Just making a personal update on my goals from earlier in the year.
Close SKILSTAK’s physical doors
This one is done. The old skilstak.io site is still up but whatever. It doesn’t have anything major on it. Still I should take it down or put some sort of nostalgic writing on it. Eventually, I was hoping to turn it into a learning game full of Easter Eggs like overthewire.org. None of that is planned for 2021, or even 2022. I do plan to use SKILSTAK as the company name for any IRL educational efforts and training that I do, however. I have already spent thousands of dollars and hours building up the brand. Perhaps I could add live-mentoring, while live-streaming, as I do the digital nomad thing in 2022. I would seek out schools or Summer Camps or foundations and help them get started with basic coding and introduce them to Linux. Hell, I might even be able to teach them how to run Linux on old computers. If I live-stream the whole thing (which is hard because schools get weird about that) it might inspire others to do the same. In fact, that could be a core motivator for people to tune in and donate and help out.
Return to full-time corporate work
Fulfilled this one in a major way. The company I work for is absolutely amazing, and so unknown and under-appreciated by the world for its technology footprint. No one would ever guess the name of this company is so totally into high-performance machine learning and all the cloud-native infrastructure to support it. I make nearly obscene amounts of money now compared to struggling to maintain SKILSTAK (even though we did very well, comparatively).
Learn Cloud-Native and Kubernetes enough to do my job
I’m fucking knocking this one out of the park. I’m super pleased with my progress but it has been fucking exhausting and I’m still a long way from finished. I do think I need to amp up the focus on this stuff so that it is all completed before the end of 2021 instead of waiting until 2022, which I’m now planning to make the year of going “digital nomad” now that I have the cache to get the gear that ensures I can work from anywhere.
Move all curriculum online
I’ve concluded on the Open Credential Merit System, got the domains, completed a first version of the specification for YAML documents containing the requirements. I’ve got my first dependency diagram pulling together the different OCMS “badges” but I have several more to do. I have a general idea of what a “lab” looks like (essentially just a GitHub repo).
All this pedagogical scaffolding had to be in place before attempting to re-write or clean up the tons of content I already have. That reminds me. I still don’t have all the SKILSTAK content backed up after GitHub took away my educational status (which I had for more than eight years) and forced me to either pay up or get off. I need to do that immediately.
I’m realizing now that I cannot complete this requirement at the Kubernetes certs in 2021. There’s just not enough time. The best I can do is refer people to the other beginner content for now and be there for AMA regularly. It seems to be working as-is for now, but I know it can be so much better. I might be able to get other members of the community to help write up the OCMS badges and submit them for review. Obviously, I cannot pay anyone, but I don’t pay myself either.
Build and maintain rwxrob.tv community
The community has created opportunities for dozens of people at this point (including my current full-time, high-paying job). Many have shared their success stories with the community live, which I’m now reporting weekly on the Wednesday news (as they allow). I cannot overstate my joy at the success of this goal. I was so depressed leaving SKILSTAK and frankly it feels like I never left. It just went online and has a different name. Plus the people are generally more of my peers, for better or worse, and I can say “fuck” more.
I do feel like I have abandoned some of those amazing people I had spend years with preparing for life, but I simply had no choice. If anything, I really need to create some content focused on those in the 11-16 year-old range, which is why I’m always obsessing over “simplest path” decisions.
Be present for my wife as she grows in the art scene
Doris’ art career is fucking exploding. It has truly hit exponential levels. She’s got pieces all over the place, winning awards and coveted residencies and studio space elite invitations. She was invited to sell prints at the Van Gogh museum, do murals all over town, and more. She’s a well-respected and common name in the high-end art scene at this point not just locally, but growing regionally as well. I love regularly going to art shows, openings, and galleries with her as her “arm candy”. I just take a lot of pictures and hopefully will live stream them all someday in 2022.
Doris will likely get the Penland residency with little problem after getting accepted into the McColl center. She about had a literal heart-attack when she heard that news. It seems like natural next step. She’s an absolutely perfect fit for Penland. Hell, she’s the only one using all the equipment at McColl because she does art in all mediums (pretty much). It also comes with free lodging and food for like a year for the whole family, which means we’ll probably buy a warehouse in Spruce Pine and I’ll live/work out of that when I’m not “digital nomad-ing” and IRL live streaming all over the greater United States.
This goal is definitely achieved and just getting better. It was my single top priority (and the full-time job was a part of it).
