Ahh, my first blog post. Ever. Long ago I once said "I am not going to create a blog and add to the cluttered blogsphere!". Yet, here I am, with a blog. Adding to the clutter. This is not the first time I have found myself doing something I said I would not do, but here we are, me writing and you now reading.
So who am I and why would you be interested in my blog? Excellent questions. The official answer is that I am a father, a husband, a geek, a nerd, a security freak (as in a love it), and technology enthusiast that has also been working in IT for over 20 years. I started out in IT as a student worker at my local high school in the late 90s, then I worked at a local ISP for their call in helpdesk. After that worked as a student employee for the University that I eventually was hired at for a full time desktop support position and worked my way to the client infrastructure group. I entered the IT Security field about 8 years ago while working for a large University, which cemented my feet a field that I absolutely love. I am also an amateur woodworker that fell in love with that hobby while making a kitchen table with my wife's uncle who is a master furniture builder. I also love bad and inappropriate jokes (i.e. the kind that can get you sent to HR). In the last 6-7 months I have become more interested in mental health so expect some random mental health things to show up here.
As to why would you be interested in my blog? Ahh hello, the name alone should tell you how awesome it is going to be! Other than that, I got nothing.
I feel compelled to admit that I struggled with what to write about. I knew that IT Security, Cybersecurity, and technology would a given; but what exactly about security and what exactly about technology would I write about? I came up with a short list of general topics and ran them past Tom, who said he liked them.
Then the self doubt set in. The doubt of "who would want to read my blog?", "it will be dumb" or my personal favorite: "What if it makes me not just look dumb but prove that I am dumb?"
Fast forward a month or two later and I get a text from Tom asking me if I was doing okay. I told him I was doing ok, but still struggling with being able to start writing for my blog as I was not sure what to write about. Tom simply replied: "I liked your idea about burn out....It will start flowing once you get going." I sighed not thinking it was that helpful at the time and was distracted by a horse before I could reply (I was at my daughter's riding lesson at the time).
When I got home I figured I would see what would happen and chose a simple topic from several that I came up with before (Burn Out will be written, just not now). I started writing my first post, at least what I thought was going to be my first post. It was going to be about using Palo Alto Networks API with PowerShell to search for security policies, security policies for GlobalProtect/user groups, and for IPs used in different parts of the configuration such as vulnerability profiles. Well, that turned into a rather long entry before I even got to the technical part and in the middle of writing it I realized that what I was writing about was really how working on a firewall ticket for a our cloud architect/server admin ended up helping me solve not just an issue that I had set out to solve but helped me solve other issues that I had no idea idea that I had. During the first proof read it dawned on me how it really was about a developed rapport not only helped me complete the request without friction but also helped me solve problems I did not even see I had with my script. So I thought, "Ok, script goes second. It will end up being multiple parts anyways. First one will be about the importance of building rapports."
I started to re-write the into for that post and guess what, while writing that I realized I was writing an intro to my whole blog. So yeah, as of right now I have no idea what I am doing; but I at least knew one thing. Tom was right. Again. Once I started writing I found that I could not shut the valve off . Jokes going to be on him when I tell him he will be a guest writer for my blog (which he just found out as he was reading this). Karma brother, karma.
So other than those two items, what topics do I plan to write about on my blog? Here is the unrefined list I have so far in no particular order:
- Security activities that I take part in (CTF, Cons, certifications, etc)
- Programs that I assist with/develop that help teach about the importance of Security
- Scripting
- My experience with improving my skills
- Mental Health in Security
- Anything I build with my 3 Raspberry Pis that are just sitting on my desk
- Security Architecture