23 and Me

So, it's a new year (3 months later).. I know, I am late to the game. I promised myself that I would put effort into keeping up with a personal blog so my first step is to state that publically. I've got a few other goals and aspirations that I'd like do as well.

Personal growth

One thing I've wanted to do is start focusing on my personal growth. That includes eating healthier, working my creative side of my brain, and working on my family relationships. Eating healthy is coming easier and easier, my wife and I already eat pretty well. We keep fast-food to a minimum and we both love cooking so we're able to make meals that are nutritious. We've been doing a lot of pre-made meals that we do ourselves, and throwing them in the freezer. This really helps cut down our eating out budget!

I've also wanted to work my creative side as well, and I think learning a new language would be a great way to do that. Laura and I are traveling to France in June, so I've already started french lessions. My goal is to be able to order, pay a check, and tell a taxi driver where I'd like to go. Im also hoping to be able to understand a bit of what people are saying to me. I'm not expecting to be fluent, but I'd like to be able to try to have a conversation with someone. I'm also hoping to be able to read a bit of french as well. I've been using Duolingo to learn french, and I've been really enjoying it. I'm going to commit myself to do 10+ minutes, twice a day until we travel. Feel free to follow my progress on DuoLingo, maybe we can help each other out.

Another big personal goal is to become better with relationships with my family. We have always been kind of distant, very independant people who only talk once or twice a month. I'd like to be able to increase that a bit more and be able to talk to them more often. I think this will be the hardest goal to achieve, but I'm going to try my best.

Lastly, I'd like to increase my introspection. Looking inside to see what I'm doing well, and what I'm doing wrong. I think this will help me improve my personal growth, and help me become a better person. I have a feeling that journaling will help with this, and will push to write an entry here at least twice a month.

Career

My career has been quite a ride, one that I've thoroughly enjoyed. I'm more putting this here as a reminder to myself that I need to keep working hard. I'll continue to keep iterating on my new gaming software, but recent interactions with people inside the cyber-security world has re-sparked my interest. I've done a couple certifications for cyber-security but I'm hoping to get the coveted OSCP certification next. I'm working through the HTB Academy currently, and I've done the INE eJPT (eLearn Junior Penetration Tester). I'll start re-doing a lot of the CTF boxes, as I did most of them a couple years ago. You can track my progress at My goal is to start the process when we get back from France in July, so that should put me at finishing the certification by October. I'm not sure what it'll give me, as my current position and career has no requirement for certifications but I think it would be a fun challenge. Who knows, it might open a door to another business I can build up. I'm not entirely sure how competitive the penetration testing industry is in the gambling/gaming world, but I'm sure it's not as competitive as the software development world.

Breaking it down

Eat healthier -- more home made frozen meals, less fast food
Learn french -- 10+ minutes, twice a day until we travel
Improve family relationships -- reach out to them more often
Introspection -- journal at least twice a month
Get OSCP -- either do 2 academy modules or 2 boxes a week, start OSCP in July
Double my business's revenue -- continue to iterate on my software

I'll see what happens at the end of the year! I have a feeling this year is going to be a good one.