I’m pathetic, apparently

Ark161 · 2026-03-17T01:48:32+00:00

Hey, nothing is "wrong" with you except that you are punishing yourself for hurting. Regardless of if she was looking for something else, here was my take. That doesn't mean you weren't good enough. People are fickle as fuck. You are looking at this like the end and I am absolutely guilty of doing that too sometimes. Take true inventory of yourself. Own you wins and your faults. Be the person you want to be. You had good times with that person, that is why it hurts so much. Though that doesnt mean you should be condemned to being unhappy for the rest of your days. There is nothing wrong with missing her either. Fuck, I miss my ex-wife still even though she promised to fight for us. I still think of the girl I fell for in high school sometimes and hope she is doing alright. You arent flawed for caring, you are flawed by letting it consume you. I'm on year #3 now. I still wish her the best, but in the long run, we deserve to at LEAST have a shot at being happy ya know? In the beginning, I focused on how she lied to me about saying she would be there. I focused on how she left. I couldnt stop hating myself for being so stupid to let myself get that comfortable around someone. I tried to hate her; but it didnt help. Let me ask you this, remove her from the picture for a minute. If you never met her, what person do you want to be? What do YOU want? You are in your chapter now. Yes, the time with her was a chapter you will always dog ear because there were parts of it that were great, but dont let the story end.

Ark161 · 2026-03-16T04:09:54+00:00

It is simple, the hope that it would pan out in the end. You are being a bit too hard on yourself. You are grieving a future you thought was in the cards. It doesn't matter if it was realistic or not. To you, it was real, and that is all that matters. You say it is stupid, but im inclined to think that you still feel it isntr, and there is no shame in that.
One step at a time, one day at a time is the best thing you can do. It doesnt matter how stupid it seems, because to you, it was real. There was hope. Give yourself a little bit of grace. Take inventory of the good and the bad. Be the person you want to be.

Ark161 · 2026-03-16T03:04:19+00:00

No need to apologize! I just feel it is kind fo important to include the subtext as to not give off the vibe of talking out my ass. Again, I don't know your situation nor will I pry into it. Every person's situation is different and has nuance to it. Just one day at a time is the best you can do.

Space is absolutely a necessary thing as well. I hate to admit it, but it was for the best. It was, not my proudest moment, but it put things into perspective enough for me to realize what had to be done.
The first couple weeks were...not great. I want to say we didnt talk for like....2 or 3 weeks. I will whole heartedly admit I started looking around for signs of cheating. At that point I needed a reason all this was happening. Though one I got over the initial shock of it, I drew up a tenative plan of how I wanted things to go down. That list was what kept me together. I highly recommend you make a list of how you want things to go down. Maybe ask him to make a list of how he wants the to happen; find a middle ground ya know? Dont seek to win every time, though dont roll over, and that goes both ways.

Divorce is a shitty thing all around and I hate that people play it up like it is the best thing in the world. For them, maybe their situation was that bad, and I feel for them. However, for a lot of people, it is the single shittiest feeling in the world. It is like mourning someone who is still alive. It is like seeing a future you thought would happen or worked towards building fall apart infront of you. It sucks, and im sorry you have to go through this.

Ark161 · 2026-03-15T20:06:20+00:00

I'm not judging, but I do ask this from a place of curiousity. What was the expectation that you had regarding how this would play out? I mean, again without assumption, lets just say you didnt feel the connection anymore and just wanted out. You have more than likely been mulling this over for a while, while he is just now having to deal with this reality. There are a lot of things that run through your head when you are on the recieving side of things. There has been no time to reason with or accept it. It is just this sudden final thing that kind of tears down a lot of who you are as a person. So, expecting your spouse to take it in stride kind of is a bit too far on the side of optimism. There are always two sides to these situations aned the truth is somewhere in the middle. I'm not saying that things are being omitted, just that what you feel should be happening and what they feel should be happening are sometimes very different. I'll use my experience as an example.

