I work as a Systems Admin for a K-12 district, and I'm in a special little spot where my knowledge of the arcane arts of old comes in handy more than I’d like to admit. The last time my district went through a major upgrade, I was five. Now, in my 20s, I'm bringing it into the 2020s—one piece at a time.
So far in my tenure, I have:
Done a full Virtual Machine lift and shift from Hyper-V to Proxmox.
Rebuilt the entire AD domain from scratch.
Learned way too much about CUCM
Led a migration away from CUCM to PBXAct.
Migrated from POTs line to SIP trunks and cellular based elevator lines
Taken a leading role in a town-wide fiber network ring project with a seven-figure budget.
Programmed more Apps Script than I ever thought I would.
Built a school-wide inventory system based on a modified Snipe-IT.
Probably a lot more - we do it all ourselves!
For someone in their early 20s, I got quite the scorecard! I am beyond blessed to be in a position where I could push myself to my limits and grow. Someday I'll probably need a better paying job, though *wink
Hobbies
My main hobby is of course almost anything to do with electronics period, I have a pretty big collection at this point
The Horde
I collect from all eras, but I must say my favs are from the early to mid-00s. I am fond most of of post-1GHz stuff. Socket 939 and the Athlon 64, the Core2Duo, anything post Pentium 4 pre i-series Intel or A-series AMD really.
While I hardly these days have a specific brand I like, I grew up being a huge Compaq fan. I even met a compaq engineer once. I love the Presario line up, and I spent most of my time as a child playing Flash games on one.
I also have a soft spot for Apple, I own a PowerMac G4,a G5, an iBook G3, and a couple 68k macs in dubious condition(they're so hard to keep going!) I also have plenty of Intel macs, but those are less interesting.
I'm also a connoisseur of vintage video games and audio/video equipment.
Also, yeah, it's always a mess. But I tend to move fast and break things in this room here and I never take a picture just after I clean...anyways
I love MiniDisc in particular, while it did exist over here in the states it was more of a thing in Japan and Europe.
I'm also a CRT fanboy, I own a few professional grade monitors and a good assortment of consumer grade tubes. For anything strictly interlaced, games before the Xbox 360 and PS3, you really can't beat it. I'm a huge PS2 guy, I own about 7 of the things including the elusive PSX DVR from japan. It's essentially just a PS2 duck taped to a DVR system, and we didn't get it here in the States.
The PSX
I'm a huge fan of Japanese engineering in general, I prefere JDM for my cars and electronics. I drive Mazda now but grew up with Toyotas, my favorites are the 80s models, in my early teens I had an 89 Corolla. Such style! If you have noticed, I mainly use Sony gear when I can.
I also am a big fan of networking and I opeerate a pretty sophisticated home lab where me and the missus keep all our favorite TV, my terabytes of hoarded junk, my many dev projects, and we have Wi-Fi so good I can stream my PC to my living room tv no sweat.
While not one the main things I do anymore due to RSI and other reasons, I grew up in a musical family, and I played Saxophone a good chunk of my life. Now I mostly play guitar when I feel like it. I have an affinity for Squires (get it), I own a Telecaster and a Jazzmaster. I love them both equally.
