Being Thankful for 2016
The year 2016 has passed and I find myself reflecting on the good parts of it. There tends to be too much focus on the bad in social media and news media so it is easy to forget the good parts and to treasure those.
Family
The highlights this year where my family is involved.
My wife and I are expecting our third child. I love my children with such passion. Nothing compares to being a parent.
My kids, nothing in this world is more rewarding than being a parent.
- My wife, don’t have a clue how she tolerates my dark humor and my quirks. Could not have asked for a better partner.
- I still have my parents with me.
- Thanks to opportunities that rose this year I was able to earn extra money that went to my parents to help them out. They have given so much to me so it is a no brainer for me to do the same for them.
Professionally
The highlights of my profession are:
- I got to present at Derbycon and BSidesPR. I do not do the con circle of presenting several times a year repeating content. Thankfully I have been able to keep my ego in check. I present at these 2 cons every year I can because to me they are family, consider myself fortunate to submit and get accepted.
- I delivered a training class at Derbycon. I got to deliver my PowerShell for Security Professionals class, this class is practically re-written every year and this year I had a fabulous set of students. Every year it gets better and better.
- I got to twice train Marine Corp Cyber Command personnel in addition to personnel of other branches. I consider it an honor and a privilege to have been asked to train them. The NCOs, Officers and Civilian personnel trained exemplified what professionalism is. Each class was tailored to their specific needs and requests. It was the highlight of my training experience in 2016.
- I still enjoy the respect of many of my peers.
- I was able to update and write tools that people in my industry find useful.
- I was able to share knowledge in blog posts and people found the information useful.
- I still have a job that provides for my family and allows me the flexibility of spending time with them and provide a better level of living for them.
- I get to manage in my day job a group of professionals that inspire me and challenge me to be better every day.
- was awarded again the Microsoft MVP award for Cloud and Management.
2017
For 2017 I'm again working on:
- Hopping to spend time with my family and welcome the new addition.
- Writing tools to learn and share.
- Thinking of what presentation I can do at Derbycon that will be of value to the community so as to submit to the CFP.
- Re-Writing labs, updating slides, consolidating and re-organizing training material for the 3 different classes I teach.
- Planning on submitting again to Derbycon training and update version of my PowerShell class.
