The Next Chapter

It’s been a little over 9 months since I was affected by layoffs. I’m one of many in the tech industry who have been in this sort of situation, including almost 300 of my colleagues. However, this unexpected “sabbatical” turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I feel grateful for the time to rest, […]

Farewell to Automattic

After 7 and a half years, it’s finally time to say goodbye to Automattic. The position that was my absolute “dream job” when I first started back in 2017. The company that sent me around the world, and paired me up with colleagues from many countries, cultures, and walks of life. The “merry band” of […]

My Key Productivity Practices

I’ve played with many “productivity systems” over the years. It seems like I can only stick with one “system” for so long before it becomes too cluttered or too difficult and I have to start fresh with something new and interesting. However, there are a few constants that seem to help me to be the […]

Chess Game Analysis – Nova Scotia Open Round 3

It’s round 3! I won my first game on Friday night, and I lost my second game on Saturday morning. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect next. This game was the second game on Saturday, and although I had just lost one, I went into this one with a positive attitude. Anything can happen! […]

South Africa Part 6 – Addo and Schotia

The activity today was a full-day guided safari which was included in our stay at Chrislin. It was done by their sister company, Criss Cross Adventures. It’s a family business: the woman who owns Chrislin, her son owns Criss Cross Adventures. We had breakfast at Chrislin and then met our driver/tour guide at 08:30. His […]

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Last week my team at work met up in Sao Paulo, Brazil! I had never been to Brazil, or anywhere in South America before, so I was excited for the opportunity. I left Sunday afternoon, and arrived home the following Sunday morning afternoon (more on that later). I arrived in Brazil on Monday morning, met […]

My Chess Studying System

I started playing chess when I was pretty young. My dad taught me, and I used to play with him a lot, along with my friend Patrick. I stopped playing so much around high school age, but about a year and a half ago I picked it back up. I’ve been really enjoying studying and […]

Tenable CTF Writeup

This past weekend, Sarah and I took part in the first CTF competition hosted by the cybersecurity company Tenable. The competition ran from Thursday to Monday, and had a lot of really great challenges. We had a lot of fun with it, and managed to place 56th out of over 1700 teams on the scoreboard. […]

Metasploit Community CTF – December 2020

Sarah and I enjoyed taking part in this year’s Metasploit Community CTF; a hacking competition put on by the folks at Rapid 7. It was a great weekend-long competition with a total of 20 flags and 874 teams. We did the same competition about a year ago; it was quite challenging, and we only got […]

How to Not Get Hacked – Part 1

Recently I was digging into my online security setup to make sure it’s still working and keeping my online accounts secure. There have been some pretty high-profile hacks in the last 20 years or so, and no website is exempt from the possibility of a breach. If you’ve ever had a friend whose email, Facebook, […]