ARM

Photo by Aaron Burden from Pexels It’s been one of the more challenging years of my life for many reasons. Please allow me the space to do some healing in this intro. I promise the juicy tech bits are a header away. If 2020 was hell on earth (which, while close, wasn’t quite there), 2021 asked us all to hold our collective beverages. Vaccines and boosters aside, the pandemic was a staunch obstacle to tackle along with every decision. A thorn in the side of everything at this point, we tried to live as normal a life as a family can that has young, unvaccinated children amongst us. But, how do you reduce human interaction in a world that needs more humans to be human to each other? We have to figure out the answer to this question. In the face of a pandemic, government spending buoyed the economy here in the United States. Abroad other nations took stock and saw a world where everyone looked after themselves first. I am relieved that adults have returned to the White House, but I fear it might be short-lived given the stalling in Washington DC the past few weeks. ...

We’ve all had challenging years before. However, none were quite as challenging as in 2020. In the conclusion of last year’s post, I wrote, “I am hopeful that whatever economic upheaval we face as a society in 2020 is limited.” At that time, economic indicators were bubble-ish. However, a global pandemic was not something I had in the cards. No one did. A global pandemic, international protests against horrific injustices, and a US government damn near inept at helping with any of it. These events led to the largest voter turnout in this nation’s history. Hopefully, this will change our path and put the country back on track. ...

For many months, I have wanted a Kubernetes cluster of my very own. One that I can tinker with, break, rebuild, and deploy services to. In the fall of 2017, I decided to stand up a three node cluster in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). It was nice and shiny and Googly but it wasn’t cheap. Totaling almost $40/month to run I was envious of my friends who have virtually unlimited access to cloud compute. ...