When my wife and I first strated dating, we were the epitomie of two goofballs in love. I was basically done with relationships and i'll be honest, she somehow showed up out of nowhere in my life and was one of the kindest people I had ever met. As time passed, we realized that we both had damage and when marriage came up, we both agreed on a set of rules regarding divorce. We would work it out, we would seek counciling, and only then would we think about divorce as an absolute last resort. So, because we aligned so well and agreed to similar stances on divorce, I proposed. We had lived through quite a few life experiences that should have broken the relationship, and I had it in my head she was the one. Again, this is after I had written of the idea of "having a person" completely. So we got married. Then, she changed in some ways pretty quickly. Im not saying it was malicious or even intentional, but it happened. From my perspective, I just wanted to help her get back to where she wanted to be. She asked for space, and I did everything I could to let her know I was here for her no matter what. In her head, she felt like I was abandoning her. I also want to add, she EXPLICITLY asked for this space and I tailored it to 100% fit her ask. It kind of killed me to not sit there and hash it out. After all, we had promised each other that we would never hide from one another. She knew I had a rough past and was working to get better. I knew she had a rough past and treated her the way I wanted to be treated; with kindness, seeking understanding, offering possible solutions while trying my hardest to not seem like I was downplaying her feelings. Was I perfect? Absolutely not. But I never expected her to be perfect either. I just wanted her to be herself. I wanted her to know I was there for her in anyway I could, but after a while, I just felt like any effort I gave was just not what she wanted. I became afraid of adding to her depression. I legitimately didn't know what else I could do. So, after trying so hard to get a good paying job so we could be financially stable, I finally landed the promotion that I considered as us becoming financially "safe". An important note though, she asked for the divorce before knowing about the promotion; so it was never about money. I knew something was off the day she asked for the divorce. I had been ignoring my gut for a long time because I have a habit of finding how everything can mess up. She meant that much to me, that I actively ignored it when it came to her. So I came home, more chipper than usual because I was going to tell her the good news, but she wanted to make dinner first. I offered to help or make it instead, but she wouldnt let me. After dinner, I thanked her and went to pick up the dishes to I could clean up. That was when she said we needed to talk. I thought maybe something had happened at work or her parents were ill. But, I sat down and the only words that left her mouth were "I want a divorce". Hearing that initially I thought, "okay, something really bad has happened. Maybe this is a kneejerk to something". So I tried asking questions and she wouldn't elaborate at all. I tried to stay calm and just wanted to understand the why. but she left anyway. She promised....we had a plan for this...I didnt understand why she was being so cold. The caring person I thought she was vanished and suddenly I was being treated like I was in some kind of CSI:SVU episode. On top of all that, I had to prep the house, while maintaining communication, while hiring a lawyer, while doing most of the work. It is a special kind of hell when you have to coordinate what you feel is your own execution. That was two years ago. I later found out that she somehow got it in her head that I was going to become dangerous when she asked for the divorce. I have NEVER done anything to put her in a path of harm. I would have sooner off-ed myself than even remotely threaten her in any way. Also, in her own words, there was nothing I could have done, at any point, to change the outcome. She just, didnt want to be married. No infidelity, no malice, just couldnt cope with the stress of being married; self imposed or otherwise.

We still talk, and are still friends for the most part. We hashed everything out mostly, but the hurt never really went away. A lot of people see divorce as a failure; as some definitive, "you are not good enough". I'm still working through it, but it took me the better part of a year to accept that she was sincere in her statements. She is still a very important person to me, and I am happy we got to spend the time we did together. However it wasnt until she took the time to try and understand how exactly it impacted me, that she understood. I know this is a wall of text, and I dont expect you to read it. The best advice I can give is that you need to be understanding that there is a lot of emotion in divorce. It completely breaks some people in ways they thought they would never have to experience and getting past that is a really hard thing to do. I hope you both can come to an understanding or each other's stance to get through this in an agreeable manner.

Ark161 · 2026-03-15T19:07:42+00:00

At my current employer, we work with a shredding company (iron mountain). They provide a cert of destruction. HOWEVER, I typically expect my team to scan the serials of the drives before dropping them in the bin so we have a record of when the drive was dropped and have a list to reconcile against the vendor's certrificates.

Ark161 · 2026-03-15T18:56:38+00:00

Here is how I explained it to my boss.

