2020 Year in Review

Time for a super cliche year-in-review post that so many bloggers, YouTubers, streamers, and other content creators make. (Does this mean I’m a real content creator now?) In all seriousness, it goes without saying that 2020 was a tumultuous year for many people, for many reasons.

Still, I’d like to take a moment to highlight and reflect on some of the events that have happened to me during this year. Maybe this will inspire you in some way, shape, or form to follow your passions or elicit ideas for your own life. Without further ado, here’s my 2020 year in review.

Entered the Active Duty United States Air Force

Perhaps my biggest accomplishment of the year, I was finally able to enter the active duty US Air Force in May 2020. During the full gap-year between graduating in May 2019 and May 2020 my time was mainly spent working retail, warehouse, and help desk jobs, and playing basketball.

I am excited to see where my new career takes me.

Launched this website

Having a personal website to blog about computer science was something I wanted during my sophmore year of college. But I made excuses and put it off for years.

Inspired by Julia Evans and John Hammond I took the leap of launching a website in August 2020. Since then, I have published a total of 33 blogs!! This is an accomplishment I am proud of, and am eager to publish more in the near future.

Hacktoberfest 2020

Sponsored by Digital Ocean, Hacktoberfest is an event held in October for open source projects.

This was the first Hacktoberfest (and hack-athon for that matter) that I have participated in. I contributed to three projects and managed pull requests for my own Python project about the number 3.

It was a great time and a tree was even planted in my name :)

Capture the Flag challenges

Ah, capture the flag challenges. My favorite way to develop info sec skills, a fun way to spend an evening, and a large chunk of the blogs I post (hey, writeups make for easy content).

I mainly solved a lot of “offline” challenges - picoCTF’s gym, TryHackMe rooms, and overthewire wargames. However, I did attempt one live CTF held by SquareCTF. The challenges were over my head and I didn’t fully complete any, but I still made progress, had fun, and tried something new!

Relocated to Beautiful Biloxi, Mississippi

Moving from Illinois to Mississippi completed my transformation to a full adult. I’m now living on my own without having to share a bedroom with my brother(s).

Biloxi is a cozy city along the Gulf Coast with good eats (try the redfish) and fresh beats.