It looks like it has been four years since my last post. And even then most of the posts were from the papers that I wrote when I was in college for information systems security.
So what has been going on since then?
- Well the covid lockdowns stopped a few years ago. I still can’t believe everything that has happened since the lockdowns.
- I’m still working at the same company I started at in April of 2020. I really like the company. I started off as an IT Analyst. Moved to DevOps. Then finally to the security department where I have been since I think around May of 2022. As far as security is concerned I do some interesting work. I lot of vulnerability management. Getting into network security. Some BEC and IR investigations. And I have gotten interested in malware analyst. So far no plans to move to a different company and from the looks of the economy and what is going on in the tech world that is probably a good thing for the next several years.
- Mentally, I have set a retirement date no later than 10 years from now. So by 2035 I’ll be retired. If not sooner. There are several things that I need to get done before I retire such as paying of the mortgage, probably getting at least one new/newer car by then, continuing paying into the various retirement and brokerage accounts, and finally staying debt free. I sold the rental house from Jacksonville, NC. And with the money we made from that we pretty much paid off most of our debt. Except for the house.
- My wife and I are a couple of steps closer to being empty nesters. If you didn’t know I have 4 adult children and at one point they all moved back in. The oldest (34) came to visit for a while. She had a remote job but got laid off while she was here. So she has been here ever since. Next child (29) quit her job because of a toxically bad boss. She moved in while she looked for a job and has since found one in a marketing agency that works with the government. Hopefully she will be able to keep her job with the new administration. One child (23) moved in with her fiancée while he is finishing his college degree in Forestry science. Again, hopefully he’ll be able to get a job with all of the reduction in force layoffs. Last child (20) will finish her nursing school before she is 21 and should be doing well once she gets a job. Currently, I have two dogs and a cat. The oldest child owns one dog and the cat. I had to put down our oldest dog last year and that was pretty rough. So now we only have one dog left. I think I am ready to be an empty nester but I am pretty sure my wife is going to have a harder time. But when the inevitable does happen we will have a pretty large house that is pretty empty. Not sure what we will do. We might sell it and either move out of the country or move somewhere that is going to be our forever home.
- In the tech space I was studying for the CISSP exam but have pretty much gotten burnt out. I’m getting to the point where I don’t really want to play the credential games getting more certifications and degrees and having to maintain all of that. I already let the Sec+ expire. I have the CCNA cert and have already extended it once. I kind of want to keep that one and maybe eventually get the CISSP. But with me setting that 10 years clock on my retirement it kind of puts some things in perspective. As time goes on and I get closer to retirement the less I will end up caring about the credentials.
- I’ve started a YouTube channel. The niche is based on early retirement but I probably need to change that because I am not retired. Most of the videos I have made I think are sort of related but most they are related to risk management but from a personal point of view. I’d like to help people become more resilient and less reliant on the government and your typical jobs. I think at lot of things are messed up and broken in the economy and people are going to have to start thinking outside of the box for income and expectations. The standard advice you get from a school counselor just isn’t going to cut it today. Advanced education is too expensive these days and unless you are going to be a doctor or maybe a lawyer it almost isn’t worth going to a major university these days. A good example is my youngest daughter going to school for her LVN license. She graduated from high school two years early. Took the GED and passed. Took college courses for the prerequisites for the LVN program and will be graduating while she is still 20. I think the average salary for a LVN where we live is about $50k per year depending on what you do and where you go. Not many 20 year old’s are making that much that I know of. And with no school debt I might add. I made too much money and I had to bank roll her education. If she went to a major university I wouldn’t have been able to do that and she would have student loans just like everyone else. Anyways, I got off track. I may end up changing the niche of my YouTube channel to something closer to this topic in the near future. I’m not getting a lot of views and basically no comments. I don’t think my videos are very good but you would think they would at least get some views if they were bad and no one wanted to watch them. So I am doing something wrong. Or at least not the best. Either video titles or thumbnails I think. I’m working on this and hopefully will be making progress in the near future.
Ok, I think that is enough of an update for now. This is getting to be a longer post than I wanted. My goal for this blog is to post at least weekly so I can justify spending the money keeping the blog open. Not sure how or if I can monetize this blog in any way but I would at least like to break even. I think I will also be redesigning the blog somehow. I might stay with the WordPress blog or might move to some static blog generator thing. We’ll see. But for now take care. I don’t know when the last time someone visited this blog but if you have any questions or comments leave ’em and I will answer back. Take care.