📌 Sticky Notes

Guides • Runbooks
News & Analysis • Observations

Notes from my board on what's happening in the field and what I'm learning along the way.

10+
Years in cybersecurity
21
Years military service
CISM
+ 10 active certs
CTT+
Certified Technical Trainer
What this is

The board is real.
So are the notes.

I have a physical board behind my desk covered in sticky notes. Topics I'm tracking. Things that clicked. Runbooks I built for myself before I realized someone else might need them. News that mattered and my take on why.

This page is the digital version of that board. It's not a course. It's not polished for a general audience. It's practitioner-to-practitioner — the kind of notes you'd share with your colleague over Teams.

If you're maintaining certifications, staying current, or just trying to think more clearly about a problem — you're in the right place.

What's on the board

Four types of notes.

Everything falls into one of these buckets. Each one is worth a different kind of attention.

📋

Guides

Topic deep-dives written from experience — not from a textbook. Frameworks, concepts, and controls explained the way a practitioner would explain them to a colleague.

Browse guides →
📘

Runbooks

Operational, step-by-step. Built because I needed them first. Each one is something I've actually run in my homelab or tested in a real environment — not theoretical procedures.

Browse runbooks →
📡

News & Analysis

Current advisories, vulnerabilities, and incidents — with context. Not a feed. A practitioner's take on what actually matters and what the implications are for your environment.

Browse analysis →
🔍

Observations

Shorter notes on patterns, lessons, and things I keep seeing in the field. The kind of thing you'd write on a sticky note and tape to your monitor so you don't forget it.

Browse observations →
From the board

Recent notes

Latest guides, runbooks, and analysis — sorted by what's most useful right now.

Policy-Based Routing in Linux

How to configure policy-based routing (PBR) in Linux so traffic from a specific IP or interface uses a separate routing table.

We Stopped Investing in Fundamentals

From 2015 to 2019, I was entrusted to oversee the daily operations of a technology training school in Virginia Beach called HyperLearning Technologies. Every week I had students who wanted to break into IT and cybersecurity: Veterans transitioning out of service; career changers who had been told to get certified;

We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Foundation Problem.

The SANS finding does not mean the talent conversation is over. It means the framing needs to shift from *how many* to *how ready*. That distinction changes what organizations prioritize, what hiring looks like, and what professional development is actually supposed to accomplish.

Credentials

The foundation came first. Every certification on this list was a deliberate step — not a collection, a path. This is the foundation the content on this site is built on. If there's one thing this site stands for, it's that there are no shortcuts to knowing what you're doing.

CISM CGRC CySA+ Security+ Network+ A+ Server+ Cloud+ Project+ CTT+ MCSA MCP MCT (formerly held) CCNA (formerly held) ITIL 4 (formerly held)

Content on this site may qualify toward CPE/CEU requirements for ISACA, CompTIA, and other certifying bodies — verify with your organization's continuing education policy.

New note on the board.

When something worth writing goes up, you'll hear about it first. Practical, peer-level cybersecurity content — no vendor spin, no course pitches.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.