pwned
so. as i mentioned. the blog you're reading is a static site now, and there's a reason for that. a few weeks back my ghost install started serving a clickfix lure. one of those fake "verify you're human, paste this into your terminal"…
short-stack.net
Personal blog — archives since 2001.
Latest posts
blog is fully static and s3 hosted
no more ghost. just github, s3, and cloudfront. and it's beautiful. 🌈
2025
a year to remember... for sure. <3 i know i'm late again with the new year's post. i don't know how i wrote so much so often years ago, but i'm glad i did. and i need to do it more. it always ends up being a release, whether it's through…
2024
i have been wanting to write this for weeks but never carved out the time, and it's been a draft for at least 2 now. if there's one thing i've learned in the last few years, forcing the time or the words to happen never works. i have to…
Rest in Peace, Thor
after almost 17 years and one hell of a life, thor passed away monday morning. i haven't cried this much since my loki died . loki basically raised thor from the day i got him . he was a 7 week old furball of skin and bones, and i saved…
I Blinked And They Grew Up
never in my pre-kids life did i imagine i would have 3 kids, or any kids, let alone twins. i believe the universe has its way of helping you find your way back to yourself if you allow it, and these girls have been a massive part of this…
Random Tuesday Meditation Thoughts
over the past couple years, i've made a very conscious shift. social notifications have remained off. i share less, and only share things that feel real or meaningful or valuable or fun, with love. no unnecessary dopamine bumps or anxiety…
End of an Era, Again
first drink in 2 weeks is a (big) glass of wine to celebrate the end of an era 🥹🍷💙 it was me and Eric's last official day at Recon today, and next week we begin our new adventure with LimaCharlie. not goodbye for us and Recon, as we'll…
Tuesday Thoughts
eric and i were running with dawn earlier today, talking about random events of the day, and work, etc. "i'm so hungry, where should we go for dinner?" and then i thought, "ugh, that means shower, and drying my hair, and makeup and all the…
End of an Era <3
it's hard to put into words how much running OpenSOC has meant over the years. but i'm gonna try. i'll spare the repetitiveness--a brief summary of what OpenSOC is, if you're unfamiliar, is above. but it has become so much more than that.…
Generational Trauma and Body Image
i took the girls to gymnastics this morning, and on our way out, i overheard a guy talking to his daughter when she finished class. he pulled her aside while she was getting her shoes and jacket back on, and her mom was a couple chairs…
Is Your Grub Hosed?
last night was the first time i'd ever legitimately needed to use the EC2 serial console in AWS. while i'm thrilled that it now exists (i wish it had been there 10 years ago), i don't want to run into this situation again. somehow, 3…
Repairing A Corrupted vCenter PostgreSQL DB
the fun of running a lab also comes with the fun of troubleshooting things you wouldn't otherwise have to troubleshoot in a properly managed/replicated/backed up environment. like figuring out how a database within vcenter that you didn't…
new years thoughts
this was taken the morning of day 1 of quarantine, march 2020. it feels like i blinked. i remember those early pandemic days. 2-3 hour shifts of work/kids/chaos. i remember thinking how much harder everything was about to get. and ohhh, it…
Long Talks
i've touched on this a lot across several posts, but never addressed it directly. i've made a lot of changes over the last year, year and a half, regarding self care. i cut out red meat. i cut out alcohol almost entirely. i cut out my diet…
Opportunities
friday night thoughts 🤍🙏 ... you are enough let go and love ... i sat down to meditate tonight. it's been 2-3 days because 1) i ran out of rapeh, and 2) i've been filling my days and not setting aside time to just sit, regardless, between…
Remember This Day
caylin turns 9 tomorrow. i still can't wrap my head around it. she was a baby a month ago. i am so unbelievably proud of this girl. she is such a bright light. such a sweet, kind soul, and an amazing big sister. we woke up around 6, or…
Be A Kid
i sat down to meditate tonight, and i always get emotional around my girls' birthdays. tonight was no different. we're celebrating big sister's birthday tomorrow, and i've been prepping since thursday night. but when i sat down and…
Just Stop
i sat down to meditate tonight, and my head was inundated with thoughts. for whatever reason, i couldn't focus. i couldn't let go. i couldn't just SIT. i couldn't help but notice my mind creating a backlog of to-do's, even a few minutes…
Present
as much as i love having my girls home with me, and as much as i miss the chaos and being surrounded by their little voices, i'm reminded this week how important time with myself is. i woke up at 6, got them ready, took them all to school,…
Progress
earlier today, i was sitting at the ATL airport, had chicken and celery for lunch, with a water. a year ago, i would've been 2 whiskeys deep with a burger and fries before my flight, dead tired, with a headache, and regretting it when i…
s/single-point-of-failure/room-for-improvement
today was pretty rough. today was a stark reminder that i've been the single point of failure in too many places for too long. not just work, but in my own life. we've been taking steps to alleviate that at work, but today the internet…
Deep Breaths, You're Doing A Good Job
the twins go back to daycare next week. big sister just started her first week of 4th grade. it won't be a full house every day after this week. and despite the chaos of trying to work and mom, i know i will miss it so so much. i was…
A New Day
today was another day of chaos, and here i am at the end of the day, reflecting on what i could've or should've done differently. ... embrace the chaos keep showing up just show them love you are enough ... this has been repeating in my…
Beautiful Day
today wasn't perfect--there were a lot of timeouts, and there was a lot of frustration between the tantrums and work and the chaos. we meditated together this morning--for the first time, my girls joined me. there were tears of joy (mine),…
