Just like in AA, one is suppose to introduce themselves and give a brief synopsis of whom you are. My name is Kim Callis and I am a recovering [Li|U]nix Systems Administrator. Many years ago, I became a system administrator, not because that was my life long calling, but because it was something that was foisted on me.

It was 1992 and I was in the middle of my nearly finishing my Master's thesis when suddenly there was a power outage and 3 months of time and 150+ pages were gone! I was working on the oh-so-new WinWord 3.0 for Windows 3.1, which had several bugs, include a issue of automatic saves and a few other issues. So a friend of my introduced me to TeX on a RS6000 running AIX. Now I wasn't clueless about Unix considering that I worked in the trenches for Sun Systems doing telephone support for SunOS support. But it had been a long time since I had actually used Unix and had never actually used it for more than the basics.

So here I am, logging in, stumbling using vi and the ordeal of using TeX (which of course is the greatest typographic program in the world). I had to grep my way through documents and sed to stream edit my document, and occasional AWK, and other tiny tools that the average user of Windows or Linux has no idea about. Suddenly, I am on Usenet downloading software packages and constantly calling the department System Admin to install and debug software. After too many calls, I found a Sun 4 at my door, along with a large ass hard drive pack, and about 30 SunOS 4.1 manuals.

The hell with writing a paper, there were other things to do... The rest is history! I started using lots of power as I created a network of PCs running Linux and my "oh so powerful" SPARC machine. I ran coax through the AC ducts to connect some of my other classmates to their dorm room, and was able to become a full time (albeit non-paid) system administrator. Now, nearly 25 years, I am doing the same thing.

The only problem is, the state has found my skill-set obsolete (The Twilight Zone - "The Obsolete Man" Season 2 Episode 29). I can write a powerful bash script, but do not use PERL, python, ruby, etc. I deal with local network issue on my local host, but do not have a real clue on what happens past the interface on my machine. I manage my OS (whatever is might be), but I don't deal with virtualized hosts (besides using desktop virtualization using Virtualbox). And clouds are something that I see in the sky.

So I am on my path to redemption... To make myself relevant in the current work environment. These are my adventures in doing just that!