Programmer Outside Looking In – Just like Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy, I want to be a real programmer!

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Note: if you came to this site looking for information about Japan, please understand I registered this domain name years ago. I do plan on setting up a Japanese focused website but at the moment this is the only site I have running.

Consider this website my “business card”. Since a resume can’t really show much about a person, I’m going to use this site as a portfolio. I love programming in open source languages, particularly Python and Ruby on Rails. Hopefully I can list the type of work I do here and it will honestly reflect what I can do and what other people might want to hire me to do!

Welcome

When I was a kid, I liked programming in BASIC on a Commodore 64. As I got older I realized I couldn’t do what I wanted to do with BASIC and I learned I needed to use Assembly but no one could really teach that to me and I lacked the follow through to check out books at our library (which admittedly were scant). I ended up giving up.

Years later I started picking it up again when someone introduced Python to me, and I’ve been hooked ever since! It helps that with the Internet I can get help very easily.

About

This website is mostly just a hobby so I can use my AWS skills. Between Dec 2017 and June 2018, I earned two AWS certifications but have yet to land a job where I regularly use AWS. To keep my skills up to date (and just to have fun), I started this site so I can keep current.

Currently this site uses WordPress running on Linux. These are the following AWS services used:

EC2: 1 instance running an Amazon Linux Image

Route53: Single entry for DNS

~~RDS: For the database that WP requires~~

RDS was removed because it cost an additional $20 a month and for the low, low volume I have a MySQL instance running on the same server worked out just fine.

Update: As of 2024, AWS now charges for Elastic IP addresses whether the instance is running or not. They used to only charge when the instance is running, so now I don’t even use an Elastic IP. That means I will sometimes lose connectivity until I can update DNS (I have a blog entry that discusses this in detail).

Also I’m running a SUPER cheap spot instance (I’ll do a blog entry about this), so it might stop sometimes. Will have to monitor this as time goes on.

Blog

March 22, 2025

My Commodore 64 restoration journey – Part II

Drat! No power! When I hit the power on button the monitor reacted and made a slight buzz sound but the power indicator on the C64 wouldn’t illuminate and nothing appeared on screen. Time for research! I found quite a few links for “C64 not powering on”, and found this video that really explained a …

Continue reading “My Commodore 64 restoration journey – Part II”

March 16, 2025

My Commodore 64 restoration journey – Part I

Hey all. when I moved last year, my neighbor gave me as a parting gift an old Commodore 64 with a monitor, two disc drives, a printer, tons of discs, three joysticks, and even a dust cover (which, notably, was covered in dust). He said he didn’t even know if it would work, but he …

Continue reading “My Commodore 64 restoration journey – Part I”

March 14, 2025

Half way through March, still going.

So my little web server keeps running, way to go! I also downgraded the storage type to magnetic which will be cheaper.

Contact

No contact information as of yet – look for something soon.

You can try https://www.facebook.com/linuxdiaries for info