No Lifeguard on Duty
it's not often that i come to las vegas and meditate. i had never done it, in fact, until today. today is day 2, or 3 i guess technically, of DEF CON. day 2 of OpenSOC. eric and i sat outside this morning with Rapéh. we meant to yesterday…
Counting My Blessings
we're driving from SC to TX this week. last night we stopped in mississippi at an adorable RV park. we're heading to dallas today to visit our friend matt, and then back to austin tomorrow. flying out to las vegas on thursday for DEF CON.…
Stop, and Sit Down
eric and i sat down to meditate this morning--something we had both neglected for too long. if you're unfamiliar with Rapéh, here is a brief intro: The Rapéh (pronounced “Ha-peh”) snuff is a sacred and legal herbal snuff from the…
learning to show myself grace
in my last post, i described a pretty powerful experience i had. this is kind of a continuation of that thread--just a handful of months down the road. recently, i was in a similar place. this time, i went into the meditation with specific…
Unassigned Shards
curl -XGET localhost:9200/_cluster/allocation/explain?pretty if you're at all familiar with the elastic stack, you may recognize this query. if you've ever run into a situation where your elasticsearch cluster turns yellow (or worse, red),…
A Year In Pictures
i started out down this rabbithole thinking i'd be able to pick a couple pictures per month. and i was so wrong. i quickly realized that there are more amazing memories with my girls than i can fit in a single post. i am so thankful for…
Life is Good
today was the 2nd of 2 days of running OpenSOC at Grayhat. our event went off incredibly smoothly, we had a great turnout, and everyone seemed to have an awesome time, with minimal stress. success all around. i've had solid workouts every…
2020
this year has been... a decade. even longer for those less fortunate. so much has happened, and while i hate seeing what's going on in our world and in our country, crises everywhere, i am grateful for a lot of things in my life. i haven't…
every year
october and november hit, and mental health becomes a dumpster fire.
Juggling 24/7
christmas cards done christmas shopping nearly done actually got weekend dinners prepped last night😱a miracle, lately but i haven't even gotten a chance to put away halloween and put out thanksgiving/fall decorations. trying to keep track…
2019 So Far
last update was january, and it hurt going through 9 months of pictures seeing how much littler they were only a short while ago :( twins turned 2 in march: no more pacifiers, full mouths of teeth, speaking in sentences, and can just about…
2019, week 1 in the books
have had to take a step back lately... i hit a new low in 2018. stress, hormones, winter, chaos of 3 kids, major career changes, anxiety, depression. everyone says twins are hard, what no one tells you about is the toll it all takes…
They're All Grown Up
caylin showers nightly on her own, picks out her own clothes, dresses herself, puts her dishes in the sink, packs her backpack, picks out her breakfast, can bring her sisters stuff (bottles, pacifiers, etc), plays with them in the…
Months of Recaps
oh man. so many things have happened in the last few months. last post was caylin's 6th birthday. the twins are loving daycare now. they come home completely exhausted, yes. but they love the people there. they're sick all the time, like…
This Week
brett's parents came to visit friday-sun. everyone went out on the boat saturday, so i got to spend saturday with the babies :) went to a get together for ashley's birthday saturday night. came home and cooked eggs and sausage at like…
kiddos
i feel like a terrible mom comparing kiddo #1 to the twins. i blogged every month. that is just so hard to keep up these days. so hard. zoey and ella have 6 teeth now. ella is walking, kind of. she can take 4-5 steps. zoey can take 1-2.…
they're 1, and she graduated
3 weeks late. better late than never. 3 kids and everything going on these days has put blogging on the backiest back burner. it kind of makes me sad, but it means that life is full. the twins turned 1 on 5/31. caylin graduated…
Almost 1
the twins turn 1 at the end of this month. i was so diligent about writing monthly when caylin was younger. then again, i had about 9000 fewer things to worry about. that said, i still feel bad about not doing the monthlies. there are…
10 Months
the twins turned 10 months old this weekend, and caylin is 5 and a half. it's hard to believe that so much time has passed already. they're not crawling yet, but there's a lot of rolling around and scooching. ella is a lot more mobile than…
Home Network Updates
thanks again to the incredible people over at @ubnt , i have some new additions to the home network. if you didn’t see the first post, you can read more here . basically, earlier this year i rebuilt all the things for the home network/lab…
There And Back Again
i had to make a really hard decision last week. tl;dr – i have decided to leave red hat and go back to booz allen / SPARC. when i took my position at red hat 6 months ago, i had never worked from home full time before. i also knew that…
A Blur
that’s what the last 7 months feel like, at times. especially day to day. a normal day goes like this: wake up around 6:30-7. caylin is more often than not, the first one up. the babies are usually stirring or babbling before or around…
Home Network Overhaul
[UPDATE] posted here [/UPDATE] a few months ago, i started realizing i was going to need to make some changes with regards to my infrastructure at home in general. we had a decent ASUS router at home and i set up a VPN, and i had a couple…
Achievement Unlocked - RHCA
my 10 year goal. roughly 6-7 years in the making since my first red hat certification. because time, money, kids, work, etc. in september 2007, i visited red hat with our AITP chapter from app. several of my friends already had their eyes…
Merry Christmas, Internets
4 months later, and i’m finally getting around to… semi blogging? i don’t know how this will go. it’s 1:30 in the morning and i’m looking for every opportunity to distract myself from studying. christmas was pretty low key. dad and…