Learning
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Scribbles, Styluses, and Sanity: The Note-Taking Revolution No One Told Me About
I’ve always loved a good notebook — the feel of pen on paper, the satisfying rhythm of a well-organized Bullet Journal. But somewhere between hauling around a rainbow of pens and trying to keep up with multiple notebooks for different parts of life, I started wondering if there was a better way. Enter the unexpected… Continue reading
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How I Fell into my Dream Job (AGAIN): A journey from RIF to Renewal
Job Search Update So, for most of my life, when it came to work, I generally knew about jobs because of someone I knew. I mean, most people find jobs that way. On rare occasions, when friends and acquaintances don’t know of any new jobs and I had to “cold call” to find work, I… Continue reading
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Confessions of a VMware Instructor: The Real Keys to Effective Teaching
So I got this writing prompt last year: What makes a teacher great? I’ve held it in my drafts for a while because one of things that I’ve wanted to talk about is what makes an instructor great. Teaching at all levels requires certain soft skills that can be learned but can only really shine… Continue reading
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Video Post: The Self-Interview Project: Raw, Unfiltered & Real
So I thought it’d be neat to do a self-interview as a way to promote myself in addition to the static resume. And then I thought, maybe do it as a mini-podcast-like thing. So if you’re interested, reach out to me here or on LinkedIn. Continue reading
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Bopping About with btop: Installing btop on MacOS
For years, when troubleshooting issues on *nix-like systems (say, MacOS), I’ve often used top. This was pretty much a standard tool to check things like CPU usage, memory and so on. The challenge is that for someone who tends to like some decent visuals, top can be overwhelming and somewhat clunky to use. As it… Continue reading
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Resume Rescue and Robot Revelations: My Unexpected AI Adventure
I’ve learned over my 50+ years on this blue marble the importance of being adaptable. These days, I’m adapting to perhaps one of the most transformative technology of our time: Artificial Intelligence (AI). My recent experiments with AI have been eye-opening, challenging some of my preconceptions and exposing to me both the real potential and… Continue reading
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Taking Time to Upskill in Today’s Job Market
Job hunting has transformed dramatically since my early career days. Back then, the formula was simple: prepare multiple resumes, visit the library for free training, and network through local business associations. Government-sponsored retraining programs were readily available (and still are, though often underutilized). These resources were typically free or low-cost, targeting newcomers to the job… Continue reading
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Career Curveballs: How I Accidentally became a Free Agent
Breaking News: Local Tech Storyteller Unexpectedly Promoted to “Professional Job Hunter” by Broadcom! After 19 years of marriage to VMware, we’ve decided to consciously uncouple. Translation: I got laid off, and now I’m back on the job market—a landscape so different from 1992 that my resume might as well be written in hieroglyphics. And as… Continue reading