:44) I I don't know if I just didn't interview well, if I didn't have the skills they were looking for or whatever. (18:50) But, eventually, I got into this little web host, which was, like, 10 employees when I got hired. Speaker 2 (18:58) And I was hired as their, quote, unquote, network administrator, which basically meant I was responsible for anything in the building that had a CPU in it and Speaker 1 (19:08) some things Speaker 2 (19:09) that didn't. (19:10) Like, I had to replace the filter in the in the HVAC unit when it was due. (19:15) So, yeah, I was pretty much, the everything. (19:18) Right? (19:19) The generator. Speaker 2 (19:20) I had to make sure that the generator would run. (19:22) I had, like, all kinds of stuff. Speaker 1 (19:24) I used to joke on on the support side that, anything with an electrical cable fell under the sysadmin's purview. Speaker 2 (19:32) Yeah. (19:32) Yeah. (19:32) Luckily, I didn't have to, like, defrost the fridge or anything. (19:38) But, but, again, right, I don't know if it's everybody that works in this field, but the people who are passionate about it, they have a they have a certain skill set that lends yourself well to troubleshooting the coffee maker just like it is troubleshooting the web server. (19:54) Right? Speaker 2 (19:55) Because it's just you have the mindset that that, like, analytical and logical workflow of, okay. (20:02) Is there water in the coffee maker? (20:04) Does it have electricity? (20:05) Right? (20:06) You you, like, you can boil it down to the, the simple things that that are required and then work your way up from there. Speaker 2 (20:12) So I guess I can understand why, people depend on the systems or the network guys for stuff that aren't systems or network. (20:20) But, anyway, when I was there, I was responsible Speaker 1 (20:22) for relationships, though. (20:24) Oh, well, you wouldn't be having this it doesn't translate well the relationships, though. (20:28) Well, you wouldn't be having this problem with Jamie at work if you would just do x y z. (20:32) Yeah. (20:33) Yeah. Speaker 1 (20:33) You insensitive jerk. (20:34) Problem. Speaker 2 (20:35) Yeah. (20:36) Yeah. (20:36) Right. (20:36) I'm not asking to be Speaker 1 (20:38) You brought me a problem. (20:39) I gave you a solution. (20:40) You're upset about it. (20:41) What what's what's Speaker 2 (20:41) wrong with this? (20:43) You've missed the point. (20:47) Yeah. (20:47) 21 of marriage, I have learned that that lesson. (20:50) Not always, though. Speaker 2 (20:51) Sometimes I just can't help it. Speaker 1 (20:55) Although, I I promise the audience we'd get off topic, but I I have learned. (20:59) And my wife and I have worked this out since since we're probably engaged. (21:04) The question we always ask when we enter a conversation like that y'all didn't know you're getting free relationship advice today. (21:09) But the question we always ask when some when one of us starts down a conversation like that is, are you asking me for a solution, like advice, or are you asking me to listen? Speaker 2 (21:21) That's a good Speaker 1 (21:22) Because then then I know which side of my brain I'm supposed to be using. (21:26) Right. (21:27) And And if it's just you want you want the empathetic, emotional, supportive side, I can do that. (21:32) If you want me to fix something, alright. (21:33) Bring it on. Speaker 1 (21:34) Let's do it. Speaker 2 (21:35) Let's go. (21:35) Let's try to resolve some issues. (21:36) Right? (21:37) Right. (21:38) Can you can you log that into the tracking system? Speaker 2 (21:40) Can you give me a ticket ID? Speaker 1 (21:43) Funny enough, my wife has an email address that links to my Todoist. (21:47) And so problems like when she'd email me and or she'd text me and say, hey. (21:51) This isn't working. (21:52) It's just like There you go. (21:53) Take it. Speaker 1 (21:53) Just send me an email to that address, and I'll get to it. (21:58) So, anyway, you're you're talking about your life as this has happened. Speaker 2 (22:01) Right. (22:02) So, at that job, like I said, small place, there were two administrators. (22:07) I I was I joined as the junior admin, and it might have been eight months in. (22:12) The senior admin quit for a better job, and I got promoted. (22:16) Right? Speaker 2 (22:17) So I went from, like, the guy this the previous place would not promote to systems administrator to senior admin in, like, eight months. (22:30) Because, maybe, it Speaker 1 (22:31) may not have been a promotion. (22:32) It was just more responsibility. Speaker 2 (22:34) Yeah. (22:35) It's basically well, there was a pay increase, so you call Speaker 1 (22:37) it a promotion. (22:38) Oh, there Speaker 2 (22:38) you go. (22:39) But, anyway, at that place, I I dealt with free BSD systems, some of which were woefully out of date. (22:48) I managed to to get a bit of Linux in place. (22:52) There wasn't I don't think there was any there when I started. (22:55) And when I left, there were maybe a dozen or so, I think they were sent to us at the time, servers because they wouldn't pay for RHEL. Speaker 2 (23:03) This was the guy who was like, hey. (23:05) I think we can get five more users out of this, Windows license before it locks. (23:08) Like, it was that place. (23:10) Right? (23:11) I gotcha. Speaker 2 (23:11) Even our even our backup solution was pirated. (23:14) Right? (23:15) Because they hit the guy wouldn't pay for anything, and me and the other admin were like, we can't live without a backup system. (23:21) We need something. (23:23) That place is no longer in business. Speaker 1 (23:26) I wonder why. Speaker 2 (23:27) Yeah. (23:28) Well, I think I was there four or five years, and I got a ton of experience because, again, I was responsible for everything, and I was the back stop. (23:36) That was it. (23:37) There was nobody above me, that had the technical the technical chops. (23:42) So the so if there was a big issue, it was me figuring out how to fix it. Speaker 2 (23:45) And if it took three days, then it took three days. (23:48) But, you know, like I said, learned a lot, trial by fire, I guess you'd call it. (23:52) When I left there, from what I understand, they struggled to get anybody to fill the position that I'd left. (24:00) Like, they brought people in. (24:01) They'd be there for a couple of months, and they would just throw up their hands and leave. Speaker 2 (24:04) Right? (24:05) I guess I was the only one with the patience to deal with it. (24:09) But, then I went on to work for the college, and I was there for I think it was almost eleven years. (24:17) And they were primarily a RHEL shop. (24:20) We had a little bit of SUSO Linux mainly because we had some Novell infrastructure when I first got there. Speaker 2 (24:26) And SUSE and Novell, I guess they were owned by the same company or SUSE owned Novell. (24:30) I don't remember anymore. (24:31) So, eventually, our SUSE file systems or, sorry, our Novell systems were running on top of SUSE. (24:39) I hate SUSE, by the way. (24:42) It's just it's a fine Linux, but it's it's different enough from RHEL that I just I couldn't get used to it. Speaker 2 (24:50) Like, every time I tried to do anything, it was just different enough that it would frustrate the me. Speaker 1 (24:54) Well, here here's I think here's I think I think where you're getting hung up with with SUSE because I've run into this too, is RHEL RHEL and its derivatives and Ubuntu are very different. Speaker 2 (25:08) Right. Speaker 1 (25:09) But SUSE, not not as much. (25:12) So it's it's closer to RHEL than than Ubuntu. (25:15) So Speaker 2 (25:15) Yeah. (25:16) And the the thing Speaker 1 (25:16) is that's kind of the the hang up there. Speaker 2 (25:18) Once you're once you're familiar enough with a RHEL or derivative and a Debian or derivative, then you pretty much have both covered. (25:27) Right. (25:27) Like, all of the major Linux is out there. (25:29) You you could sit down at any of them and work. (25:32) Right? Speaker 2 (25:33) But SUSE is like, no. (25:35) No. (25:35) We're doing it our way. (25:38) Nobody's like us. (25:40) Right? Speaker 2 (25:42) Some of the things, they feel a whole lot of like Red Hat. (25:44) But other things, they're, like, totally off the wall. (25:46) And these other things, they feel a lot like Debian. (25:51) So, yeah, it's just an oddball. (25:53) And I guess if you know it and love it, then you probably think the same thing about the other distros. Speaker 2 (25:57) But Fair. (25:58) It's just the way it