The Journey Begins (and Continues) - An Introduction

Where Am I Going?

     At this point in the journey I'm working on several passions of mine at the same time. I hope that your reading this means that we share at least one of those passions. Even if not I still hope I can give you a fun read.

    I am trying to become a machine learning engineer and push forward on my path as a network engineer at the same time.

    The markers for being a decent machine learning engineer I feel like are ever moving as technologies are evolving so quickly, but I think a decent baseline that I want to reach for is getting the Tensorflow certification and starting to work on some serious projects that I care about (more on that in a later post).

    The markers for where I want to go in network engineering is farther along the path of Cisco certifications. Currently I am working on the DEVASC certification and the Cisco Certified Devnet Professional certification.

    I do hope that somewhere along this journey I will find a place where these two worlds re-converge and what I learn about machine learning can help me to meaningfully contribute to new computer network technologies. I definitely see some resemblance to this in the decentralization promoted in web 3.0 (but more on this in a later post as well).

The Journey So Far

    I decided to get into "computers" 10 years ago. That sounds wild to me that it's been that long on the journey so far. It's also crazy how being into "computers" has evolved over time for me. Some things I never thought I would care about now are the coolest ideas ever, and other things that I thought were cool I take more for granted now.

     I studied electronics (how electricity works), then computer maintenance, then computer networks, then network security, in high school. At Tampa Bay Technical High School I learned some key things that would lead me on my way, but even more than that I learned how to learn (and more than that, to not stop learning), and that has paid dividends over the years since I first stepped foot on campus.

    After graduation, and after working for a year at an internet service provider in Overland Park, Kansas (as a NOC technician), I was privileged to work for a government agency (with only a CCNA R&S under my belt!!). There I finally felt like I had creative freedom! I worked with cool, new technologies and learned Python, and even began automating network administration tasks with code. This was before network automation was a big thing and the network engineering influencers had only kind of started talking about it.

This Blog
    There are a lot of people that are ahead of me, or at the same place as me, or even behind me in somewhat of the same journey. I hope that this blog offers a forum for us to grow together. I want to work on code projects and networks and new technologies with passionate people! I think if you've come here you are probably passionate (even if not on the same exact journey). I look forward to hopefully working with you, often growing from your input, and assuredly being stoked with you about the cool new things that are coming down the pipeline each year.

    If you use the labels, you should be able to access this blog as a series of stories along either the ML (machine learning), DS (data science), or Network Engineering paths. If you wish to see all of it together (closer to the way that I'm going about it), then you can use The Journey label and it should show you every post. I separated ML and DS as it is sometimes more data specific and less build-cool-stuff then ML (at least that's how I understand it at this point).

    Truth be told, I do not enjoy talking about myself. It makes me feel quite bashful and rather immodest. I feel like even once you are an expert on something, you recognize just how much more vast the possibilities and the world beyond what you already grasp truly is (1 Corinthians 8:2). So, instead of talking about myself, most of the time I would rather talk about the journey. Just like two people discussing the map for a nature trail or beta for a hard big wall climb, this blog aims to be a guidebook for the journey. Made by you and I. Welcome!