I have been cobbling along bits and pieces of a home lab over the last 18 years or so, and didn’t really know it for the longest time. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I wanted to achieve something, and set out to figuring out how to do exactly that.

That has led me down countless rabbit holes, on Reddit and numerous online forums.

I’m finally at a point with a small side project, something to accomplish a specific goal (I’m not ready to share what that is just yet), and today I discovered that I don’t need to dump any money into it right now. I have everything I need to get started, right here at home.

That includes a spare network switch and a few empty drives that I thought were closer to retirement than they actually are. I definitely spent a good chunk of time inventorying my drives, which inevitably found me going down memory lane – to that one time when using Ubuntu + Gnome and I stumbled upon the best theme pack. It’s legit one that competes pretty strongly with something I’m using on one of my machines today.

I woke up this morning ready to dive into a fresh Ubuntu server install, and I’m wrapping it up by tidying up my side project’s to-do list and crossing a few items off of it already.

Tonight’s post hit a lot harder than I expected, and it’s not even the one I set out to write.

I was planning to talk about some things I’ve been working on, but it led me down a rabbit hole of memories. Memories of a dearly departed friend. The reflection that followed has completely drained me.

Pete, if there’s any way you can see what we’re up to from wherever you are, I hope you know how much you’re missed. We’ll never forget you.

A year ago today, I walked into the building of what would soon be my new employer for the very first time.

Not the front door, though. It was the Friday before a long weekend, and really only IT was in that day.

I was there to pick up my new work gear and my security fob. I was given the choice between Windows and macOS, and of course, I chose macOS. I had been lucky enough to have the same choice at a previous employer, though only after I had asked, since our role defaulted to Windows at the time.

Honestly, it is truly a joy working on a Mac. Technically, since everything I do is web based, it really doesn’t matter what OS I’m using, but I’m still glad I was given the choice.

As a Windows user and someone who games on Windows primarily, it has never really been my first choice, nor my first love. We had a Mac when I was younger, one my dad brought home from work regularly. We had them at school, too, until PCs running Windows became the norm.

Our first family computer was a PC. And the one my parents bought me before I went to university was a PC, too. But I always loved what came before macOS. In university, I was the dorm’s unofficial tech support when people didn’t want to involve IT. I would help them with the basics on either their super expensive Mac laptops or their PCs. I always thought it was cool that, in 2004, the majority of the computers in the Monroe County school system were Macs. Back home, we only had PCs.

I continued to use that PC until I built my own rig in late 2008. And the funny part? When my roommate and I went to the local computer store to look at parts, I chose everything specifically knowing that there were Linux drivers available, especially for the video card. The rig, Finnigan, was running Ubuntu from day one. I refused to pay Microsoft for their operating system or their office suite, and I was having far too much fun using Ubuntu on my older desktop.

Thinking about it now, I didn’t pay Microsoft for their OS when I built my next rig, Bartholomew, either, at least not until I got myself a TechNet subscription. It ran flavours of Windows, several Linux distros, and at one point it was even running a version of OS X. Eventually, though, I settled on Windows long enough to run the gauntlet from 7 through 10. A 3rd Gen Intel processor couldn’t handle Windows 11 out of the box. Come on now. Fittingly, though, it will retire as a Linux box in my home lab once again.

These days, I am happily running a mix of Windows, Linux and macOS across six computers.

Okay, eight. But who’s counting my Raspberry Pi and my Steam Deck?

What OS are you using these days?

Welp, here we are again.

On day one of Blaugust 2025, I find myself returning to my roots with a renewed sense of purpose? joy? I don’t really heckin know! A renewed sense of something. When my friend Belghast has posted about Blaugust in the past, it’s always been a ‘hey, maybe I should dust mine off and participate.. next year!’ or some such variant. When he lost his wife earlier this summer and took a step back from hosting it, I knew I needed to get my shit together and make a commitment to writing. To blogging. I used to write. A lot. Not specifically just here, though the archives and their archives are unhinged in their own right. And then I stopped. I stopped writing. And reading. And creating. Losing a part of me that I so very much would like to get back.

Let’s see how this turns out. I plan to post something at least once per day every single day this month. That’s it. Nothing specific, nor polished. But something.

If you’re new here: hi, I’m Kris, though sometimes my friends call me Kav. If you’re not new here, you already know this place, and essentially any other space I drop by, is the public dumping ground of my mind – though there is no algo here.

To the few people who keep lurking for all of the wrong reasons: hi! I’m still here. Still standing. Still not writing for you.

To everyone else: This is your last chance to abort the mission – otherwise, strap in. Let’s see where this month goes!