is. (25:59) Right? (26:01) But, so, yeah, I guess I didn't really cover this, but Linux, I have been poking with since I was in high school. (26:08) I was a as many kids in high school, I was pretty broke. Speaker 2 (26:13) I didn't work until I was out of school till I was out of out of high school. (26:17) There's that gnat. (26:18) Yeah. Speaker 1 (26:19) We we were talking during the preshow that there's a fly in Nate's office, and there's a gnat. (26:24) Thanks to my garden in ours. (26:26) It was Speaker 2 (26:26) on my oh, it's on my light now. (26:27) It's over there. (26:29) I tried to kill it, but that would probably be a bad idea. (26:32) Anyway Speaker 1 (26:32) We probably should have recorded the preshow. (26:34) It was it was a lot of fun. Speaker 2 (26:35) I, I picked up Red Hat Linux, five. (26:40) Right? (26:40) Because I was broke. (26:41) I wanted to learn more operating systems, and I could not afford things like Windows. (26:46) I had, like, the copy of Windows that came with my PC. Speaker 2 (26:49) Everything beyond that, I had to pirate because I just didn't have the money for it. (26:53) And it was really refreshing to this idea that I could run an operating system that was a 100% free. (26:58) I didn't have to pirate it and feel bad about myself because, you know, as easy as piracy was in the nineties, I still knew it was wrong. (27:04) I still knew that I shouldn't be doing that, and it really made me feel bad. (27:11) So, yeah, I learned Linux out of pretty much necessity. Speaker 2 (27:13) I wanted an operating system that I didn't have to feel like I had stolen. (27:20) But, yeah, that that pretty quickly turned into this interest in Linux specifically, and that was, like, a focus of my career. (27:28) Every job I looked for, even from the early days, I I wanted to be a Linux administrator. (27:36) But yeah. (27:37) So at the college, we were primarily a RHEL shop. Speaker 2 (27:40) By the time I left there, we probably had two or 300 RHEL systems. (27:45) We had a huge Red Hat virtualization deployment. (27:49) I say huge. (27:50) It was, like, I don't know, 15 or 16 hypervisors, spread out across two separate data centers in several clusters, including, like, a dev cluster that was completely isolated from production so that people could actually test their stuff before it went into prod. (28:03) We weren't like a development shop or anything, but we took it seriously. Speaker 2 (28:07) A lot of higher ed, they don't. (28:09) Either they pay someone else to do it or they have, like, a student do do it or an intern do it, it's just good enough. (28:15) Right? (28:16) We took it really seriously, and, we had a really good team for a really long time. (28:21) And, unfortunately, that team slowly but surely started to either move on for better things or the one guy, he was our network administrator. Speaker 2 (28:28) And in fact, one of the cohosts of Iron Sisibin when we ran it, he he actually got fired because he couldn't get along with the new boss that they brought in at one point. (28:38) So, yeah, it's slowly but surely. (28:42) When I got hired there and I got used to the people, I thought this is it. (28:46) I'm gonna be here the rest of my career. (28:48) I'm gonna work here until the day I retire because this is awesome. Speaker 2 (28:51) I was surrounded by brilliant people. (28:52) They were doing really good stuff. (28:54) I really I really liked what we were doing because, you know, a lot of a lot of the choices we made were not just cool technology choices, although a lot of them were. (29:07) They were we were trying to be the best stewards of student data and the lives of these kids that we were trusted with, right, that we could be. (29:20) You know, we we wanted to make sure that that we were never the college that would leak your data. Speaker 2 (29:24) You know, we were never the college that was on the front page news, not just because it would be bad for our careers, but because we really thought, like, that's the goal. (29:32) The goal is to not let the bad guys get your data. (29:37) At this point, so many people's data has been leaked that I don't think it matters anymore. (29:42) We can just Right. (29:43) Just unlock your doors, man. Speaker 2 (29:45) It doesn't matter. (29:46) But, but, yeah, we we had a certain passion there. (29:51) And as as those passionate people started to leave and then, eventually, one of those passionate people was was was the the head of the systems group. (30:00) When he left and they hired in the next guy, he had a whole different outlook on stuff. (30:05) Not that he didn't care about the student data. Speaker 2 (30:06) He he actually was a CISSP, which is, you know, for people who maybe don't know, that's a security certificate or certification, that says you are qualified to work with said data. (30:18) Right? Speaker 1 (30:19) Right. Speaker 2 (30:19) Or protect said data. (30:21) And but he had a whole different opinion about how we should run things. (30:25) He started pushing us to cloud services, which we had been very opposed to for a very long time. (30:32) Not to say the cloud is not good, but we had the the ability in house, and it was just we were doing a pretty darn good job without paying a cloud provider, and without having to depend on third parties. (30:46) Right? Speaker 2 (30:47) We had this this real independent. (30:49) I'm I'm kinda rambling at this point. (30:51) My point is it went from Speaker 1 (30:53) a really to three hours. Speaker 2 (30:55) Yeah. (30:55) It went from a really great feeling, a really great place to work. (31:00) I really got along with all the people that were there to, like, I dreaded going to work in the morning. (31:05) Like and my wife was even like, you are not enjoying your job, and it's coming home, and this isn't okay. (31:14) Right? Speaker 2 (31:14) And so I knew we I had to do something, but I didn't know what because, you know, I'd been there a decade. (31:24) Right? (31:24) It's it's hard to just up and move after a decade. (31:26) I'm not the kind of guy that job hops. (31:28) I just never have been. Speaker 2 (31:29) Right? (31:31) So, that's when the position at Red Hat came along. (31:33) A friend of mine and also eventually cohost of the show, although he wasn't one was he when I hired? (31:39) He might have been when I got hired. (31:41) Mhmm. Speaker 2 (31:42) But, he referred me to Red Hat. (31:45) And, well, obviously, it worked out because here I am. (31:49) But, yeah, I went there as a TAM, which is like a sysadmin adjacent role. (31:53) It's like where old sysadmins go when they're tired of being on call. (31:56) That's the way I always I always said it. Speaker 1 (31:57) That's that's pretty accurate. (31:59) Not too far off from being a solutions architect either. (32:02) So that's that's kinda how I looked at my sales role. (32:05) Yeah. (32:05) It's just admin adjacent. Speaker 1 (32:07) I like it. Speaker 2 (32:08) So but yeah. (32:09) And then, you know Speaker 1 (32:09) The difference is you don't have to maintain ten year old servers. (32:12) They they last about ten minutes. (32:14) You you boot them up. (32:15) You do record your screen capture. (32:17) You shut them down and blow them away. Speaker 2 (32:19) Oh, yeah. (32:19) It was great because I I no longer the only the only the only stuff I had to maintain was my home lab at that point, which that was another thing. (32:28) While I was at the college still, I was getting so burned out that my even my home lab was suffering. (32:33) I was starting to slowly but surely, like, boy, this Linux firewall that I handcrafted and it was really it's working really awesome, I just don't have the motivation. (32:43) So I turned it off, and I went with, like, some premade, prepackaged Wi Fi solution for the home, which I hated, but it got the job done. Speaker 2 (32:51) I didn't have to deal with it. (32:53) Right? (32:54) I eventually got all of my home services down to nothing but Plex. (32:58) Right? (32:58) I didn't do my own email anymore. Speaker 2 (33:00) I didn't do Nextcloud anymore. (33:03) I moved that stuff all off to Google because I just didn't have the motivation. (33:07) And that was a sure sign. (33:09) Right? (33:09) Once I got to Red Hat and that started to, like, shed, then I started to bring stuff back. Speaker 2 (33:14) But I'm still not I literally used to have commercial service to the home. (33:19) I ran my own email server here. (33:21) I ran a small web hosting business out of my basement. (33:24) Right? (33:24) Like, that's