@scottalanmiller Yeah I'm sure your right. I was referring back a few years ago now from what i was thinking then. Yeah my opinion hasnt changed any lol. Now I know your right lol

Steak and Baked potato from Texas Roadhouse then oreao ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins for my birthday today. It was all delicious. Wife still eating on my cake.

@scottalanmiller I keep watching this as I have 2 Huawei phones. I have never seen any evidence they do anything questionable. Even if they did I would then have to compare to what Apple and Samsung do

Thanks I will try to get to one or two of those.

@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

IMO, if I need to learn something for work - I learn at work/on the job.

I do this too when I can so I can certainly understand the reasoning. I use this tactic to supplement my home lab. I don't have hours to myself at home. I enjoy being with my family and put them first. I do, however, try to allocate a little time every evening to self-improvement. 30 min to an hour or something like that. I may not learn things as fast as others but I will learn things

Going to go hit some golf balls in a while. Pretty day, just hot

@networknerd said in Generating content ideas for topics, posts, articles:

I'm in the same boat and think of ideas all the time based on problems I have solved at work, a podcast I have listened to, someone in the community I have talked to about an issue they have had. I just started this year at http://blog.thenetworknerd.com. I usually make a draft in Wordpress to save for later so I do not forget. At times I have so many ideas it is hard to pick one.

Those are good ideas! I will pay more attention when I am listening to things and reading forums! I will check out your site too

Todoist works well for Android and Windows 10

@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@dafyre said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@dafyre said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@dafyre said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@jimmy9008 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Why spend valuable free time with family learning something that you will possibly never ever use. Learn something when its needed and save wasted time learning something that's never needed.

Because it is fun, and it is what causes us to move forward in our professions.

Its not as fun as spending time with family. We all have our own needs from life - personally time with loved ones is top priority over learning things I may never use.

I agree here. Spending time with family is a top priority, but so is investing in yourself. I tend to bounce around with my free time (time to myself). Sometimes I'm tinkering in my home lab and other times, I'm not.

I don't see one as taking away from the other. I know for certain that my investments in learning is what has given me so much family time.

Oh, I agree, but I tend to do my learning and such after spending time with my family. Some folks see it as an either/or.

But why do they see it that way? What makes them perceive it as taking time away, rather than, for example, giving time to?

According to some people's perspectives, they see giving time to learning as taking away time for leisure.

Right, but WHY?

This is pretty obvious - because learning isn't their form of leisure.

I think that there is the point, that is the kind of people Scott is looking for.

If you are healthy otherwise and don't have sleep apnea then its just lack of exercise. Walking doesn't cut it. Do some squats or pushups for 10 min and you will be fully energized and muscles primed for some heavy-duty powershell scripting lol.

In most cases if your eating right and healthy its being too sedentary in the day. The longer commute could certainly be the difference and it happens as we get older regardless so do more light exercise to combat it.

@networknerd said in Generating content ideas for topics, posts, articles:

I actually get frustrated at times with the length of my commute and the fact that I could have been blogging about something during that time. I feel like that is part of the problem I have with hitting a regular cadence of more than every couple of weeks.

I think it is Evernote that allows you to do voice memos right into your notes. So while you are commuting you could talk into phone and flesh out an article and at least make some progress. Just an idea for you

@scottalanmiller I use Bitdefender business at home. Everyone but me is on fb and youtube constantly so I want something decent. Think its like $120 a year.

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

What I'm taking away from this is that I don't really have much family time with my wife at all.

Most people don't, nothing wrong with that. I don't either. But not because we don't enjoy shared things, we actually do. But in our case it is because my wife is an extreme introvert and needs to be alone over 90% of the time to be happy and functional. That's something I've just had to learn to come to term with. She doesn't not want to hang out with me, she doesn't want anyone at all near her.

So the kids and I are together way more than my wife and I are together. My kids want to be in close proximity 90% of the time and alone 10%. My wife is the flip side. So now, for example, that my wife is done cooking breakfast, she is back hiding across the house alone, while me and the two kids are hanging out together.

Sounds like the flip from my house - though I don't want/need anywhere near 90% alone time.. 40%+ alonish time would be completely OK. But for her, if it's possible for me to be in the same room, she wants that. It's to the point that she will suffer something she doesn't like just to be in the same room, though there are a few things that will send her screaming.. the bird when she's being loud for example.

I'll stop by where my wife is and she'll be like "go away, I've seen you enough today."

lol women are so weird! my wife included

@networknerd What works for me is doing it at the beginning of lunch, right before I eat. Thats right at middle of my day too. I have got to where i rotate my exercises now but that is up to you. You can just do 1 for a while if you want. I just want to be balanced in what I do. So i do squats one day then day while holding dell optiplex to chest, pushups next day, then next day is modified deadlift where I use a dell optiplex as weight. I try not to break a full sweat of course but that little activity at beginning of lunch every day does it for me. I no longer have those afternoon dips in energy. I'm still a little overweight because I eat too much but dang i can work all day lifting and carrying stuff if I need to because of my exercise.

Usually just my email and desk phone. I make sure and take off the evidence you are replying from a phone so they won't know that.

@wrx7m Ive had good experiences with Bitdefender. Dependable and easy to work with.

@dbeato said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller Yes, I actually did. I needed context.

I did too but at times I was about to give up because they were posting faster than I could keep up

Well to me cutrting the cord always implied getting away from the cable companies and their way of doing things. It is not necessarily cheaper but you at least have more choice in what you want to watch and pay for. Is it better? That is going to depend on your viewing habits I suppose.

@scottalanmiller I know its still early but I'm not a fan of this editor.

@scottalanmiller When I first started my job was probably 80% bench tech and 20% IT. Now I would say it is close to being reversed, maybe 70% It and 30% bench. I spend most of my time powershell remoting, imaging, raiding, and scripting.