Well, hello there…#
My name is Chris. I’m a Systems & Cloud Engineer with a background in IT spanning well over a decade, and this is where I write about the things I find interesting.
I started the blog partly to give something back to the tech community from whom I’ve learned so much over the years, and partly because writing things down is one of the best ways I know to actually understand them. The articles here range from personal projects and practical how-to guides to the occasional opinion piece: whatever catches my attention and refuses to let go.
I trained at Manchester Metropolitan University and have spent most of my career at companies that actively encourage experimentation with new technology. One of the bigger shifts I’ve witnessed along the way has been the industry’s move from long-lived, multi-purpose virtual machines (the “pets” of the old world) to single-purpose ephemeral containers (the “cattle” of the new one). It’s a simplification, but it captures something real about how the discipline has changed.
If you’re curious about my work outside this blog, a few years ago I wrote an article for Auto Trader’s engineering blog about how my team and I built a process for non-disruptive, in-place Kubernetes cluster upgrades across multiple production environments.
Side project: The Joke Bot#
I also run The Joke Bot, a little side project that posts jokes to Bluesky. You can check out the code on GitHub or follow the account at thejokebot.bsky.social.
Getting in touch#
There are comments sections powered by Giscus under each article, so please reach out if you have any comments. It’d be great to see what you think! Alternatively, feel free to reach out via my social links.
Blowfish Hugo theme#
This blog is currently running the Blowfish theme for Hugo, created by Nuno Coração, with a custom homepage layout that I’ve designed myself.
If you’re interested in beginning your own blog and need some pointers on where to start, be sure to check out my Hugo Blog Stack article on this very subject.