how into it I was. Speaker 2 (33:26) And all of that had to go away because I was so burned out. (33:29) I haven't brought all that back. (33:31) But, yeah. (33:32) Game servers, Plex, me home home automation. (33:37) I'm really into, like, home assistant, home automation now, which is a lot of fun. Speaker 2 (33:41) That's probably one of the biggest, most important things that run out of my home lab because without it, the lights don't turn on or off when you ask the things to to turn on and off. Speaker 1 (33:54) So let's let's kinda talk about that transition from from sysadmin to Red Hat. (33:59) What what what convinced you to leave the IT operations world for for being customer facing? Speaker 2 (34:08) So to be honest, I we haven't really talked much about content creation, but that that kind of threads in here. (34:18) In 2017, I was still at the college. (34:21) I had actually come home from there was a security conference that I went to every year called DerbyCon. (34:27) And every year when I went there, I would come home feeling recharged because it wasn't just I don't know how to describe the feel. (34:36) This this conference was like a family. Speaker 2 (34:38) Like, we would we would go to Louisville, Kentucky every year, and there was a good number of people that these are the only time in the year that I saw them. (34:47) We would get together. (34:48) We'd see each other. (34:49) We'd have a couple drinks together. (34:50) We would talk about cybersecurity. Speaker 2 (34:53) We'd learn some things, and then we would go home. (34:55) And I would always come home from that place feeling really recharged. (34:58) And the one year, for whatever reason, I wanted to do something to give back. (35:03) Right? (35:04) Like, there were a lot of information security podcasts. Speaker 2 (35:07) There were almost no operations podcasts at the time. Speaker 1 (35:11) Still aren't. Speaker 2 (35:12) Right. (35:13) There was the admin admin podcast, which I don't know if they're recording anymore. (35:17) They were they were one. (35:19) Right? (35:19) And that was kinda it. Speaker 2 (35:21) There was just no one else doing, ops focused podcast. (35:25) So I'm like, I'm gonna start a podcast. (35:28) So I got ahold of Jason. (35:30) He was that network engineer I talked about. (35:31) I'm like, hey. Speaker 2 (35:32) You wanna start a podcast? (35:33) He he would also go to DerbyCon with me, by the way. (35:35) That was one of the reasons I reached out to him first. (35:37) And he and I used to carpool together, so we had a really good rapport. (35:41) I'm like, let's start a podcast. Speaker 2 (35:42) And it took a little bit of convincing, but not a whole lot. (35:47) And, that's how Iron System, it was born. (35:49) And I really enjoyed the content creation side. (35:52) We started as just an audio only podcast. (35:55) I pretty pretty quickly got us into live streaming, and then I moved that into video production. Speaker 2 (35:59) Jason wasn't really much into the video side of things, but I was. (36:02) I enjoyed making these how to videos. (36:05) I was writing blogs, you know, all the things that, that I do now as a day job as a technical marketing manager. (36:13) Right? (36:13) Like, that's pretty much the job description. Speaker 2 (36:16) Right? (36:16) Right. (36:17) Except for the slide decks. (36:18) I didn't make slide decks before I came to Red Hat. (36:21) So I kinda already had this feeling that I wanted to get out of the day to day grind of operations. Speaker 2 (36:27) And this isn't for everybody. (36:28) Don't get me wrong. (36:29) There's a lot of people that they're perfectly happy to live in their cubicle and never see people, and that is fine. (36:37) We need those people. (36:38) Right? Speaker 2 (36:38) Like, those people are keeping the country running, and we need them. (36:42) Literally. Speaker 1 (36:43) Quite literally. Speaker 2 (36:44) Exactly. (36:45) Right. (36:45) Quite literally. (36:45) They're running the infrastructure that makes our day to day lives possible. (36:49) And I have a lot of respect for those people. Speaker 2 (36:51) I was one of those people for a long time. (36:53) And, you know, it's it's great. (36:55) We need those folks. (36:55) But for me, it was I just wanted something different. (36:58) And the TAM role wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I saw it as a gateway into a place I always wanted to work. Speaker 2 (37:05) I mean, back when I was working that tech support job, there was another guy there who was also into Linux. (37:11) There were only a handful of us that that thought Linux was this neat thing. (37:14) And he told me about how cool the offices at Red Hat are. (37:19) He's like, we should go work there. (37:21) Like, okay. Speaker 2 (37:23) How do we do that? (37:25) Right? (37:25) And it never really panned out, but the idea was set then. (37:29) And throughout my whole career, I was I was a Red Hat guy. (37:32) I was using Red Hat Linux, then Fedora Linux. Speaker 2 (37:35) And then, of course, at the college, I I was the I was the Red Hat guy. (37:39) Like, every time there was this weird issue, they would come to me. (37:42) I was the guy that knew it. (37:44) So working for Red Hat was like a no brainer. (37:46) And I thought this is the perfect way to get in, and then we'll see where it goes from there. Speaker 2 (37:50) And then, like I said, about three years into that, I got the TMM role, and that's it's it's so perfectly aligned with what I'm enjoying doing right now and the, the the software that I like to work with. (38:03) Right? (38:04) I mean, you know this, but your audience may not. (38:08) The the technical marketing role is so much more than marketing. (38:11) Right? Speaker 2 (38:11) Mhmm. (38:12) Like, I'm a technical guy that is showing the product to technical people. (38:17) Right? (38:17) Like, yes. (38:19) I'm marketing, but it really isn't. Speaker 2 (38:22) You know what I mean? Speaker 1 (38:23) Well and actually having moved on from that, from that role, because you and I were in the the exact same position. Speaker 2 (38:31) Right. Speaker 1 (38:31) And having interviewed for roles elsewhere, I can also tell you that that what we did or what you do now as a technical marketing manager is what some companies call DevRel or maybe in our our case, OpsRel because we're on the operation side. Speaker 2 (38:52) Yeah. Speaker 1 (38:52) But but I I would I would interview with companies and they'd be like, you're you're not a content creator. (39:00) You're not out there in the community for this position. (39:03) You're you're, like, building messaging and and coming up with SEO keywords. (39:07) And it's like, well, that's that's the boring stuff that you have to do the marketing. (39:11) What the fun stuff is that you have to create. Speaker 1 (39:14) So the the the TMM role at Red Hat is so unique from from the from the bit of research that I've done over the past year. (39:23) And it it really was. (39:24) It was it was very sysadmin adjacent. (39:28) You know, I'm I'm only half jokingly say that you stand up a system only to blow it away a few few minutes later. Speaker 2 (39:34) Yeah. (39:35) But you you get to in that few minutes, right, you get to build something. (39:41) Right? (39:42) Like, of the demo systems I've built have been like, okay. (39:45) Here's the identity domain, and over there is the web server, and here's the this, and there's the that. Speaker 2 (39:50) Okay. (39:50) Now I got a 15 demo to do, and then I can blow it away when I'm done. (39:53) And you get to do that every day. (39:55) Maybe not every day. (39:56) Couple times a week. Speaker 1 (39:59) Yeah. (40:00) There there's a product marketing side of, meetings and and messaging guides and all all that kind of stuff. (40:07) But, yeah, you you get to do that a few times a week, and and you're in an amazing position where you get to create content and host podcasts. (40:13) You know? (40:13) I'd was very happy to at one point, I was hosting two shows on the REL channel. Speaker 1 (40:19) Mhmm. (40:20) When you joined the team, I was very happy to hand you one of them. (40:23) So I wasn't having to come up with content with it every week. Speaker 2 (40:26) It's a lot of work. (40:27) It's a lot Speaker 1 (40:28) of Actually, we we've kinda gone off script here as as I knew we would, but why don't you tell us a little bit about, tell us a little bit about Into The Terminal and and some of the cool stuff you get to do with