Hey, I’m Joseph. I’ve been tinkering with tech for as long as I can remember — not because I have some deep expertise, but because I’m curious, stubborn, and always trying to figure out how things work (and occasionally, how I broke them).
I spend a lot of time in the weeds messing with homelab setups, routers, firewalls, VPNs, and other things I probably have no business touching. Sometimes it’s for work, sometimes just because I got tired of watching tutorials and wanted to see if I could actually do it myself. I’ve learned a lot that way — usually by doing it wrong first.
Professionally, I’ve supported environments tied to the DoD, where you learn quickly how serious things get when security isn’t dialed in. I’m definitely not a cyber expert, but I’ve picked up enough along the way to be paranoid in the right ways. Whether it’s segmenting networks, hardening systems, or just figuring out how to use a YubiKey properly, I enjoy diving into topics that make things more secure — even if I don’t always get it right on the first try.
This blog is my attempt to document what I’ve learned, break it down in plain language (because I need it that way too), and maybe help someone else avoid the rabbit holes I’ve fallen into. You won’t find anything revolutionary here, just real-world notes, lessons learned, and the occasional rant about things like DNS, VPNs, or why .htaccess always breaks on me when I need it most.
If you’re into homelabs, messing with OPNsense, fighting with certificates, or trying to make sense of all the moving parts in tech without losing your mind, you might feel at home here.
Thanks for stopping by.
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Joseph K.