Five years ago I was building a home lab the way most people do it, by stacking hardware and hoping for the best. Here’s what I wish somebody had kicked down my door and told me before I wasted the time and money I did.

If I could sit down with myself in 2020 and talk straight for an hour, most of it would be about what not to spend time on. Here’s the short version.

The 2021 Braves were 44-45 at the All-Star break and I had already mentally moved on. That was a mistake I’ve been making my whole life, and apparently baseball had to be the thing to finally break the habit.

If I could go back and talk to 2020-version-me standing in front of a half-racked server and a pile of ambition, the first thing I’d say is: slow down and draw a map before you plug in a single cable.

Not every self-hosted service earns its keep. Here’s an honest look at the ones I spun up with good intentions, ran for a while, and eventually shut down without a single regret.

AI tools can absolutely earn a place in your workflow, but only after you’ve learned which questions they’ll confidently get wrong. Here’s what took me too long to figure out.

After years of breaking things, fixing them, and occasionally making them better, here are the tech tips that have saved my bacon more times than I can count. No fluff, just the stuff that works.