Get healthy again (fit in my Patagonia gear)
I’m happy to report I fit in all my Patagonia gear again, with a tiny bit of space. It’s not like the gear is hanging off of me like before, but I’m getting there. I’ll definitely be ripped again by December, thank God. I really, really, really hated being fat. Not for the cosmetic reasons, but because of the haze it puts on everything else. I’m feeling sprightly and happy again, most of all. The secret for me was adding 30-60 minutes of daily out-of-the-house activity along with going back to protein shakes with supplements, 1/3 a banana, and a handful of peanuts for most of my meals spaced out 2-3 hours a part. I have one solid meal with my family for dinner and sit down for it. I make sure not to eat any of the list of foods and are known to trigger gut problems and inflammation. So far it is really working.
Find a solid place to plan our next geographical move
We are definitely moving to Spruce Pine next, either for the Penland residency or just to setup our final base to live out the rest of our lives. I don’t plan on being home for much of my latter years, but when I am, I will be there. Doris and I have seen this path coming for some time now and are completely on-board with it. She’ll soon be flying to international art exhibits in Europe as well, I have zero doubt. I have to stay mobile if I have any hope of catching up with my family since they can’t come to us. And when and if I do have the means to fly them all into our home, what better place than to the beautiful Spruce Pine where we’ll make sure to have enough room to put everyone up for family reunions and such.
I may even bring back the idea of an in-person tech residency there as well. That’s another big dream on the 10 year horizon. Rob’s Jedi school of the tech arts or something. It would very intense and would be a “retreat” style where everyone gets very close to one another. Basically, it would be all of us around a campfire, just like when I used to guide on the Salmon river, but we would all be talking about tech and changing the world. I would court the elite recruiters that I trust and have a hand-picked crop of amazing candidates to send them. I already know that will work because I already did it.
Add back a limited amount of gaming for relaxation
This goal scared the shit out of me. Gaming has destroyed my life at certain times, mostly because it is suck a quick hit of pseudo-success that masks all the actual failures all around you. That panacea is addicting and fucking dangerous. Before you know it, you don’t know what is real and your priorities are completely fucked up. It’s not that games are bad, it is that they are so very good when everything else in your life is bad.
I started by playing Dota 2 and so far limiting to Turbo has kept that something I can keep in check, mostly. Then I realized I could do Witcher 3 on Linux with Steam Proton, which was amazing. But I tired of doing that finding that just sitting around the fake campfire talking about whatever-the-fuck with my community was so much more fulfilling. I haven’t returned to either in weeks.
In fact, I have more fun watching people from my community play games and chime in on their streams every once in a while.
Complete micro-projects
I’m not really going to do all my micro-projects in 2021. In fact, I’m not doing any project that doesn’t directly relate to my getting the Kubernetes certifications. So I will be building software and MimWorks tools, but they will be used to learn CKAD stuff specifically. I really have to stay focused on that goal for 2021.
This means that all the Go coding for different things will have to be reorganized to fit within these project goals and I have to watch out for rabbit holes.
Notably, I won’t be doing any new Beginner Boost content until 2022 other than answering specific questions in the AMA sessions. I’m not forgetting about it, I just have to stay focused if I want to enable all the goals I have for 2022.
I still have all the same goals for 2022 with the additional goal and focus of going full IRL live stream on rwxrob.live while gallivanting around the US and Canada in addition to the rwxrob.tv, which will be only stuff on my screen.
In fact, I’m thinking of setting up a home-base server that has the music and stuff that I can control remotely for that. Then I’ll just login to do the work there. Everything else will come from my LiveU rig on the road. I plan on getting two or three 9 hour batteries and swapping them out to stay live 24 x 7 pretty much (yes sleep streaming from the back of my Suburu).
I cannot wait to plot my next visits with my boys, other family, and all the friends from my stream community including trying to keep up with Dennis (lastmiles) having a beer and finding a hot-tub stream with him. It would be my great accomplishment in life to has a hot-tub stream with Dennis just shooting the shit about “the old tech times” and sharing war stories.
My one son lives in a place where they keep an airstream available in Canada for people who are visiting, so I could stay there for a while working and catching up with him and his new family (having married into it).
The others are all in college so I could go bother them on campus as well.
I’m really looking forward to 2022 but there is a lot to prepare to make it all happen. I still have to be absolutely sure I can put in a fair amount of solid work for my employer. After all, it’s the right thing to do.