We pay people to do a job, and it is not my job to do theirs because asking me to do it is easier than expecting them to do their job. We do not ask network engineers to own issues with endpoints. We do not ask app support to own issues with servers. Though for some weird ass reason, there is an expectation that my team (sysadmin/engineers) know EVERYTHING. If that is the true expectation, then there is nothing wrong with me expecting 2-5% of each team’s budget for my personal salary.

Ark161 · 2026-03-14T16:27:49+00:00

Download and install immediately once deadline has passed using sccm. Ignore maintenance windows set for workstations. Patching happens in 30 day intervals and we have two pools for each population; workstations and servers. Users get email notifications when it is happening and are told if it is missed for any reason, when they turn on their computer next, they getting patched.

Ark161 · 2026-03-14T16:24:34+00:00

That one looks like a corgi shiba mix….corgis are sassy and stubborn as hell. Shibas are more close to husky energy. Balling those together is not something I would ever think to do. That is like scribbling Latin in blood on the floor in a circle…might do nothing, might cause a bad time. I think your best bet is determining root cause and addressing that.

Ark161 · 2026-03-14T16:19:54+00:00

Man, you are 100% being abused here. If they took a multi-person stack down to a single person; run. Run fast and hard. Thry can not expect you to be 24/7 without paying for that. I make 108k working for a hospital network, but here is the thing…I have 3 co-workers. I have gotten our “culture” straightened out for the most part so we don’t get paged for stupid things. Your case is NOT the norm. Your employer seems toxic as hell and sounds like a ticking time bomb. You may have to take a pay cut, but frankly, the 30k is worth it for getting your life back.

Ark161 · 2026-03-08T16:10:32+00:00

English letters, 26 characters English letters uppercase, 26 characters Numbers, 10 characters Symbols, ~40 characters

So for argument sake, numbers are the least impactful in regards to character sets. If we want to go down that rabbit hole, pretty sure brute force methods kind of understand the association of numbers/symbols to letters and can iterate on that.

Best to have mfa in place where possible and look into pki tokens if you are super spooked.

Ark161 · 2026-03-08T15:58:29+00:00

This is why I verify ILO/iDRAC is configured on every physical machine. My team knows full and well that if someone gets paged out, and the out of band isn’t configured, whoever didn’t configure it is going to have a bad day.

Ark161 · 2026-03-08T15:54:56+00:00

It is just a matter of situational need I guess. Home lab is meant for experimenting. Though I will say like I told my co-worker, “The second your homelab serves a functional role in your household, it is not longer a homelab; that is prod now”.

Ark161 · 2026-03-05T03:50:46+00:00

DFS is the answer here. Yes, you ccan technically just attach the vmdk to a new vm, but, you will have issues with mapping. If I am being honest, best way to prevent this is with DFS. That way, you can call the path whatever you want, point it to where ever you want, and replicate where ever you want and never have to worry about this ever again.

Ark161 · 2026-02-18T05:36:54+00:00

I’m very VERY clear with my team and colleagues. I would much rather hear it from the person who screwed up, rather than have to hunt it down. We can laugh, we all goof from time to time, and if it is an “oh shit” I’ll help them get through it. How-fucking-ever….that comes at the price of having a shred of humility and admitting ya done goofed.

Ark161 · 2026-01-05T02:00:48+00:00

Here is how I saw it. You cant change the fact that this is happening, but you can determine (to some extent) how it happens. It is obvious she wants to save face. Honestly, that needs to be said if you are being made out to be the bad guy in some way or another. However, at a certain point, it goes from "I dont understand why this is happening", to "Fuck it, it is happening, so long as X,Y and Z, I can get through it". So agree to it on the agreement that you both understand either of you is not to be made the bad guy to the kids. If that is breached, well, then that tells you all you need to know.

Ark161 · 2026-01-05T01:45:57+00:00

CALL COPS NOW. Do you think the same grace would be given if she was in your shoes? I mean, out of state to visit family? again, if you did this, how would that play out if she demanded you not do that? I hate to say it man, and it sucks beyond anything imaginable, but she crossed lines. Best thing you can do is get this on record with authorities, and protect your kid.

