Let's see your First Gen Toyota Tundra in scenic places

Scrolling through the camera roll and found a decent pic from Merustober last year. @SAGE63 @455h0le_dachshund @Sirfive @JakeJake @Mohoman

 

Looking forward to it again. Still doing Big Texan this time? I missed out on the first night, schedule is clear this time around. Also going to be Christmas for me in the coming weeks. Have suspension and a few other related goodies on the way for the new tundra! Anyone thinking of a wrench day prior to Merustober?

 

I can bring tools, a jack, and lots of bad ideas.

 

Full send, got to keep it interesting!

 

Wanna make it interesting? We do it all the day before, in time for big texan. Whoever breaks a tool pays for dinner.

 

Yeah, I'm always down to wrench as long as it's Thursday-Saturday.
Might knock out my brakes tomorrow, if I find a helper to pump the brakes.

 

That's what Beau was trying get us to do last time...or maybe it was T2S?
Doesn't work that way for me. Too much time to get there and back with work, to have a wrench day the same weekend as a wheeling trip. Just look at how we totally made it to Merus after Panhandlemonium

 

he even loctited the oil filter to give a sense of urgency. Best airbnb + escape room i’ve ever been to.

 

My yard isnt as scenic if i’m trying to catch the driveway. After mowing.

But it has its spots.

Gotta catch the evening shade.

 

Flex her out on them rocks, for science.

 

I'm taking that Thursday off, but I can also take Wednesday off too. I'm down to clown. The driveway of despair is always open. Gotta post a pic to stay on track....

 

Mt Adams in the background

 

Wyoming BDR,

 

We might have a winner folks. Game over

 

Also... How are you liking your OVRLND camper? I love mine more and more heavy trip. It just does what it needs to do and stays out of the way without any issues.

 

We are loving it. We’ve had a lot of campers over the years and this one is hitting all of the right buttons. We were able to build out the interior just the way we wanted. Spent over three weeks straight in it this summer covering the Nor-Cal BDR, ID BDR, through MT, WY BDR and into Utah and home through NV.

Jack

 

How is this not your profile pic?

 

E P I C view and a sick looking Tundra

 

After spending two weeks of spring in the ol Leer 100 with my partner... I was finally thinking I outgrew the space and ergonomic constraints of the canopy.

My goals for a camper were to find one without all the accessories and options, to keep weight and cost down. I thought about many configurations and types. Topo topper, FWC, ATC, Composite hard side...

Ultimately the FWC won out due to price and availability and I picked up this very basic shell model Kestrel.

Originally built for 1st Gen ACs, it goes in the DC with a few inches of spacer underneath.

Here's some scenic photos.

 

That's a nice setup. I keep looking at those pop up campers for mountain biking trips, but haven't been going often enough to really justify it yet. I have a truck bed tent, but still use a backpacking tent most of the time. My biggest hold up is I really like being able to use a tailgate pad and not deal with a bike rack on the tailgate anymore. Considering a canvas soft topper, which could be my gateway into something bigger.

 

Totally get it. I do not like using my bike rack, with my camper especially. But I really don't like tailgate pads personally so it was an easier choice.

 

I'd have a FWC now if it wasn't for the cost. They're top of the list for me.

 

Well maybe if I can't find work, this one could be yours!

 

If I prioritized it, I could afford it. But can't justify throwing everything toward a truck camper. I found this for $550, including the trailer it came in. It works for now. Can't stand up in it, and it's heavy, but for certain trips (hunting mostly), it definitely gets the job done.

 

Not much demand up here for middle aged linux sys admins, so I can relate. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the break from techie to dirt bag mountain biker living out of a truck part of the year.

 

Ummmm, cause I’ve been too lazy to change it.

Jack

 

Most of what I've been hunting for has been primarily remote. There are still businesses peppered around the country, and even some around the globe, who are looking for remote staff to manage Linux hosts. Linux is still the predominant OS used in cloud infra, basic certs in AWS, Azure, or GCP will almost guarantee getting at least a 6-12mo contract at any number of small/medium/large businesses with infra sitting in datacenters, like iO/Iron Mountain/etc.

