Hello, Since 2019, this blog has been largely abandoned. I just repaired it today after an OSupgrade on the web server moved me to an incompatible PHP version, and I just haven’t really cared enough to repair it until today. It is now up and online again in case anyone wants to look for old Read more about Likely will archive this blog[…]
I figured I would write a quick post here about a major change in my life.
On January 4th, I left my job at Intel. I’ve been in an out of Intel over the years, this stint lasting for a little over 8 years, including my time both as a contractor and a direct hire.
Intel was great for me. Indeed, I’ve very much left open the possibility of going back if things don’t work out with my next gig. But, something very interesting came up which I decided I needed to jump on.
On January 7th, I logged in for my first day working remotely for Canonical.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
This is a question that many of us have heard, and some of us even think about as adults, albeit phrased differently: what do you want to do with your life?
I’m a software engineer by profession – which is a pretty good gig. But basically everyone’s heard of the kids in school who wanted to grow up to become a professional basketball player. There might be many motivations: the fame, the money, and maybe even simply love of the game, among others. But everyone also knows that the road to becoming a professional basketball player is very narrow, and very few can make the cut. Where does that leave everyone else?
Every 3 years or so, I have to migrate vultaire.net to a new host.
The reason should be obvious for anyone who hosts a low-traffic, personal web site: hosting companies often give great discounts for initial sign-ups, but then the rates go up (sometimes drastically) on renewal.
My current plan was a particularly good deal from HostGator: I got their $6.95/mo plan for 65% off by doing a 3 year plan – in other words, roughly $2.43/mo. A great deal, really. And I still technically have around a year and a half left of that plan.
However, I wanted to get this site on HTTPS. I was tired of having my admin password sent across the network in plain text whenever I wanted to write a blob post. But, to get an SSL certificate installed would cost me around $40 from HostGator, or if I got/created the cert elsewhere, it would still cost $10 for them to install a “3rd party” cert. But, then there’s the gotcha: I’m on their “Hatchling” plan, which is inelegible – I have to upgrade to a more expensive plan (no discount) in order to take advantage of either of these options. That gets expensive really quick – I checked the price and quickly said to myself, “Nope.”
Anyway, being a knowledgeable guy and interested in having a dedicated server for a long time, I decided to look into prices for cloud hosting, which does have a reputation for being pretty expensive itself. However, given the low bandwidth of this site, and the “free tier” options that several of the providers offer, this actually didn’t look so bad after all.
As my kids get a little older, and I start to have a few hours to myself most evenings again, I’m now trying to figure out where I should spend my spare time.
I used to be a heavy gamer, but games don’t have the allure they used to. Sometimes I’ll induldge, but most of the time they seem like a waste of time. (Although from an existential perspective, you could say that about anything if you really want to – so is it really so bad to “waste” time with games?)
I also sometimes watch Netflix, but generally try to avoid so because of how much time that can tend to sink.
So, what to do?