A New Year: 2023


601 words · 4 minutes

Prior Posts

As I mentioned last year, I am trying to do a yearly recap post. See prior year posts here:

Looking Back At 2022

I know I've already had a few posts this year, but I wanted to do another year in review anyway as quite a few things have happened in my life this year.

I Changed Jobs (Again)

I mentioned last year that I had started a new job at Ernst & Young's Des Moines office. Due to uncontrollable personal circumstances, I was not able to eventually move to Iowa and be with that team in person, so I had to find a job here in Nebraska instead. However, my new role is largely the same: I am still a Senior IT Auditor working on SOX and SOC 1 & 2 reports.

As a result, I am now working with KPMG's Omaha office and loving it. There are always unforseen circumstances and roadblocks, but I feel as if it worked out for the best. My new team is amazing and I am learning a lot in my new role.

I Changed Career Focus

As a result of my role change, I have now found a new focus for development and career growth. While I have historically held an auditor/data analyst position, I am now able to change my focus and have been looking at different areas.

Specifically, I am looking into become more of a specialist in specialty SOC 2 reports, testing automation, cloud infrastructure and security (SAP, Google, AWS, etc.), and possibly some interaction with auditing blockchain technologies. The blockchain one is only in the early stages, I still have to make a decision if I want to try and become a specialist in auditing blockchain.

I Upgraded Technology

As I mentioned in my other post, Building a Custom Rack-Mount Server, I upgraded my homelab and consolidated to a single, custom-built server, a Unifi Dream Machine Pro, and a Unifi 24-port switch. I was also able to buy a few new HDDs for data storage.

My Media Consumption

Since I don't use any of the normal streaming platforms (except for music, where I use Apple Music), I am creating my own version of "Your Year in Review" through my Plex statistics. Feel free to judge me all you want, I love this stuff.

However, I will say that the movie ranking is weird because I really don't watch movies anymore so my "top" movies is really just a list of any movie I watched more than once.

My Five Top-Played Movies

N/A - Apparently my lo-fi music videos count as movies to Plex, so I can't see any of the actual movies I watched in my top watched list.

My Five Top-Played TV

  1. Cheers (586 plays)
  2. The Office (305 plays)
  3. Adventure Time (173 plays)
  4. Malcolm in the Middle (169 plays)
  5. That '70s Show (108 plays)

My Five Top-Played Artists

  1. the bootleg boy (3158 plays)
  2. Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties (930 plays)
  3. Johnny Cash (408 plays)
  4. Chet Baker (326 plays)
  5. Lil Wayne (295 plays)

Looking Forward to 2023

I have a lot of personal goals for 2023 that will take up a lot of my free time. However, I will keep these goals to myself.

Other than personal goals, my main goals are career-focused (developing new skills) and technology-focused (website accessibility and system administration).

Let's see how the year goes. As always, I'm ever hopeful for what is to come.