Let’s get something straight right away. I’m your sysadmin. We are not friends. This is not hostility. It’s just clarity. In most jobs people expect warmth, camaraderie, the occasional lunch conversation about weekend plans. In systems administration, the relationship is a little different. My job is not to be socially available. My job is to make sure the systems keep
Today I was working through Chapter 6 of Mastering Linux Administration by Alexandru Calcatinge and Julian Balog, and it reminded me of something most people never think about. When people say “disk space”, they imagine something simple. Like a big digital warehouse. You put files in.You take files out.The end. Linux politely laughs at this idea. Because under the hood,
The Honest Truth Nobody Puts on LinkedIn A job in IT is not sexy. It never has been. The public image of technology is full of glossy nonsense. Startup founders giving interviews. Developers dramatically typing code on giant screens. Silicon Valley billionaires talking about “changing the world.” But the reality of working in IT looks nothing like that. It looks
Every person has a thing. Some people collect shoes.Some collect watches.Some collect books they swear they’ll read someday. My wife collects anything that is a horse or a unicorn. And I mean anything. Statues. Mugs. Decorations. Keychains. And yes. Plush toys. Lots of plush toys. It Started Small Like most collections, it began innocently. A small horse figurine.A unicorn mug.One
Every year around this time, something quietly appears on the calendar that makes every IT administrator pause for a moment. Budget season. Not the glamorous kind of budgeting you see in startup slides where people throw around words like innovation, disruption, and AI transformation. I mean the real thing. The kind where you open spreadsheets, look at last year’s numbers,
Sysadmin work does something to your brain. At first it only affects how you deal with systems. You learn to check details, verify what actually happened, and avoid taking explanations at face value. When something breaks, you investigate. You trace events back to their source. You separate what people think happened from what actually happened. That mindset makes perfect sense
The Moment You Finally Check There is always a small moment of hesitation before checking grades. You log in.You find the page.You hover over the link for a second. Even when you think things are going well, graduate school has a way of surprising you. Sometimes pleasantly. Sometimes not. So this week I checked my midterm grades for the Spring
The Moment You Realize Nothing Is Moving There comes a point when you realize you are writing the same story over and over again. Different headline.Different politician.Same damn outcome. For a while I wrote a lot about Philippine politics. Corruption, dynasties, performative outrage, the usual cycle of promises followed by disappointment. At first it felt necessary. Maybe even useful. Writing
Something interesting just happened in the world of maps. Ask Maps and immersive navigation were recently introduced by Google as part of the continued evolution of Google Maps. The announcement was described in Google’s official blog post, “Ask Maps: Immersive navigation powered by AI,” published on the Google Blog. On the surface, it looks like another shiny feature. AI answers
The Academic Finish Line After Fall 2026, something strange will happen. I will officially be done with school. Not “taking a break.”Not “considering another program.”Not “thinking about a certificate.” Done. At that point I will have earned two undergraduate degrees and two master’s degrees. That is already more time in classrooms, lecture slides, discussion boards, and research papers than I