At 8 PM, I was plating the second-to-last course of a wine dinner for 70 guests. At 3 AM, I was spinning up virtual machines and tearing apart old laptops.

Intro

I’ve been cooking for as long as I can remember. When real life hit, I jumped straight into the kitchen — and almost never looked back. I tried a few other jobs here and there, but nothing ever really stuck. They paid the bills, sure, but they didn’t interest me.

Cooking, though? I had the skills. I could make decent money doing it, and I loved it — so dealing with the chaos and the long hours felt worth it.

But somewhere in the middle of all that, something shifted.

The Shift

I’d had a few conversations about IT over the years. My father-in-law teaches it and manages one of the server rooms at Promedica Hospital. Naturally, he likes to talk shop. The chats were insightful, but I never thought it was something for me.

By then, I’d built a few gaming PCs for myself, friends, and family. Tinkering was fun. Researching? Even more fun. But that’s where it stopped.

I used to think anything beyond basic setup — like OS knowledge or software deep-dives — was for hardcore enthusiasts. Then I started fixing Windows blue screens and got intrigued.

“Why the hell are we even getting BSODs when we barely use our rigs for anything but games?”

While researching those issues, Linux videos started popping up in my feed. I’d heard the name before, but didn’t know what it was. Curiosity kicked in. I figured I’d dip my toes in a little.

I was wrong. I fell straight down the rabbit hole — and didn’t mind at all.

Curiosity Peaks

At this point, my curiosity was boiling. I wanted to try these tools, break things, fix them, and see what this world was all about.

It started with my wife’s old Lenovo Ideapad. That thing hadn’t booted in years. The last time it did, it took 12 minutes just to reach the login screen — so we tossed it in a tote and forgot it existed.

I swapped the HDD for an SSD, threw on Linux Mint, and... BAM.

It worked. Like, actually worked. It booted to the desktop in 25 seconds. Buttery smooth and snappy compared to before.

“Wait, I made this run again? Okay... terminal, here I come.”

Mint didn’t last long. It was solid, don’t get me wrong, but I realized I was craving more. The dopamine hit. I needed to understand how this stuff worked, not just click around.

My First Server

So I hopped online, did more research, and pulled the trigger on a Dell Optiplex 7040 with an I7 6700 CPU 16GB RAM and a 128GB internal SSD.

To this day im not sure if i could have done better, after the computer showed up not posting properly I got a partial refund from the seller before diving into it to see what was wrong. Replaced the Ram first, and it booted right up!

$25 spent TOTAL! On what was going to be the foundation of my learning getting started in this journey.

I threw a few parts in I had around and ended up with these specs:
Dell Optiplex 7040:

• i7 6700 Cpu
• 32 GB RAM
• 128 GB m.2 SSD
• 2 x 1 TB HDDs
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro switched to ProxmoxVE

Enter Proxmox

Proxmox was an absolute blessing. It’s a full-blown virtualization platform that let me spin up Linux distros and operating systems like candy. No need to dual-boot or nuke my daily driver — I could just run whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

So what did I do? I downloaded all the things.

Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Kali... I didn’t even care if I used them for more than a few minutes — I just wanted to see them all, boot them all, and feel them all.

At this point I was still a total newbie, but Proxmox made it stupid easy. It wasn’t long before I started seeing what other people were using Proxmox for.

That’s when I really started playing:

✅ OpenMediaVault VM → My own little NAS!

✅ Pi-hole VM → Hosted my own ad blocker!

And man, that was fun.

But after a while... I noticed something.

I wasn’t really learning how things worked. I was installing powerful tools, sure, but it felt like I was just following steps — like learning how to use apps more than actually understanding the systems underneath.

So I shifted focus.

I didn’t just want to run cool stuff.
I wanted to know what made it all tick.

Que montage of hours of researching linux and coding, setting up environments and learning how they work, using the terminal for everything i could until i became comfortable.

Where I Am Now

Today, I’m still cooking full-time — long hours, late nights — but something’s changed.
When I clock out, I don’t shut down. I shift gears.

My daily driver is a full Linux rig now — no dual boot, no fallback, just me and Nobara (a Fedora-based distro), handling everything from gaming to system tweaks to writing code. I’ve got my terminal customized, dotfiles synced, Starship prompt glowing — and I finally feel like my setup is mine.

I’ve also got a second laptop running Fedora Workstation, built specifically for coding. Clean, focused, distraction-free. Python, VSCode, and a growing list of projects that are teaching me how things really work under the hood. Every new function, class, or tool I learn gets saved, tested, and turned into something real.

And that old OptiPlex I snagged for $25?
Yeah, I’m still using it — but now it’s running Fedora Server and acting as my self-hosted AI playground. I’ve got Ollama set up, playing with local models, using Docker to manage containers, and testing new tools that feel like straight-up magic. It’s wild how far I’ve come from just wanting to “see what Linux looks like.”

This isn’t just curiosity anymore — it’s becoming craft.
And I’m still just getting started.

Final Thoughts

I'm not trying to sell you a bootcamp or tell you I’ve made it. As much as I hope I can make something out of this, I don't have a timeline. I’m still in the kitchen. Still debugging things I broke. Still learning how to code, how to build, how to think like an engineer.

But now I feel like I belong in this space. What I've learned I've learned forever.

I used to think tech was locked behind a degree or a job title — it’s not.
It's built by people like me. People like you.
People who stay up way too late fixing things just to see if they can.

So if you’ve been curious, start. Break your laptop. Fix it. Google everything.
Spin up your own weird little server.
Customize your terminal until it feels like home.
Build something nobody asked you to build — and keep going.

There’s no finish line.
Just more to learn — and that’s the best part.

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👨‍🍳 I'm a full-time sous chef chasing down a second passion in tech.

Currently learning Linux, Python, and AI self-hosting — one late night at a time.

Let’s connect — I’d love to hear your story too.