Ok, I got tired of how ericserv.com looked, so I gave it a quick visual overhaul. Since I have netstats running, the next version will be much geekier. Tonight was just a quick fix because this page was one of the first things I put up when I started building my homelab.
I keep learning, advancing, improving, and upgrading.
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.
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.