It started simple enough. I wanted to host some personal websites because I was tired of paying for WP Engine, and honestly, I just wanted an excuse to dive back into Linux. I wasn’t even aware of the word homelab at the time. I just wanted to run a simple web server.
I got my first real “server,” an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini. Got it up and running. I was now online.
Once the site was up, I was like, alright, this is the production server now. I don’t really want to screw with it too much. But I still wanted to keep learning, messing with stuff, installing things just to see what happens. So I figured I’d spin up a second box. Something I could totally trash if I needed to. Reinstall, wipe it, whatever. That felt like the right move.
That second machine became OptiServ, my sandbox server. And yeah, I’ve got a soft spot for it now. There’s just something about SSH’ing into a machine you named, giving it a purpose, and watching it grow into something real. That’s when it clicked.
I was hooked on homelabbin’.
I’m nowhere near done. Every day I’m learning more, building more, trying things, breaking things, fixing them, figuring it out. I’ve even got some floppy-drive projects in the works. More on that soon.
Dropping a quick pic of where the lab stands today. If you’re a normie, this might look impressive. If you’re one of us, you already know. This is just the beginning.
Fell into a nostalgia hole last week. Here’s what happened:
Sometime after a boring Steam Summer Sale, I asked ChatGPT if there was a way to play old Windows games on my Mac Mini M4 Pro. That one question kicked off a whole rabbit hole. You know how it goes. One minute you’re curious, the next you’re deep in forum threads and file formats you haven’t thought about in twenty years.
That’s kind of what I love about using ChatGPT. It never shrugs or says, “eh, maybe later.” It’s just always ready. Always down to figure stuff out. I’ve gone from random ideas to working setups in a single afternoon, just because it kept saying, “Yeah, we can do that.” This time, that yes led me back to Unreal Tournament.
I had ChatGPT generate me some old-school readme.txt instructions, like the kind you’d find on a sketchy FTP site back in the Unreal Tournament days.
This was one of the first games I really played during the “video card” era of PC gaming. Software rendering was dead the moment OpenGL showed up. And with the right setup, Unreal Tournament felt like the future. We weren’t lugging CRTs to LAN parties anymore. We were online. It was 3D shooter warfare over cable modems.
I’ve since learned Quake 3 can run on Mac silicon too. Adding that to the to-do list.
The GE FM/AM Electronic Digital Clock Radio 7-4612B recently made its way around the internet as a meme. The joke was that everyone had the same one—but I didn’t realize how popular it really was until I saw it. I instantly recognized it. Most people were talking about the 90s, the annoying beep, and the fake wood grain. And yeah, I remember all that… but it also unlocked a different memory for me.
To me this clock wasn’t about waking up. It was about staying awake, late at night, exploring the world of AM talk radio.
I don’t remember exactly what made me flip over to the AM band at 14. But if there was a button, a switch, or a dial, I was going to mess with it. That’s just how I was. I’d push it, scan it, maybe even take the thing apart to see how it worked. Until it no longer did.
Let’s just say in 1992, not a lot of kids were hanging out on the AM talk radio band. Maybe that’s what drew me to it. What I found between the static was the Larry King show. He became the voice that kept me up. The format was simple. A guest would be interviewed, and then the phone calls would start coming in. I think that’s what hooked me. It felt interactive. Real people calling in with questions, or sometimes just to be heard. It was like late-night cable access, but on the radio. The audience? Night shift workers, truckers, and other nonconformists listening in the dark. I knew I wasn’t the intended audience. And that made it all the better.
I stayed up many nights listening to Larry King and Art Bell. But in Houston, Sunday nights were something else. They played old-time radio shows. Stuff from the 1940s, before television. Dragnet, Sherlock Holmes, The Whistler. Even back then, it felt like time travel. These were the same broadcasts sent to soldiers on Armed Forces Radio Service, complete with the original commercials. That’s what made it feel real.
These days, everyone’s into podcasts and audiobooks. I guess what I’m saying is, I was into this kind of stuff before it was cool. The world just finally caught up.
I wasn’t just going to share the meme, I went and bought the radio. Found one on eBay for 30 bucks and put it on my shelf. Felt like claiming it as mine. When it arrived, I hit the AM band for another nostalgic scan. But all I found was political talk radio. And who needs another device for more of that today? I guess it’s just another reminder that everything changes. The world has moved on.
Today it sits on a table in my bedroom, just like the old days. I still ask Alexa or play podcasts from my phone like everyone else, but I love seeing those bright nostalgic LEDs glowing. Every time I see it, I think about Larry King, or wonder what might be playing if I turned it on late at night. But the truth is, it’s just easier to hit play on my phone. It’s still there, though. A reminder of where all this started.
I also found this Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes old time radio show on youtube, one of the original Armed Forces Radio Service, including the original commercials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_g8TCSOPag
I remember getting excited about that modem connection noise. I knew that sound meant I was about to be online. It felt like stepping into something bigger. I was connecting with smart people, other geeks and nerds, pushing boundaries, learning, and doing cool stuff. (Ok, maybe it wasnt that cool)
Today, everyone’s connected, and the internet doesn’t feel like an exciting place to escape anymore.
I need to start seeking out those corners of the internet where geeks are having geeky conversations and building and creating things.
I’m going to admin, this image that chatGPT made, was so good, I’m going to have to come back and write more about this topic, just to make it worth the cycles it used to create it.
I haven’t been excited about a full tower PC case launch in maybe 20 years, and it’s funny that this one has me paying attention. Turns out I’m not the only one.
SilverStone is releasing the FLP-02, and it looks just like the PC cases from the late 90s that we all used to hate. Those boring beige boxes with the turbo button. Back then they were everywhere. Now that nothing looks like that anymore, nostalgia has kicked in and made them desirable. So desirable, in fact, SilverStone thinks theres a market for them.