that? Speaker 2 (40:37) Sure. (40:38) So, we still haven't found someone to host RealPresent since you left. (40:41) So maybe that'll come back, maybe it won't. (40:43) Maybe it'll be reborn as something different. (40:45) We're not really sure yet. Speaker 1 (40:46) Could always could always pay me a few bucks to Speaker 2 (40:49) There we go. (40:50) We'll bring you in as a Speaker 1 (40:51) for a decent RHEL subscription for, you know, like, satellite. Speaker 2 (40:54) Do it as a Speaker 1 (40:55) I I have my RHEL developer subscription, but it doesn't get me things like satellite. (40:59) So, you know, let let we can talk about that. (41:01) I'll be I'll be a consultant. Speaker 2 (41:03) But, into the terminal is what it sounds like. (41:06) We literally every Friday, it's live at noon eastern. (41:10) Go check out the Red Hat Enterprise Linux channel. (41:13) But me and Scott, usually me and Scott. (41:15) Sometimes it's me and someone else or Scott and someone else depending on if someone's out on vacation or something. Speaker 2 (41:20) But, we pick a topic and we, you know, we do a thirty ish, usually more like forty five to sixty ish minute. Speaker 1 (41:29) Well, ever since you ever ever since you let go of your producer, it's been closer to an hour. Speaker 2 (41:33) Dude, we've we had an hour and a half one with me and Matt Mycena one day. (41:37) And I'm like, Eric would shoot me right now. (41:42) But, anyway, we we do basically, we show you it's it's not just marketing demos. (41:49) It's Speaker 1 (41:50) Oh, anything but. Speaker 2 (41:52) Well, it's it's there to teach you. (41:55) It really is. (41:56) Like, we we pick a topic. (41:58) And, yes, obviously, we're motivated by showing people this stuff on RHEL, but we intentionally pick most of our topics. (42:05) So they're not RHEL specific. Speaker 2 (42:07) Mhmm. (42:07) They're, you know, user management. (42:09) They're some, some container basics. (42:12) We're gonna take a RHEL system. (42:14) We're gonna use PodBan. Speaker 2 (42:15) We're gonna, you know, build out a container. (42:17) We're gonna show people how to run containers on top of RHEL. (42:20) Surprise. (42:21) That's not a RHEL specific thing. (42:23) You can run pod man on lots of platforms that are not RHEL, and everything we're gonna talk about is gonna be Docker relatable. Speaker 2 (42:29) Right? (42:30) So, you know, it's there. (42:33) You know, imagine you're some aspiring developer and you wanna learn about containers. (42:38) The the idea is that you can find this video and you can learn a little bit about containers. (42:43) And you're introduced to RHEL at the same time. Speaker 2 (42:45) So, you know, we enjoy it. (42:47) Or you you wanna get something out of it. Speaker 1 (42:48) Home lab without, without all the application craft. (42:53) All of my workloads here at home, are are containerized. (42:57) So Speaker 2 (42:58) Oh, right. (42:58) Yeah. (42:59) It's it's That's exactly what I do. (43:00) I've got a handful of virtual machines when I need to, but those are I think there's three virtual machines that are actually running infrastructure. (43:08) The rest of them are things that I spin up for demos and labs and stuff, and then they get trashed, you know, the day after. Speaker 2 (43:16) Everything I do, even my public services, because I can't run those from home, I don't have an awesome fiber Internet connection like you do. (43:25) I run a system on a colo provider called Hetzner. (43:29) They're they're based in Helsinki. (43:33) But they are if you haven't tried Hetzner, they're it's like $50 for an actual server. (43:38) It's an AMD 16 core 64 gig of memory machine running in an actual data center on the other side of the world for $50 a month. Speaker 2 (43:46) I mean, find that in The US. (43:47) Good luck. (43:49) Anyway, everything that's on that is also containerized. (43:52) I run a couple of websites. (43:53) I run, my Mastodon instance. Speaker 2 (43:55) I run a second Mastodon instance for the off road community, which still having trouble getting people to buy into that. (44:02) Mastodon is so awesome. (44:03) We can have a whole show about Mastodon. (44:05) Maybe I'll come back Sunday. (44:05) We'll talk about that. Speaker 2 (44:07) I run a PureTube instance or two. (44:09) I run a game server or two that I couldn't do out of the out of the home. (44:15) All of it, a 100%, odd man containerized. (44:20) So, yeah, pretty cool stuff. (44:22) Anyway, we were talking about it in the terminal, and then we went off on another another tangent. Speaker 2 (44:28) But, anyway, that's the sort of content you could expect. (44:30) Right? (44:30) It's it's usually, Scott used to be an instructor for Red Hat, so he brings that to the table. (44:37) I used to be an administrator, so I bring that to the table. (44:40) And we really try to make it instructional content, not just marketing stuff. Speaker 1 (44:45) For sure. (44:49) You know, we we completely went off script, but I I feel like we kinda covered a lot of the major major topics. (44:56) But one one thing one thing I wanted to to ask you about was was the Jeep side of things, the off road. (45:03) How how has your your IT career kinda played into that? (45:06) How has your your off roading content creation played into your IT career? Speaker 1 (45:11) And how does all that kinda factor in with this this path of being a a technical marketer these days? (45:17) They they from hear hearing you talk, and I think the audience will enjoy this, hearing you talk, it's it's kind of the three or or different pillars of of the same same thing. (45:26) And so when when one improves or one gets some love, then then the other two benefit. Speaker 2 (45:32) Right. (45:33) So it's it's weird. (45:35) Right? (45:36) You wouldn't expect maybe this is stereotypical of me, but you wouldn't expect someone who works in technology like I do to also be as into motorsports as I am or even outdoors. (45:48) Right? Speaker 2 (45:50) But, again, this comes back to my dad. (45:52) He was a technologist. (45:55) He was also a car guy. (45:56) Not like a crazy car guy. (45:58) He we didn't have, like, an old rusted out Camaro in the front yard or anything. Speaker 2 (46:01) But he when when he was a teenager, and he's told me stories about this because I I live in the house he grew up in. (46:08) This was my grandfather's place. (46:10) There's like an there's like this big gnarly hook in the floorboards of the floor above the garage. (46:16) And one day, he was over. (46:17) We were working on a project, and he pointed out the hook and he goes, I hoisted an engine out of a car with that hook. Speaker 2 (46:23) So my dad, when he was a teenager or a young adult, he was into cars too. (46:28) But for me, stuck. (46:29) I it's still been a thing. (46:30) Right? (46:31) I've still I've been into vehicles, primarily Jeeps. Speaker 2 (46:35) Right? (46:37) And that goes back as far back as when I was in college. (46:40) I was carpooling with a guy. (46:41) It's funny how many stories I have that start with the guy that I carpooled with. (46:45) He owned a Jeep. Speaker 2 (46:46) I was driving like a Chevy Blazer at the time, and I was hooked. (46:52) Right? (46:52) The the Jeep is just such a fun vehicle that I decided to buy one. (46:57) I traded in that Blazer and bought my first Jeep, and I have not had I've not been without a Jeep since. (47:02) It's, like, thirty years. Speaker 2 (47:05) But I started a YouTube channel around it. (47:07) It actually, first, the website where I wrote blogs and tech content, and then it moved into YouTube because it's a very visual thing. (47:14) Right? (47:15) Like, that that sort of sport, not just the adventures you go on, but the stuff you do. (47:19) And a lot of what I do from a technology space, it's really kinda mirrored in this automotive space because I make how to content. Speaker 2 (47:28) I just share projects I'm working on. (47:30) I sometimes go out and do trips, and I'll I'll do a a video about the trip. (47:35) And that's all running at a property I call SWB Crawler. (47:40) And SWB stands for short wheelbase because Jeeps are short wheelbase. (47:43) So that's where that all came about. Speaker 2 (47:45) But you can find that on YouTube or swbcrawler.com. (47:48) And I won't bore you with too many of the details there because I could go on just as long off road and and motorsports and stuff. Speaker 1 (47:58) But if you are listening to this and you are interested, all all of Nate's links will, of course, be