Yeah, you bury the carbon and release the oxygen molecules

I realized it was not about me but what was fair to you.

You might not have known healthy and safe boundaries, so you got to meet them under conditions that I felt was appropriate (no getting drunk, stopping them from giving you scotch sort of thing).

If they respected that you got to see them more but when they fell back into bad habits, you didn’t get to see them for a while.

I know they always tried to use ice cream and cake to bribe you into liking them and why you wanted to visit them.

So I am sorry if you feel you missed your chance to see them while they were alive because of me but I did it to protect you from their worst behaviors.

Well, there is no point in being bitter. It isn’t going to make them better parents.

Everyone is screwed up, it usually isn’t their fault.

But we just try to do the best we can.

On days we are both sick or when life just beat the crap out of us and we just can’t be emotionally available right now. We just do what what can, even though we both know you deserved better.

Sorry kid,

still working on doing better

-Love Dad

You write up a procedure for the setup of your server and any virtual machines contained within.

Using declarative Distros makes the procedure shorter and easier to maintain in the long run.

Then you use it to setup your system (fixing issues in your procedure along the way)

Then wipe and do it again (this time should be done without issue or you may need another spin)

Then slowly grow your documentation and what services you have running.

WD40 is a degreaser. Which cleaning out the old lubricant is how it helps.

After you need to spray in fresh clean graphite lubricant for these sorts of mechanical movements.

You are a good kid but you never learned to take it easy on yourself.

You need to let go of being perfect or playing the role that is not yours.

You need to stop trying to be someone that you are not (it gets tiring fast and it sounds like you did it to the point of burnout) and just let yourself be yourself (ideally with a bunch of rest and time to recover).

When I hit a similar problem when I was your age, I embraced minimalism (literally everything I had could fit in the back seat of my car) and lived off rice, beans, and spices in an apartment I shared rent with 5 friends for about a year. After which, I moved in with your mom prior to getting married to her. That simplicity gave me time to process my emotions and that restrictive budget gave me a huge runway to tell my boss to go fuck himself and not have to have the stress of worrying about money for a couple months while I found a much healthier work environment.

First, there is no such thing as unskilled labor; if any job could be done economically competitively by unskilled labor, it would have stopped being a job that exists. The fact that they choose to pay you proves that you are skilled. Once you exceed 5 years experience, the degrees stop mattering for jobs that get real work done.

If you are worried about finding a job, there are classes that teach people how to interview and they tend to be worth the money.

Please be kinder to yourself

Lots of love

-Dad

Wrong Mom.

Remember, not everyone is born to the parents that deserve them and unfortunately I am sorry I made that mistake. Your bio-mom choosing to be a religious nutcase was why I left her. You deserved better and that is why I married your actual mom (although she wishes you stopped calling her Melissa and start calling her Mom) and she does care about you; even if you think she puts too much sugar in her cookies.

much love,

-Dad

Just focus on being your honest, authentic self.

No one trying to be cool, is cool.

The cool teacher is the one who authentically loves to teach and you’ll only discover that if you find that you love teaching.

Also, trust me; you’ll want to teach Queen. It is a classic for a reason.

-Love Dad

PS, call your mother more. She worries.

Queen is the answer to most music questions; including teaching.

Well, my precious child.

Your mother has been telling you to write more but I guess I should have been calling you more often.

ssh -X ${hostname} works better than both even on ancient hardware (pre 1990)

If you are going to self-host please embrace a shell (bash, powershell, fish, zsh, etc) any shell; then you’ll be fast and productive even at 300 Baud.

Well, I know but your aim is getting better.

Well 16 year old laptops are still snappy Linux systems, so continue to use them or give them to other people for free who might have a use for them.

Well, I would have to say the one that always used to make you laugh the most.

Why do teenage girls always walk in odd-number groups?

Because they literally can’t even.

Sadly, I never got you to laugh at 2, 3, 5 and 7

now that is some prime humor…

I was proud of you the day you first said dad.

I was proud of you the morning you first started to crawl

I was proud of you the first time you took a step

I was proud of you when you had your first day of school

I was proud that you stuck with education when I knew you were smart enough to succeed without a teacher telling you what to learn. Sorry that I wasn’t that great at expressing that. I am still working on that.

And yeah, I probably should have spent more time telling you that. I guess I still have a good bit more to learn about being a good father but don’t for a minute mistake that failing of mine as that you are not the son that I am proud of.

I am proud most of all that you are a good and decent person and not just for the first time.

Every day.

-Love Dad.

Well, I never raised you to believe that you are the things you buy but the acts of kindness, love and connection that we create with others.

And yeah, selling stuff sucks; (sometimes giving it away is easier emotionally, if not financially).

But you got this.

Little by little, we grow and change by hardship and struggle. Not by things being easy and handed to us on a platter.

And you have gotten your passport already correct? If not get the DS-11 form and fill it out today.

You are never alone, we carry those that care about us in our hearts.

You are loved and accepted for who you are.

And yes, it can be hard to be yourself some days.

But you are brave and strong enough to admit to yourself who you truly are; that means you can achieve any dream in your heart in time.

Focus not on external validation for a bit and think of all the new wonderful experiences that you can have being your self.

Life never happens on anyone’s schedule, you just have to give yourself time to feel, live and be present.

Also get a copy of your cat’s vaccination history (and make sure none are missing) if you want to take them to Sweden with you.

Well, it lacks a proper bootstrap and its documentation is basically empty trash.

hell live bootstrap has those and did it without requiring a file system or a kernel to get there https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap

It is hard because you are trying to be everything.

And it is ok to say, I just need a minute to sit down and breathe.

remember back to when you were little and stressed out.

I would hold you and put on this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcvXr-9XtgA

come on, sing it with me.

and when you are calm, we can sit down and open up excel and make sure your budget leaves plenty for sanity, fun and problems happening in life.