Passing through...after a longer while away

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I was in a conversation with my partner the other day....and described the story of this guy I "knew" online years ago that moved from the UK to Boise and smashed out 3 2008 exams in one day....couldn't remember his name, but wondered if the forum was still running.....and it is! (Obviously, rediscovered it was Phoenix!)

Wow, so much has changed here. Catching up on some of the "old" threads from 2017 when Si left the building, seeing so many peoples names that were a blast from the past! According to the stats I last posted in 2012 and I was a 2nd line Sys Admin, nah....it hasn't been that long....has it?

Ryan hasn't been deported from the US yet, Dawn is now married but it was seeing that Nugget had disappeared touched me that I was inspired to reach out and say hi and to the new visitors - this place changed my future when I joined in 2006.....fresh into my first IT job, not sure what I should be doing next or how, nearly burnt by the fables of MCSE/CCNA in 2 months but it mentioned the A+....got home, I googled, and I ended up here.

A+, Net+, MCSA.....whilst I never completed the same level of certification as others did (still chews at me that I didn't get my MCSE!), I never lost the ability to know that there is an entire library of knowledge available and it pretty much started here. Even to this day, I'm less certificate-minded than back then (due to experience outweighing certs) but my VCP has been nailed, some ITIL specialisms dealt with and have even poked around with cloud architecture too. (And I'm pretty sure I've had a continuous subscription to ACloudGurus for years now!)

I've been a 3rd-line technical lead for many years, an Exchange/AD/infrastructure architect for some of this countries' most interesting and secretive projects, dabbled and baffled by DevOps, written countless lengthy powershell and python scripts to automate the world but have actually started to move away from the tech and into senior management.... you never know, CTO one day?!

To those that remember, I say Hi to (I have fond memories of the Leicester (I think) GTG many moons ago!)...to those that don't, you will never know what you missed out on - and to all those who lurk and read, this site is a story of hope and encouragement when my career sometimes felt un-directed and daunting - long may it continue (the site that is )!