in the show notes as as always. (48:04) So we'll we'll definitely include a link to the website and the YouTube channel as well. (48:07) But Speaker 2 (48:07) Right. Speaker 1 (48:08) Go on. (48:08) Go on. Speaker 2 (48:08) And I started the YouTube channel there similar time frame to when I started Iron Sysadmin. (48:16) I think I think it was maybe a couple months earlier that I had done that. (48:20) And that was mainly because I was running the website, and I wanted a place to be able to cheaply host video content. (48:26) Because hosting video content on your own website is tricky. (48:30) Right? Speaker 2 (48:31) Like, it takes a lot of space, a lot of bandwidth. (48:33) How do you autoplay? (48:34) That kind of stuff. (48:35) And YouTube solves all those problems. (48:36) So it really started out as just I need a place to be able to put a video that I can link it in my blogs and stuff. Speaker 2 (48:42) And then pretty quickly, I realized that, like, YouTube is a platform all by itself. (48:47) You don't have to just use it as a place to store your videos. (48:49) It is its own ecosystem. (48:51) Right? (48:52) So that's how the channel came about. Speaker 2 (48:53) So I kinda manage both, and they keep going. (48:56) But, I'd the the skill set maybe the mindsets, not the skill set. (49:02) The mindset is so similar between the two because I do a lot of building except I do it with steel and welders and wrenches and stuff instead of code and, you know, APIs and web services and whatever. (49:20) So it's a lot of the same it scratches the same itch. (49:23) I'll put it way. Speaker 2 (49:24) Except at the end of it, you have this physical thing that you can go have fun with. (49:28) And it's not just me. (49:29) The kids go with me. (49:30) My wife goes with me. (49:31) We she has her own Jeep, which is not nearly as, like, crazy as mine because that's the thing that she guards the kids around in and stuff. Speaker 2 (49:38) It's not usually taken apart for months in a row like mine is. (49:43) But, yeah, we we recently upgraded and got a a truck and a trailer. (49:49) So now my Jeep gets towed around to different destinations, I don't have to keep it as friendly for the road anymore, and it's just gonna be downhill from here. Speaker 1 (50:02) So I've I've been experimenting, for a few episodes with what's what I affectionately call the lightning round. (50:08) I'm gonna hit you with a few questions and just quick short answers, whatever comes to mind. Speaker 2 (50:13) I'll do my best. Speaker 1 (50:14) I I I feel like I need a countdown on the screen or some kind of music underneath. (50:19) We'll we'll figure it out. Speaker 2 (50:20) You need the the the little the chimes from Excitebike. (50:28) You ever play Excitebike? Speaker 1 (50:29) I don't Speaker 2 (50:30) think I have. (50:30) This is Nintendo Entertainment System. (50:32) This might be before your time. (50:33) I might be dating myself. (50:35) This is before the Super Nintendo. Speaker 2 (50:36) Although, I think there was a Super Speaker 1 (50:37) guy who's, like, four years older than me. Speaker 2 (50:40) I I don't know. (50:40) I I feel like there's a whole nerd culture that was that was that there's a gap between what I remember as a kid and you. (50:47) I think things were just moving really quickly in that era. (50:49) But anyway Yeah. Speaker 1 (50:50) Yeah. (50:50) I I don't disagree. (50:52) Alright. (50:52) You ready? Speaker 2 (50:53) Sure. Speaker 1 (50:54) I I feel like now I need, like, the lights to change. (50:57) Like, who wants to be a millionaire? Speaker 2 (50:59) Yeah. (50:59) Right. Speaker 1 (51:00) But between our our knowledge of lighting and and, home automation, I'm you know? Speaker 2 (51:04) We could make this happen. Speaker 1 (51:05) Alright. (51:06) Lightning round. (51:06) Question number one. (51:08) Favorite CLI tool? Speaker 2 (51:10) Favorite CLI tool. (51:12) Can I just, like, softball it and say bash? (51:15) I love bash. (51:16) Like, bash in general, the flexibility, the ability to script or just interact with it. (51:21) But if it has to be a specific tool, that's Speaker 1 (51:29) a tough one. Speaker 2 (51:30) Favorite CLI tool, VIM. (51:32) VIM. (51:33) Vim is my favorite c l CLI tool. Speaker 1 (51:35) You may have just started a war in the comments. (51:37) I'm okay with this. Speaker 2 (51:38) Well, there is no other editor. (51:41) What do you use? (51:43) Nano? Speaker 1 (51:44) Right. (51:46) Then then this is a this next question I already know the answer to, but I wanna ask it anyway. (51:50) Your go to distro or or technology stack for your home lab? Speaker 2 (51:55) So, I mean, I I obviously have a certain fealty to to RHEL. (52:01) So that's what my home lab is running. (52:03) The the Hetster machine is on CentOS stream though because that was the only option they gave me that was RHEL like when I had them build it. (52:10) My laptop's all run fedora though. Speaker 1 (52:14) Very nice. (52:15) Very nice. (52:15) You're running what just came out? (52:17) Fedora 42? Speaker 2 (52:19) So I got 42 on the framework, and I have BaZite on my gaming machine. Speaker 1 (52:26) Oh, nice. (52:27) How are liking BaZite? Speaker 2 (52:29) I love it. (52:30) I was running Fedora proper for a long time. (52:32) I tried BaZite. (52:34) I felt like restricted, but that was mainly because I didn't understand how it worked because it's immutable. (52:40) Right? Speaker 2 (52:40) It's, it's and it's now based on Boot c, which is what RHEL image mode is based on. (52:45) So that was another reason I went back to it. (52:47) I ran Fedora normal for a while on my gaming rig, and then I went back to it because I'm like, I really gotta get a good handle on Boot c. (52:52) I figured the best way to do that is to make myself use it in Fedora. (52:56) So here we are. Speaker 2 (52:57) There you go. (52:58) But it's really good. (52:59) I was just talking to some coworkers today. (53:01) I'm like, gaming on Linux is a solved problem now. (53:05) Install BaZite Speaker 1 (53:08) Make me wanna buy my framework even more now. Speaker 2 (53:10) Install Steam, install games, play. (53:14) I would I would argue it's an easier experience than Windows. (53:17) I have better luck running Windows games in BaZite than I do on Windows. Speaker 1 (53:22) Interesting. (53:23) Yes. (53:24) Now we both officially have failed the lightning round, but, hey. Speaker 2 (53:28) Well, whatever. (53:29) I I go on. (53:30) Okay. (53:31) What's next? (53:31) I'll try to pick Speaker 1 (53:32) I knew what I was getting myself into when I invited you on the show. (53:34) So there's I have no one to blame but myself. (53:38) Alright. (53:38) Next question. (53:39) What, what tech are you most excited about right now? Speaker 2 (53:43) Image mode or Bootsy. Speaker 1 (53:45) I like it. (53:46) I like it. Speaker 2 (53:46) It's it's really I I say this with all honesty. (53:50) Even when I'm standing at the RHEL booth or when I'm talking to someone like you, it is I think it will revolutionize the operations role. (54:00) It's just it's that big. (54:01) I think it's that big. (54:02) And it's not just because I work for Red Hat. Speaker 2 (54:03) I think it's it's amazing. (54:04) It's really cool technology. Speaker 1 (54:07) Well and it's it's one that Red Hat may have started the charge on, but I was shocked over the past year or so at how much the fedora community has taken it and run. (54:17) Mhmm. (54:18) Like, all of their immutable operating systems now are I I don't wanna say all. (54:23) It's been a bit. (54:24) But most, if not all, of their spins, all of their downstream distribution, silver blue, all of that has gone from just being immutable to being built off of boot c. Speaker 1 (54:35) So if you don't mind, shoot me a link, and I'll make sure that, we get a video in the show notes explaining what boot c and immutable is. Speaker 2 (54:44) I'll do my best. (54:45) I don't know what we have yet. (54:47) There's probably something with my CNE doing it. (54:50) I'll find something. Speaker 1 (54:52) Alright. (54:53) Last last question in the lightning round. (54:55) K. (54:55) What technology is currently overhyped? Speaker 2 (54:59) You know, I really wanna say AI, but I really think that there's a lot to AI. (55:03) Right? (55:06) If you'd asked me a year ago, it would have been or maybe two years ago, it would been that metaverse crap. (55:12) But, yeah, Speaker 1 (55:13) AI, I successfully washed itself out. Speaker 2 (55:16) I I feel like