Spring Update - 2026 Edition
Overview
I haven’t posted much in 2026 and it is for a good reason. A lot has been happening during the first few months of 2026, and I haven’t had the chance to really sit down and work on anything I have wanted to. This should all be resolved by the end of the summer, which is when I am going to have several things finish at the same time and I can finally focus on other things.
General Updates
After many years of wanting to attend a VCF event, I finally went to VCF Montréal 2026 back in January. It was everything that I expected it to be, and I am planning on attending the next event in November. Hopefully this will mean slightly better weather, and hopefully better travel conditions. While attending the event I also learned about the World of Commodore event that is hosted in the Toronto area, and I will try to attend this fall if the dates work out for me.
I also created a post related to the Practical Guide to PKI with Windows Server - Second Edition book that I published back in November, Practical Guide to PKI with Windows Server - Behind the Scenes (Part 2). This post mostly goes into details on how I created the book and what issues I encountered. It was long overdue and I feel like I left out some details, so I might update the post in the future if I get a chance. I have received much more positive feedback on this edition of the book, and I think that the changes that I made were able to resolve the issues with the first edition.
Skills Ontario and Skills Canada 2026
Since it is spring, it was time for the Skills Ontario and Skills Canada competitions. I updated the results for Skills Ontario, and Cambrian College didn’t make the top three this year. I also updated the results for the Skills Canada competition which happened on May 28 to 29.
I also took the opportunity to attend the national competition this year since it was hosted in Toronto and I live in the area. I mentioned in my post about my time at the competition that I never got the chance to actually see the other events, so it was nice to actually get to walk around and see it for myself. I only spent about an hour there, but I did talk to a few of the organizers from Team Ontario. I mentioned that I was a former competitor and they were glad that I dropped by to visit.
It was nice to actually see the event in person even if it was brief.
Moving and House Renovations
The main reason why I haven’t had a lot of spare time this year is due to the fact that I am in the process of moving, and I am also in the middle of a 5+ month renovation of the house that I am moving to. This has obviously taken a lot of time since I am also working full time, and I have two children, but luckily this is temporary and will hopefully be done in the next few weeks. The other issue is that I have already boxed up and moved most of my things to the house in advance of the move. This means that all of the hardware projects that I have wanted to work on are not available. Luckily, as part of the renovation I have built a dedicated office for myself so I can finally work on long-term projects.
I mentioned in my last update that as part of the move I would be cabling the entire house. I intend on creating a post about it after everything is completed, but as of this writing I have completed about 75% of the cabling. I have also installed a 21U wall mounted rack to centralize everything. I intend to fully build out my homelab once everything is completed, and I will also make a post about that as well.