Given the licensing increases for VMware that started after the Broadcom CEO came in after buyout, and started jacking up all the pricing to obnoxious levels, everyone was jumping ship, and looking for other options, so knowledge of ESX isn't as highly sought after as it was before.
Also helps if you have experience with Terraform, Ansible and similar, experience with Git, at least for Cloud, but I haven't been seeing either as "must haves" on the administration side of things, only the roles that cater more towards the development side.

The demand is out there. I'd say AWS and GCP probably have far more Linux-based hosts deployed than Azure, but Azure has way more potential branches you can fork out into for lateral movement in the industry.

You may know all this stuff already, and if so, sorry for preaching to the choir

I'm hunting to branch out at this point, hopefully for what will be my last 5-7yr stint before "officially" retiring. I've got a pretty solid lead on a couple of roles with another Swiss-based company (my former employer was Swiss as well), hoping it pans out. Would be related to service delivery or customer success, even though most of my career has revolved around systems engineering/admin/security. I've got all the tools in my belt to accomplish a wide array of jobs, I've had to wear so many freaking hats the last 25-30 years, daily and sometimes hourly, I can chameleon into anything.

 

Makes me glad I retired. I started early (1979, IBM mainframes) and "retired" the first time in 1994. I then contracted until 2003 flying all around the country supporting several Fortune 500 company systems at which point I finally packed it all in except for one local customer who I still support on an as-needed basis. The turmoil I see in the industry right now makes me cringe. My son is going through the same thing. After about 20 years with Paypal the constant management changes resulting in constantly moving goal posts burned him out so he too is looking for a change of scenery. Good luck.

 

It's overbearing. I didn't start my tech career until the latter 90s. But what you're describing encapsulates a lot of the reasoning behind me breaking down and starting my own business over the last year:

• I'm sick of the AI bullshit, the turmoil it causes and babysitting it requires and how much management is trying so desperately to make it viable.
• I'm sick of the constant pressure to wear more hats, do more work with less resources, when I was already doing both of those things in droves the last 20+ years.
• I'm sick of the constant management and mgmt structure changes, one year, "let's go more vertical!", two years later, "let's go more flat!", the chaos and confusion created wasn't worth it.
• The constant "lift and shift" was aggravating as shit, "to save money" we shifted on-prem to cloud. Then shifted some things back to on-prem. Then everything to cloud. Repeat a couple of times, because costs showed cheaper costs tied to one or the other, before landing on a properly architected hybrid setup. We wasted ten times more money shifting our infra back and forth, and so much client/customer aggravation over the problems it caused, documentation updates, user confusion, process changes, it just wasn't worth it. (And they're doing it all over again with AI, fucking idiots)
• Management seems to be totally disconnected from reality, and has essentially (across the industry) eliminated intern/junior positions, instead encouraging the senior and expert level staff to use AI, not thinking about, "well shit, what happens in 10-15 years when the senior/expert level staff age-out, who will take their positions?!"

My reality is, the UniFi installs I've been doing for customers, from planning, to low voltage cabling install, racking and structured cabling, configuration and deployment, and subsequent support, it's all stuff AI really can't do. But dealing with some of the customers has been a nightmare. I've got one guy, someone I know very well, who owes me $5k on a job any other company would've charged $15k to do at half the quality/care/stability I put into it. I was hooking him up as a "thanks", and now I'm spending a couple hours per week chasing him for money, and trying to figure out next course of action. So now I'm, like, "OK, is this really how I want to close out my career, chasing people for money when I should be doing the work?"

Anyway, you're lucky to get out when you did. I do miss the stability and lifestyle of the industry leading up to and even a decade after the dot-com bubble popped.

 

One of you nerds code up an offline ai that can run google maps and whatnot to plug into a truck radio or motorcycle helmet.