there's a lot to AI that is good, but there's a lot that and maybe this is because I haven't used it enough or understand it well enough yet, but there's a lot that feels like smoke and mirrors. Speaker 1 (55:31) And Speaker 2 (55:32) that's just me being cynical maybe. (55:34) I don't know. (55:34) But, it's neat technology. (55:36) Don't get me wrong. (55:37) But I think there's people are like, oh, this is gonna change the world. Speaker 2 (55:40) And I think that might be much. (55:44) I guess we'll see in a couple years if I'm wrong. (55:46) Just keep this recording around, and we'll listen to it later and see if I regret it. Speaker 1 (55:54) So I don't ever wanna I I don't ever wanna walk away from an episode without contributing something to the audience. (56:01) And I can think of very few people that I trust more than than you, mister Lager. (56:10) What if there's someone who's going to school or someone who's going to a Votech or or someone even if even if you're sending a message back in time to young Nate, what what advice would you give to someone who's getting into into tech, into IT, and and even more specifically into systems administration? (56:32) Because let's let's be honest. (56:33) That's what this podcast that's what the IT guy thing is all about. Speaker 1 (56:37) It's about sending this back in time eventually to previous air to to past Eric to make him a better technologist sooner. Speaker 2 (56:48) Don't be too full of yourself. (56:50) There was there was a lot of that, like, showmanship or one upping. (56:58) Right? (56:59) When when I was getting into the into systems or into Linux in general where it was where it was like everybody was trying to be better than the people around them. (57:09) And I'm not saying you shouldn't try to be better than people around you, but you should not make that your only goal. Speaker 2 (57:17) Right? (57:18) And just, like, embrace it. (57:19) You're gonna be wrong sometimes. (57:21) You're gonna be right sometimes. (57:22) You're gonna learn from your mistakes, and that's fine. Speaker 1 (57:26) I like that. (57:28) I like that a lot. (57:29) It's You don't Speaker 2 (57:30) have to be perfect. Speaker 1 (57:31) You you and I came to be where we are in very different directions because my biggest fear, my biggest fight has always been and continues to be impostor syndrome. (57:42) I've worked for some of the biggest names in technology and still think, what what am I doing here? (57:48) I mean, I could I was I was kind of a lousy sysadmin, but, you know, I I constantly deal with that inadequacy. (57:57) But like you, I kinda came to a place where I've learned to not take myself very seriously and just own that and have a lot of fun with it. (58:06) So, you know, a few months ago, I was at a conference and I gave a talk, and I just I was just so paranoid about the about the demo not going well. Speaker 1 (58:15) And, of course, it was on image builder, one of my favorite technologies ever. (58:20) And and so, one, I didn't want people to watch as hundreds of packages downloaded into an into a prebuilt image. (58:28) But I also didn't wanna get up on stage and then have my demo explode. (58:31) So I prerecorded the thing because that's that's what I do with image builder demos is I prerecorded Makes sense. Speaker 2 (58:37) Can speed up pieces Speaker 1 (58:38) Use your first editors. Speaker 2 (58:39) Right? (58:39) Yeah. (58:40) Yep. Speaker 1 (58:41) But, you know, I've I've learned to just be okay with things, you know, not take myself very seriously. (58:46) And and, you know, and and especially now in in my life as a marketer, it's like, what's the worst thing that can happen? (58:52) I I blow a demo. (58:53) Oh, well. (58:54) If there's another demo another day. Speaker 2 (58:56) If there's one thing that has humbled my presentation skills, it's the live streams on Fridays. (59:03) The number of demos that, you know, you put in the prep or maybe you didn't put enough prep in. (59:09) That that happens too sometimes, and it just goes horribly sideways, and you've gotta recover from it. (59:15) You just have to accept it and move on because it's live. (59:18) You can't there is no post. Speaker 2 (59:20) Right. (59:21) Right? Speaker 1 (59:22) Oh my gosh. (59:23) It's been, like, two years since I think it was Scott and I did an episode on sudo. (59:27) Or was it you and I? (59:29) Yeah. Speaker 2 (59:29) It was it was you and Scott. (59:30) I would not have been part Speaker 1 (59:32) of that. Speaker 2 (59:32) Trust me. Speaker 1 (59:33) I would been more than that. (59:35) Haunts me to this day after two years. Speaker 2 (59:37) Joke about it. (59:38) We still joke about it as this. Speaker 1 (59:40) It's pseudo. (59:41) How hard gonna be? (59:42) And then we broke the config. Speaker 2 (59:44) Every time a demo goes wrong, we go, well, at least it's not as bad as the pseudo episode. (59:48) Like, that's still the joke. Speaker 1 (59:50) So bad. Speaker 2 (59:53) But, but I back to your point about impostor syndrome, I definitely feel you. (59:58) Every one of those jobs that I talked about, especially in the beginning, the tech support job, I thought, like, I can't do this. (1:00:05) There's no way I can do this even though I was really good at it. (1:00:07) Right? (1:00:08) That that first network administration job, I thought any minute they were gonna be like this guy, we hired the wrong guy, and they were gonna fire me. Speaker 2 (1:00:15) But, you know, every job I've held, everyone's told me what a great job I do. (1:00:20) And still, every job I've held, I worry that any minute they're gonna realize how wrong they were. (1:00:25) Right. (1:00:25) Right? (1:00:27) Even as a TAM. Speaker 2 (1:00:29) Right? (1:00:29) It took me years. (1:00:30) Especially when Speaker 1 (1:00:30) I moved to the product side. Speaker 2 (1:00:32) It it took me years as a TAM to finally feel like I was even doing the job right. (1:00:37) Right? (1:00:37) And then, it's really only because I have such close relationships now with the people who are experts on RHEL that I feel like I can finally, like, feel sure that the stuff I'm saying, I'm sure is right, and I'm sure it's true, and I'm sure, you whatever. (1:00:55) Know, But I still in the back of my head, every time I talk to a customer or whatever, I'm like, Speaker 1 (1:00:59) I gotta make sure I say this perfect. (1:01:01) Perfect. Speaker 2 (1:01:03) When realistically, it can't happen. (1:01:04) Right? Speaker 1 (1:01:05) You know, as a TMM, I actually found a lot of relief in the fact that I was one of the smarter minds in the room, but I didn't have to be the smartest. (1:01:15) Always had that option to reach out to engineering. (1:01:18) So if someone had a question, I could ask the team. (1:01:21) I could ask all of our TAMs or our SSAs. (1:01:24) I mean, I was part of the the RHEL community of practice at Red Hat for a long time where people far smarter than I would talk about things far deeper than I understood. Speaker 1 (1:01:33) And and worst case, I just reached out to engineering. (1:01:35) Just said, hey. (1:01:36) I've got this thing I'm trying to build. (1:01:38) It's in the release notes. (1:01:39) I can't get it to work. Speaker 1 (1:01:40) Can you help me? (1:01:41) It was so nice that I could go out and go, look at this beautiful thing. (1:01:45) And guess what? (1:01:45) I did nothing to build it. (1:01:48) I'm just I'm just the monkey on the stage dancing around telling telling everybody how great this is. Speaker 1 (1:01:53) I love that. (1:01:54) It I mean, that's why I do what I do. (1:01:56) It's I I love that. (1:01:59) Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:02:00) But even even as Speaker 1 (1:02:02) up with anything on my own. (1:02:03) But Speaker 2 (1:02:04) Even even in the TAM role, you had that that network of people to back you up, not just the other TAMs, but the same network of engineers or support reps or whatever. (1:02:14) The number of support engineers that I I, like, still chat with today even though I have absolutely no reason, because they're they were really good people, and they you know, you you built those relationships with folks. (1:02:25) But, yeah, whenever I was whenever I was stumped, I guess, reach out to and and I obvious I honestly ended up making a lot of connections within the team that I currently work in because the the the TAM role was so RHEL related that I ended up talking to, like, product managers for RHEL who are now the people I work directly