This website is for documenting my journey. To start I will go way back. In my early 20s, I was a NJ Firefighter that would later on join the United States Marine Corps. I was also a ham radio operator with a call sign of KB2TFA and later it became K3RPG. I had an interest in tech. I purchased my first computer, a used 386 with no operating system on it. Back then, Windows was not what it is today. I would install DOS, the Microsoft Disk Operating System, and they I would install Windows 3.11 which ran as a batch file. You would boot into DOS, and then you would type “Win” to launch Windows. I took an interest in creating batch files in DOS. This would lead me to programming later down the road.

While in my last two years in the Marine Corps I was tasked with being a Training NCO. This meant that I had to keep track of all of the Marines in the unit. Everything from attendance to their physical fitness scores, etc. This was all being done by a spreadsheet, and it was very tedious to change the spreadsheet daily. This led me to using Microsoft Access and Visual Basic. I created a database that had a graphical user interface (GUI), and with a few clicks a report was generated. Thus satisfying my command, and making my life easier. I could not be allowed to keep backups, and twice the IT team erased all of the drives. This led me to rebuilding the database a few times. At the end of my contract, I was awarded the Navy Marine Corps Achievement medal for my work.

Upon leaving the Marine Corps, I continued my love of programming, and this led me to Linux. I ran down the Linux rabbit hole for quite some time. I found I really didn’t care for Linux System Admin work. I would rather write software to provide solutions to given problems. I became interested in how the Linux system worked. To be honest I was interested in how most computer operating systems worked, but Mac and Windows are closed source, so getting a view is not possible.

Linux being open source, I am able to see how it works, and what makes it tick. This led me to MINIX the project that led to Linux. At the time of this writing I am reading Andrew Tanenbaum’s book MINIX Operating Systems Design and Implementation, then we’ll dive into the Linux Kernel. I will be documenting my way through various things on this blog or diary. Thanks for stopping by.