This new ‘sleeper’ style offers modern GPU support, power supplies, proper cable management, and of course, airflow. While I’m sure the target audience is mostly gamers, I’ve been searching for a full tower to build a server with plenty of space for spinning hard drives. This might be the one.
Back in the day, I used to take those boring beige cases and mod them myself. I’d cut out windows, add lights and extra fans. Eventually those started being sold in stores and we called them “pre-modded” cases. Did that take away some of the fun? Yeah, maybe. But being able to buy a case that looked cool and was designed for modular builds? That changed everything.
I’ve been doing my daily walks, listening to the history of people creating shareware games (see previous post), and the way my brain works, I thought, “Hey, I want to make a game…” So I did. Honestly, today there’s almost no reason you can’t learn to create whatever you want.
Here’s where we are in life right now: I went to ChatGPT, told it what I wanted to build, and it was ready to roll. I didn’t just type “make me a helicopter game” (though you probably could). I started with an idea, mapped out a plan, and started creating the project with AI as my co-pilot. Along the way, I learned a ton about game design, building environments, creating graphics, setting up collision logic, debugging, and working on playability. Most importantly, I gained a whole new respect for the original teams behind games like Choplifter and Chopper Strike — they were doing amazing things with way less tech.
My goal was to create a working game demo, and after about 20 hours, it’s up and running. It’s my first real game under my belt, and now I’ve got a ton of ideas and the confidence to keep building whatever I want. It’s a fun place to be.
Could you do this too? Absolutely. Did my years of web development help? For sure.
I’m going to continue to add a few game play features, and make it feel a little more complete, then I’m moving on to the next challenge.
Later, I’ll write more about how to actually learn while working alongside AI — not just getting answers, but breaking things down, asking why and how at every step.
I’m currently reading (okay, listening to) the audiobook of Shareware Heroes.
First off, I’m just glad someone documented this era of my youth, the days of dial-up bulletin boards, sharing games, pirating software, staying up late, and making sure my computer was always uploading or downloading something. I’ll probably write more about it once I finish.
Update: I originally thought it would just be cool to hear about the old shareware scene during my daily walks. But, man, this book has been way more than I expected. It’s got me so excited and so hyperfocused that I actually started building my own game, I’ll be ready to share that soon!
You can check out the Shareware Heroes site here, it’s also really cool.
You’re either early, or you’re deeply invested in the blog and have scrolled all the way down to the beginning. Either way, appreciated.
Let’s start with the why behind ericslog.
I’ve really been enjoying sharing projects and lessons learned over on my oneprojecteveryday site. It’s been a solid outlet, but it’s also got some limitations:
It’s only project-focused, which boxes me in when I want to talk about other things.
It’s hard to keep up with doing projects and documenting them daily, so updates don’t happen as often as I’d like.
It didn’t allow comments or likes, which made it feel a little one-sided.
And then there’s a fourth thing, the word “daily.” Once you talk about a “daily” project online, it starts to carry this pressure. Like you’re letting someone down if it’s not updated. That kind of weight can suck the fun out of it.
I’ve been working on this site daily, I’ll go back to my One Project Everyday and catch up, and break this site launch down, and catch up on all the other things I’ve been working on.
So, enter ericslog.com.
This site’s just me posting ideas whenever I feel like it. Could be music, projects, AI stuff, learning notes, Jeeps, whatever’s rattling around in my head.
I once heard Merlin Mann say your personal blog should be like one of those nerdy basement model train sets. You go downstairs and tinker, not because anyone’s watching, but because you enjoy building your own little world. That idea stuck.
The design here is meant to handle short posts, longer posts, and everything in between. Sometimes it’ll feel like Twitter. Sometimes like a full blog. It’ll stay structured, no matter what I throw at it.
Will I use AI here? For images, yes. For copy, kind of. I’ll always write my own posts. Sometimes I’ll ask a prompt like “help me refine this and check grammar, but keep it in my voice,” but I’ll never say, “write me a blog post about fishing on a Thursday morning.” The world doesn’t need more AI slop.
I’ve got some AI predictions coming soon, by the way.
I like writing, I like sharing, and I like having a place to collect my thoughts and file them away on the internet. There’s no deeper meaning behind “ericslog.” I just needed a short URL, and it ended up sounding a little like Star Trek. Nerdy, but not that nerdy.
Anyway, that’s the intro. Nothing fancy. Just a new little corner of the internet I’m carving out for myself. Let’s see where it goes.
So I needed to test embedding a YouTube video, and I’m posting one of my favorite series: Ronald Finger’s Fiero Revival. It’s a multi-part series, and honestly, I loved it.
Ronald Finger is an amazing creator, but he’s also just a guy filming himself tackling big projects, making mistakes, and learning along the way. I’ve watched him rebuild his garage, restore cars, DIY frame repair and beautifully documenting the all the projects in an amazing package.
I finally learned to love learning, and heres why:
(update: this is an old article from my blog, that I’ve moved over)
It took me a while, but I’ve finally come around to loving learning.
Funny, considering how much information we’re surrounded by these days. But it’s more than just having access to knowledge. For me, it’s about curiosity and the drive to keep growing, personally and professionally.
At 46, I’ve hit this cool moment where personal and professional growth feel like they’re feeding off each other. It’s not about learning a new skill to check a box. It’s like tapping into this endless well of information and knowing it’s on me to make the most of it.
This is my corner of the web. Part lab, part journal, part digital time capsule.
I mess with homelab gear, retro tech, floppy disks, and whatever else hijacks my curiosity. I like figuring stuff out and building things that make me feel something, even if no one else gets it.