with. (1:02:45) So Speaker 1 (1:02:45) Yep. (1:02:47) Yeah. (1:02:47) It's it's amazing how things worked out. (1:02:49) And I I alluded to the to this in the in the previous episode, but it it seems so disjointed, so weird, this progression that I've been on. (1:02:56) But having hit the stage of my career, and I'm I I work in product marketing. Speaker 1 (1:03:01) I'm I'm a teacher. (1:03:01) I'm an open source podcaster, and and it's just so crazy. (1:03:07) And yet, it all makes logical sense looking at this milestone backwards. (1:03:12) It makes all kinds of sense going from support to systems administration to Linux Right. (1:03:17) To sales to marketing to teaching. Speaker 2 (1:03:19) It didn't feel like a plan when you did it. (1:03:20) Right? (1:03:21) But now you look back, you're like, wow. (1:03:22) I I might have it's like I knew I was trying to get here. Speaker 1 (1:03:26) Right. (1:03:26) Right. (1:03:27) Yeah. (1:03:27) I mean, I I don't know how many job interviews I went through where they're like, you've got a lot of personality, a lot of lot of charisma for a systems engineer. (1:03:37) Are you sure you wanna sit behind a desk all day? Speaker 1 (1:03:39) It's like, I'm a technologist. (1:03:40) I and I'm not a networking guy, and I'm not a developer. (1:03:43) What else am I gonna Speaker 2 (1:03:44) I I had been getting that in fact, in college, right, we had I I went to a, a business school. (1:03:52) It was only an eighteen month program. (1:03:54) I got an associate's degree out of it, and it was on PC networking, right, in my tradition of vaguely named things. (1:04:01) Right? (1:04:02) But I learned stuff like Novell and Windows, and we we had an enterprise networking class, which was basically like, take all that stuff that we taught you, all the different individual components, and now we're gonna make them work together. Speaker 2 (1:04:15) Right? (1:04:15) And the guy that taught there, I'll never forget him. (1:04:19) His name was Mark Weber. (1:04:22) He was an industry guy that they had hired in to teach this class. (1:04:26) And older guy, real tall and wiry, had he was like the white hair but still a black mustache kinda guy. Speaker 2 (1:04:34) Right? (1:04:35) And such a weird personality, but I got along with the guy so well. (1:04:39) And he made a comment to me one day. (1:04:41) We had we had, like, an an interview day. (1:04:45) Right? Speaker 2 (1:04:46) And everybody had to come in dressed up for an interview. (1:04:48) And I came in in a suit. (1:04:50) Right? (1:04:50) Because I I owned a suit. (1:04:52) Right? Speaker 2 (1:04:52) I had been using it for church my my entire, like, life. (1:04:57) I always owned a suit. (1:04:58) Right? (1:04:58) I come in in a suit, tie, everything. (1:05:00) Right? Speaker 2 (1:05:01) And, of course, everybody else is in button down shirts and ties and suits and whatever. (1:05:05) Right? (1:05:05) And I'm talking to him, and there's, like, a couple other folks right around me. (1:05:11) And he goes he looks at my suit, and he goes, you know what's different about you? (1:05:14) He goes, you look like you belong in the suit. Speaker 2 (1:05:17) They look like Texan suits. (1:05:20) And it took me forever to realize what he meant, and what he meant was exactly what you're just saying, that while I had the technical aptitude, I also had that person interface, right, where all those other guys were just techs in suits. (1:05:36) Right? (1:05:37) So, I mean, take it for what it's worth, but that's something that that I've heard in different forms my whole career as a systems administrator that I can work well with people where I never thought I was a people person, but that's what I was getting told. (1:05:52) And I'm like, you're wrong. Speaker 2 (1:05:53) Whatever. (1:05:54) Right. (1:05:54) Well, here I am. Speaker 1 (1:05:57) Yep. (1:05:58) For me, it was Adam Olson at DevOpsDays Kansas City in the Expo Hall in 2018. (1:06:07) He basically said and and I I talked about this at length in in the last episode, but the the short version was I was wandering around so excited about this idea of DevOps and and and helping developers achieve their goals while getting out of the sysadmin's ways. (1:06:23) And and I was talking to him about how great the conference was. (1:06:26) He's like, you you need to come work for GitLab. Speaker 1 (1:06:30) He's like, you don't get a choice. (1:06:31) Go home, put in an application, come work for GitLab. (1:06:36) Like, well, somebody says you don't have a choice. (1:06:38) It's like, well, I guess I better apply. (1:06:40) I'm not gonna get the job. Speaker 1 (1:06:41) But Right. (1:06:43) But then I spent a year at GitLab and then, you know, five and a half at Red Hat. (1:06:47) And just it's it's been it's been a crazy ride for sure. (1:06:51) And it ain't over because now I'm a professor. (1:06:53) I mean, who tell 2011 Eric who was looking at, do I go deeper into the Windows ecosystem or do I go full full fledged into this Linux thing? Speaker 1 (1:07:05) Except no Windows work. (1:07:06) Do only Linux and tell them that not only are you going to make the right choice with this Linux thing because it's going to eventually eat the Internet, But then you're eventually going to be a professor and teach this stuff. Speaker 2 (1:07:21) Right. Speaker 1 (1:07:22) He would have said you're insane, and I have a padded room for you. Speaker 2 (1:07:26) It's a pretty cool pretty cool step, though, to be able to teach. (1:07:30) Yeah. Speaker 1 (1:07:31) Although, what what do they say about people that can't do? Speaker 2 (1:07:34) Yeah. (1:07:34) People that can't do teach or people that can't do coach. (1:07:37) Right? (1:07:37) Right. (1:07:39) Which, you know, let me tell you about the youth soccer team that I helped coach someday because I cannot play soccer. Speaker 1 (1:07:50) Well, I I I I will admittedly say that I ripped this off from I think it's, Floss Weekly. (1:07:57) But is there anything on today's show that you wanted to talk about that we didn't talk about? Speaker 2 (1:08:03) You shouldn't floss weekly. (1:08:04) You should floss daily. (1:08:05) The dentist says so. Speaker 1 (1:08:09) Having having just gone to the dentist and gotten a couple of fillings replaced, there might be some truth to that. Speaker 2 (1:08:15) There you go. (1:08:17) Anything that we haven't talked about? (1:08:18) I don't think so. (1:08:19) We've already gone on an hour and ten almost. (1:08:22) So, yeah. Speaker 2 (1:08:24) No. (1:08:25) I think that's we covered it pretty well except for, you know, we'll have to come back and talk about image mode or Mastodon someday. Speaker 1 (1:08:31) So you'll you you might find it interesting, and this this will be an early teaser for the audience. (1:08:37) But I'm actually so a a lot of folks know that I I worked for Red Hat for five and a half years. (1:08:44) Unfortunately, I got laid off and spent ninety six days working overnights at a gas station. (1:08:50) Now I'm back in product marketing, back doing this kind of stuff as well. (1:08:55) But what what happened during that that period was I let all of my subscription services lapse, and the bill I had to pay to restart some of those services was just brutal. Speaker 1 (1:09:11) And I've been fed up with proprietary cloud based subscription based nonsense this year because it's one thing when they come in a piece at a time over the course of a month. (1:09:22) Right. (1:09:23) But then when you go in and go, well, I'm back in tech. (1:09:26) It's been three months and all the stuff I was paying, you know, annually or monthly or whatever, and I gotta pay to restart all those tools that I was using. (1:09:33) Great. Speaker 2 (1:09:34) Yep. (1:09:34) Yep. Speaker 1 (1:09:35) It just it hit me so hard how much money I just pour into a subscription when I had the knowledge and the skill set required and the network required to host a lot of this crap myself. (1:09:48) And the beautiful thing is, you know, Podman file and five minutes looking over a Podman application website, you know, use these use these arguments. (1:10:00) And now you can run Minecraft. (1:10:01) You can run Valheim. (1:10:02) You can run Nextcloud. Speaker 1 (1:10:03) You can run Plex. (1:10:04) In a lot of my a lot of my a lot of my home network is running on Unraid in containers. (1:10:11) So I'm so here here's the here's the sneak peek, was that I'm looking at ripping all that out, maybe moving to Proxmox or or another hypervisor, maybe just, you know, maybe just sent to a