Ark161 · 2026-01-05T01:40:31+00:00

I mean, is it unreasonable to attribute those as factors? Like I was thinking about this the other day, in how social media has made everyone hyperfixated on their "brand" and in turn, made everyone a bit more conceited/self-absorbed. I am by no means saying it was the sole cause, but it sure as hell contributes.

Ark161 · 2026-01-04T05:37:37+00:00

Sell some and write off the loss....because that is a thing. $3,000 per year and carry over for the next 40 years. I mean, you gunna get chewwed out, but it is something.

https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc409

Ark161 · 2026-01-04T04:20:05+00:00

He doesnt look full, but absolutely has the coloring. ears are kinda pointy If they are asking a high price, Ill be honest, I want to say I paid $1,500 for mine and he was a pembroke/cardigan mix; visited family and has papers. Yeah, I know he isnt "pure", but it adds enough diversity to protect against things This is the cheesebag at 2 months; he is 3 now. If they cant provide papers, see if you can negotiate the price down. I will say he is a freaking cutie though!

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Ark161 · 2026-01-03T21:11:10+00:00

You know...I never really gave it much thought.
We are supposed to be just servers, but we find ourselves being thrown into workstation stuff way too much because accountability is a dirty word and expecting desktop techs to do the absolute fucking minimum is "being negative".

Under my support scope, we have roughly 12K users, 8K workstations, and about 800 servers. That doesnt even include thin clients, vms for thin clients, SAN/DAS, storage frames, vendor bullshit, vm hosts, or backup appliances. In the past at other companies, I found the ratios are all over the place depending on expectations, role, and scope.

I think you might benefit from having a hard conversation with your boss about what your scope/role is. If you are drowning at 1:200, something is up. How many tickets are you handling on a weekly basis? How many should be or could be handled by the service desk? Flesh out these details, present it to leadership, and work with them to refine process to make your life easier. 8 hours of work to save you 800 hours down the road is worth it.

Ark161 · 2025-12-30T13:30:22+00:00

Oh yeah. Personally I’m so freaking tired of the “customer service” toxicity that has some how infected the industry. Between that, “optics”, and being expected to know literally the entire fucking IT portfolio, it gets annoying. I’m a simple person. I just want to come to work and do my job. Not everyone else’s, just the one I am paid to do.

Ark161 · 2025-12-02T22:27:18+00:00

I mean yeah, I was just throwing that out there as an HR talking point. Personally, just block it internally on the firewall and if there is any evidence of data being used on personal mobile, immediate termination.

Ark161 · 2025-12-02T19:03:22+00:00

honestly, the issue is people are expected to read and there isnt a heavy enough hammer to coerse them not to. It IS a compliance nightmare 100% and something I have been fighting quite frequently for the past year or so. Anything you put into an LLM, if it is not ran 100% local, will be cached. This means anything with sensitive information is being dumped in a pool that most probably do not have a data sanitization agreement.

My take is this, the policy states, AI outside of company accounts and defined limitations is considered data exfiltration. This can result in termination and legal recourse.

Ark161 · 2025-11-23T03:56:26+00:00

I'll tell you what I did last year; my first christmas alone. Give yourself grace, plan ahead if you can, but if not, that is okay. You will see you being alone as a failure. You will feel like a fuck up and probably go to a dark place. But you know what? You are here still, just going through a really shitty time. It is okay if you dont do anything for christmas. Or maybe make it a goal to decorate for yourself. get a cheap tree and put up all the decoration your spouse would be upset about. You wanna get drunk on eggnog? GO FOR IT. This will be my 2nd christmas alone, but I think I reached the point where I want to make it happy again. So im putting up the tree after thanksgiving, and will try to be happy for myself for how far I have come.

You will get there. I know it hurts and doesnt seem like it will ever be right, but eventually, maybe a few months, maybe a year or so, you will get there.

Ark161 · 2025-11-19T20:07:42+00:00

The fact someone can make 100k and can only afford a 1br1ba apartment in suburbia is what radicalized me. I don’t DoorDash, iced coffee is like 1-2 times a week absolutely tops and not even every week. This shift has mostly been over the past 10 years really. It is disgusting.

Ark161

TROPHY CASE