A Fresh Start……

Well, here I am. Jesus the last post I made here was in Jan 2016, which was also after an expected crazy work schedule. I won’t go into too many boring details but work has been relentless since. So after making some other life changes last year, like giving up on a house remodel and moving to Oceanside to be near the water and just simplify my life. I found myself so extremely stressed at work and enough savings to carry me comfortably for at least a year, I finally just stopped being able to talk myself out of taking a break. So like many people my age at this point in their IT of high tempo-based careers, I hit that burnout point and honestly that happened quite a bit ago though and it been a struggle since then. But it hasn’t been all bad. I did work normal hours for about a year while completing a full-time Master’s program at UCSD and got some much-needed non-work based social interactions and then I made the move last year to the waterfront. I absolutely love living here in Oceanside and definitely don’t have a desire anytime soon to purchase a home and get back in that spiral. So while I do love the technical side of my work and what I was doing, there was just so much bullshit getting in the way of me doing what I actually came there to do and enjoy doing. So all the extra hours and little things just built up and I gave notice 2 weeks ago then after some discussions and it was only beneficial to me in the long run. I am burning off some PTO and then into an unpaid leave of absence simply to take a break for a bit.


So what are my plans while on this extended break? Well mainly to relax and do the things I want to do and stop sacrificing my needs and wants to meet the project goals. So time to edit and post all those travel photos and videos I have done since the last post here and there have been quite a few (New Zealand was fucking amazing!). I also have my own IT geeky projects and passions and things I want to learn for fun and also improve my skillsets. Although technically I am only on a personal leave of absence and do have a position held for me somewhere at my company for up to a year. It doesn’t mean I have to return there and that is something I want to explore to see if maybe its time to move out of the direct government contracting cycle jobs working on trying to bring the latest approaches to programs living in the last 10 years of designs. So learning new things only helps me with that plan.


So while I have used this mainly to post and share my photography projects, going forward I want Binarylandscapes to be all-encompassing of me and the things I like, do and learn. So there will still be photography and drone videos of course but there will also be links to my Github and tinkering projects like documenting my Plex server build-up or how to create a Kubernetes cluster on a bunch of Raspberry Pi 4’s or how to standup a virtualized datacenter with VDI and VSAN with an above-average home lab setup. I also have a 3D printer I plan to play with and will lead to maybe some 3D design learning and work.


Basically it’s going to be whatever the fuck I want :) So feel free to tag along on this semi-old man’s mid-life crisis life pause as I figure out just what is next for me


Crazy work schedule

Well haven’t had much time to play with camera after getting home from holidays and then back to crazy work schedule. I did take the time to stop at Griffith Observatory this time on my drive to Palmdale for work for a few days and managed to catch some deep pinkage this am on my way out the door. The others were posted to Main but never said anything. The Moonbow pic did get picked up by the kyparks instagram. Moonbow was pretty cool but very foggy so kept cutting the moon’s lights. But can’t complain since it was only 20 mins drive for us.


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