stream or something along those lines as the host and run everything in containers and VMs and start pulling all that back in just a piece at a time. (1:10:34) I'm not gonna host my own email. (1:10:35) That it it's the world is just too insane to Speaker 2 (1:10:39) Therein lies my address. (1:10:40) Trust me. (1:10:41) Yeah. (1:10:42) One of my one of my core responsibilities at the college was email for the entire institution, and I never wanna run a mail server again ever. Speaker 1 (1:10:52) But, I'm I'm to a point where I draw the line at mail. Speaker 2 (1:10:56) Yeah. (1:10:56) I don't blame you. Speaker 1 (1:10:57) But, you know, things like things like Nextcloud or getting an RSS reader up and running, you know, I just I wanna take an inventory. (1:11:06) Now now that now that school's going, now that everything's in place for that, now that I feel like I've got a good rhythm there, I'm wanting to start planning. (1:11:15) Some people talk about degoogleifying their life. (1:11:18) Well, I'm gonna try and des subscription my life. (1:11:22) Just piece of time, see what I can bring home and set up in the home lab and and run it as a home production network. Speaker 2 (1:11:29) It's a valiant goal. (1:11:30) I'll give you that. Speaker 1 (1:11:31) And we'll see how far I get. (1:11:33) Yeah. (1:11:34) I Even even just getting off things like like Twitter just word of warning, if you if you disable your Twitter for a couple months, they'll just delete your account. (1:11:45) I had I had over 800 followers before before I went working nights, and I shut down my Twitter for a few months. (1:11:52) And when I came back to working days and working in tech, I was like, oh, let's just go restart my Twitter account. Speaker 1 (1:11:57) And after several months and only 18 followers, I was like, know what? (1:12:01) Pretty much everyone I talked to is on Mastodon anyway. (1:12:03) Maybe I'll just start my own Mastodon instance. (1:12:06) It's super easy to do. (1:12:07) Maybe I'll start set up my own PeerTube as a backup for YouTube. Speaker 1 (1:12:11) You know, try some of these different things and get involved in the Fetaverse. (1:12:15) And and Speaker 2 (1:12:16) I mean, I've if if, if you don't wanna run some of those yourself, I have instances for things like PureTube, and I have instances for Mastodon. (1:12:25) You're more than welcome on those. (1:12:28) I run an iron sysadmin PeerTube, which is mainly a place that I share stuff that I wanna go to the Fediverse or stuff that I wanna host that I don't necessarily wanna put on YouTube. (1:12:37) It supports live streaming. (1:12:38) It supports video. Speaker 2 (1:12:39) So, you know, let me know if you wanna use it. Speaker 1 (1:12:42) Yeah. (1:12:43) We'll we'll we'll we'll definitely have to talk about that. (1:12:46) So that's that's kinda where I'm heading, and we'll we'll see how that goes. (1:12:50) And, of course, because I've got this channel and you constantly have to be greasing the algorithms to get attention, I'm gonna try and turn a lot of it into content. (1:12:58) In fact, some of the most successful technologists I know work in the product space because they started a blog on a website that no one knew about, just to start documenting their own services. Speaker 1 (1:13:09) So Speaker 2 (1:13:10) Yeah. (1:13:11) That's way back. (1:13:12) That's how I got started. (1:13:13) Before I had iron sysadmin, the way I learned how to run services was I started running services. (1:13:19) And the domain that I registered when I started doing that was underground.org, undrgr0und.org because the normal spelling of it was already taken. Speaker 2 (1:13:29) Right. (1:13:29) And I have owned that domain since. (1:13:31) That was 02/2002. (1:13:33) And it's been a blog ever since. (1:13:35) Right? Speaker 2 (1:13:35) I mean, I don't blog regularly, but there's stuff on there from probably a decade and a half or two ago that, you know, just articles that I wrote to document how I did a thing. (1:13:47) Hopefully, someone else would find useful. (1:13:49) Right? (1:13:49) So, yeah, that's exactly how I got started too. (1:13:51) It's funny you mentioned it. Speaker 1 (1:13:53) Yeah. (1:13:53) I think it's time to formalize that process. (1:13:55) I've got stuff scattered between Google Docs, Word Docs, Notes, Apple Notes. (1:14:01) I think there's I think there's some Joplin files floating around somewhere. (1:14:05) I think it's time to kinda standardize all that. Speaker 1 (1:14:10) Well, folks, I really appreciate y'all sticking around. (1:14:13) I know Nate and I went a little long. (1:14:15) I I did promise such Speaker 2 (1:14:17) Good price. Speaker 1 (1:14:17) When we kicked off. (1:14:19) We didn't go as long as I thought, but hey. Speaker 2 (1:14:21) Yeah. (1:14:22) Right. (1:14:22) It's not three hours yet. (1:14:23) We could keep going, though, if you want. Speaker 1 (1:14:25) So we'll we'll definitely include links to Nate's Nate's social media and links to the iron sysadmin and SWB crawler. (1:14:37) All the things, as usual, check the show notes for for all that. (1:14:41) And, Nate, I really appreciate you joining me, and it was fun to catch up before the show, and it was fun to There went the fly. (1:14:49) Fun to catch up before the show. (1:14:51) It's fun to do a show with you. Speaker 1 (1:14:52) You know, it's been a couple of years, literally, if you can believe that, since we've been on air together. (1:14:57) So really appreciate you jumping in and and and sitting down and having chat with me. Speaker 2 (1:15:04) Awesome. (1:15:04) Well, thanks for having me. Speaker 1 (1:15:06) Yeah. (1:15:06) Well well and and I've already got it in writing that you've agreed to, to come back, for multiple more episodes. (1:15:12) So Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:15:14) I mean, I I, I did a talk about Mastodon for our local DEFCON group, which is something else we didn't talk about. (1:15:21) The DEFCON group that I help run, specifically about, you know, getting off of of commercial social media and moving to Mastodon. (1:15:30) So I would be happy to talk about it on your show. Speaker 1 (1:15:33) For sure. (1:15:34) We I'll I'll I'll try and take you up on that. (1:15:37) But as it stands now, you know, I've I've eaten into Nate's evening. (1:15:41) And if y'all haven't noticed, my dogs have been running running back and forth because they know I Speaker 2 (1:15:45) hear him squeaking the toys back there. Speaker 1 (1:15:47) Yeah. (1:15:48) So there so there's that. (1:15:49) But definitely appreciate all of y'all tuning in. (1:15:52) Definitely appreciate Nate as as a friend, as a colleague, and and as my guest this episode. (1:15:58) Tune in in two weeks. Speaker 1 (1:16:00) We'll be live well, we won't be live. (1:16:02) We'll be next episode will feature Chris DeMars who is a front end developer developer advocate these days. (1:16:11) He's he does talks all over the place, does talks online, does talks at conferences. (1:16:18) You might you might recognize the name Chris DeMars. (1:16:22) Again, front end developer. Speaker 1 (1:16:23) He's a coworker of mine. (1:16:25) And we're gonna talk about what it means to be a developer. (1:16:29) We'll talk about what DevRel really is, and we'll talk about what he does. (1:16:33) Lots of cool stuff, and we'll we'll put bit of a developer twist on this career storyline. (1:16:39) So really looking forward to my interview with Christa Mars. Speaker 1 (1:16:41) But until then, be sure to subscribe and go if you haven't checked out some of the other episodes that we've had, you know, few months now and haven't missed a date yet. (1:16:50) So, you know, really excited about that. (1:16:52) But thank you all for joining us. (1:16:54) Make sure to like like this content, you know, stupid algorithms. (1:16:58) And if you don't mind, with friend. Speaker 1 (1:17:00) Would really appreciate getting the word out about this content. (1:17:03) Not because y'all enjoy listening to me talk, but I know a bunch of amazing and interesting people like Christa Mars, and then there's other people like Nate. (1:17:11) But, you know, anyway, be sure to tell a friend. (1:17:15) Really appreciate you all tuning in. (1:17:17) It's time we all get out of here. Speaker 1 (1:17:18) On behalf of my my guests today, Nate Lager and myself, Eric, IT guy Hendrix, this has been the IT guy show episode number 14. (1:17:26) I look forward to seeing you all again real soon. (1:17:28) Bye bye. Speaker 2 (1:17:29) Have a great one, everybody.