Posts

Building a Local PlantUML Extension for Hugo: No External Dependencies Required

When writing technical documentation, diagrams are essential for explaining complex architectures and workflows. PlantUML is a fantastic tool for creating diagrams from simple text descriptions, but most Hugo implementations rely on external web services or require manual diagram generation. Today, I’ll show you how to build a complete Hugo extension that processes PlantUML diagrams locally using Hugo shortcodes—no external dependencies, no source file modifications, just seamless integration. Why Build a Local PlantUML Extension? Most Hugo PlantUML solutions have significant limitations:

Sunday, August 10, 2025 Read

Life Update: August 2025

Finding balance This summer has felt like a balancing act. On one hand, I’m excited about the new projects I’m building, both at work and for fun. On the other, I’ve been navigating the usual ups and downs of mental health, family commitments, and the constant work of making time for myself. I’m coming up on four years with my company, and the work continues to evolve and challenge me. I love solving problems at scale, and I’m always learning more about AWS, Terraform, and the broader reliability toolbox. As the “DevOps person” for our team, I handle CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, monitoring, and incident response. It keeps things interesting and it can be a lot, which is why the personal balance piece matters.

Monday, August 11, 2025 Read

Writing Mocha 1

Let’s get started with Mocha Be forewarned this post is going to be a brain dump as I work through this information. I have never wrote Mocha before, and to be honest I have never been good about TDD. I always write my code and then go back and write my tests. This is mainly because I am not always sure what I expect to get out of my code until it’s too late. However, with this project I am trying to push myself to work on myself just as much create something in my head from start to finish.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022 Read

S3 Object Creation

Whoops Ever gone down that path of trying to be too smart for your own good? Yeah that happened to me this time. I want to start out by saying, I am not a frontend developer, so some of the “normal” things that they would expect are still beyond my knowledge. But the thing that really bit me in the butt may not have been the frontend code. So let me give you the backdrop here.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 Read

Adding Cognito

Why do I torture myself? Not only do I hate frontend code, I hate trying to handle user authentication. It feels like anything I can think of doing is not secure enough or so complicated I can’t wrap my head around it. I once was told that for something like user security you shouldn’t try to do it yourself, you should allow those who specialize in it to handle it. So here I go, I’m going to try to use Amazon Cognito to do just that form me.

Thursday, March 3, 2022 Read

Smoker Friendly's Classic Black

Tobacco: Black Cavendish Style: Aromatic Room Note: 2 - Mellow Cut: Loose Cut Top Flavor: Chocolate Flavor Intensity: 2 - Mellow Review 4/5 stars This blend reminds me of Captain Black, in it’s mild nature, but does have some hints of chocolate similar to the Captain’s hint of vanilla. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 is the weakness of the nicotine. Thoughts First impressions are crucial, and this one left a decent one. I’ll be honest, this was not what I was looking for when I made the purchase, but my budget and supplies were both running low for this month, so I decided to explore the local cheaper products. This one was exceeded what I was expecting out of the product. It was 18 USD for a 12 oz bag.

Sunday, February 27, 2022 Read

Gurkha Rare Breed

Tobacco: Red Virginia, Turkish, Burley, Latakia, and Perique Style: Aromatic Room Note: 4 - Distinct Cut: Ribbon Cut Top Flavor: Misc Flavor Intensity: 2 - Mellow Review 5/5 stars Man does this smell take me back! I grew up around a circus, and one whiff of this really shoots me back to the smell of that hay. The flavor, and strong nicotine content really sets this one apart for me. Thoughts I am going to have to disagree with the site where I purchased this on the room notes and flavor intensity. But only slightly. I find that this tends to be one of my go to choices. I just wish that I could find a more consistent supply. The last tin I bought of this was dryer than a sun baked bone. It crumbled in my hands. I have bought this previously, and the first couple I got had a consistent and perfect moisture content to allow for a smooth smoke.

Sunday, February 27, 2022 Read

Designing the Front End Part 1

Choosing my framework So I am a gluten for punishment some times. I do not enjoy front end designing at all. I also don’t take the time to layout a workflow, or any form of design structure. So where do you start if you don’t even know how your site is going to behave? How do you know if you are going to get the right framework? IDK. I just grabbed the one I like the most. I grabbed Vue JS 3 because the last time I tried to build a front end it was very easy to use. The library sets everything up for you, it’s very responsive in nature, and since I already knew about it, that helped.

Wednesday, February 9, 2022 Read

Video Streamer Project

Premise The premise of my idea here is to actually make an open source, cloud native, and serverless competitor to Float Plane. Do I think this will take off and fly? No, but I wanted to explore more AWS services, and give myself something to do that was not work. I greatly admire what LMG and Float Plane is doing with their software. It really feels like they are caring for their creators. Granted, I may not see the dark side as I just sit here looking in without paying for any of the content there.

Saturday, February 5, 2022 Read

Video Streamer GitHub Terraform

GitHub Terraform Thank you for your interest in the possible mundane of how I setup my repository for the video streamer. So how did I do it? It’s pretty straight forward. I started by defining the GitHub repository. I turned off most of the features as if those features are not on, I will be less likely to get distracted and playing with them. For example, I turned off the wiki for it since I would spend time keeping it up to date as I made small modifications during a time where the code will change a lot. And honestly, that’s what this blog will be for at this time. I can document what and why I am doing things so that I am not going into the detail of how or support with the wiki.

Saturday, February 5, 2022 Read

Getting Started

Going over board So, for those that don’t know. I love Terraform . And when you are building your infrastructure it’s easy to take things too far. I am not sure if I did, but sure enough, the first place I started with Terraform was not actually the IaC that will be running any code. I started with building out the GitHub repo, and AWS IAM permissions with Terraform . And no, not the AWS IAM permissions to run the code either… I defined the AWS IAM permissions for GitHub to be able to plan and build the infrastructure. If you want to know more about what I am doing with that, feel free to look at GitHub Infrastructure.

Saturday, February 5, 2022 Read

Life Update Jan 2022

Where we left off Oh boy, it’s been a hot minute since I have been here. I didn’t feel very comfortable enough to talk about my life, but I will go into that more as we continue down the line. I have had some much going on between my new job, my mental health, trying to find proper stress relief, and so much more. I was/am not handling it the best I should be, but hopefully that changes. On some quick brighter notes, I can solve a 3x3 rubik’s cube and a megaminx. The 3x3 has become my fidget toy as it keeps my brain engaged just enough to focus on a meeting or thought processes without being so overly complicated it distracts. That was not how it was initially. To begin with, I had to focus on the patterns, but with the amount I practiced that is less common now.

Saturday, January 8, 2022 Read