My Two-Month Vacation: A Journey of Silly Projects and Personal Growth
Some time back, I experienced a severe burnout. Reflecting on the situation, I realized it stemmed from my tendency to take on too much at once, compounded by existing stressors. It became evident that continuing down this path jeopardized my well-being and sanity. Thus, I made the decision to embark on a sort of mini-sabbatical.
During my two-month hiatus, I immersed myself in a plethora of hobby projects and personal pursuits that had long been close to my heart. Here's a glimpse into what I managed to do during this rejuvenating period:
Prusa i3 MK3S+: Finally got my hands on a used 3D printer. After cleaning it up, getting some new parts, and calibrating everything, I set up OctoPrint on my RPI and got completely submerged in the world of 3D printing. It was running non-stop for over a month, printing a bunch of useless but cool gadgets, gifts, organizers, and anything I managed to get my hands on. I built a custom table for the printer so it fits nicely in my storage room and organizes spools so it’s not a “big” mess. If you’re looking for a new hobby - go for 3D printing. This is by far the most fun thing I did on my vacation!
Fusion 360 Modeling: At first, modeling seemed like something I just didn’t have a knack for. Luckily my good friend @Milenko showed me the ropes, and after a lot of hours of trial and error, I got some basic models that I was happy with and then continued to make more complex stuff. Really happy how they turned out; now I’m pretty confident in creating custom parts I need that cannot be found online. Fusion has a personal-use license that is good enough for most users, go check it out!
Acrylic Painting 3D Prints: Since I felt that my 3D prints were a bit monotone, even with switching filament colors on layer heights or combining multiple different-colored parts, I decided to pick up an acrylic paint kit and get busy. The first couple of prints were a mess but it got better with practice. Usually, I don’t get a kick from arts and crafts, but this had a zen effect on me. No rush, no deadline, just get a playlist running and have at it. It was really relaxing, and I’ll definitely continue investing more time into this.
Prusa MMU3 Mods: Even with painting and changing filament colors mid-print, I wanted to improve my printer with the Multi-Material Upgrade 3 from Prusa. After a few hours of printing parts for it and assembly, my printer now supports up to 5 different spool colors and automatically changes them based on my slices. No more rotating spools mid-print!
Spool Holder Design: Since my storage room where I keep my printer doesn’t have much space, I decided to create a top-feed holder for my spools that hang from my network rack. It turned out great, and now I don’t have to change my setup to support the MMU3.
Engraving Tool: To improve my prints and to do some post-print work, I opted for an Einhell grinding and engraving tool. Dremel felt like a more premium tool and was widely recommended, but I wasn’t fully committed to it. Einhell was definitely a bang-for-buck kind of deal, and I’m really happy with it. Any sanding or fixes are now a breeze with this tool. It even sits compactly on the edge of my desk for quick access whenever needed. I printed a bit holder for my electronics shelf to house all the drill bits, so it’s all nice and organized.
Self-Hosted Obico: While I had no issues with the OctoPrint setup I already had, I looked into Obico. It was a game-changer! It’s an all-in-one interface where you can run prints, watch the status, and best of all - it has an AI to watch for irregularities (spaghetti) in prints via the webcam and notify you that prints are going bad so you can pause and fix them. I opted to self-host it on my server, which was a breeze with the well-documented guides.
Cable Hive Organization: My desk and drawers are always a mess because of cables. I found a great cable hive on Thingiverse and got busy. Now all my cables are nicely sorted and no longer a mess.
Arduino Volume Mixer: Found a great project on Thingiverse to create a physical volume mixer using Arduino, a few potentiometers, and a 3D-printed case. It works well in both Linux and Windows using the Deej application, and got me really hyped for more Arduino projects, so naturally, I ordered more boards to continue playing around with them and building more cool gadgets.
Home Assistant: This was on my bucket list for such a long time, and I finally had the time and nerves to give it my full attention. I already knew it was an amazing piece of software, but it blew me away anyway. I became that annoying guy that creates scripts for unnecessary things, like playing a movie on my TV, setting the lighting, and notifying my family that it’s movie-time - not because it’s useful, just because it’s cool!
Home Assistant Control Panel: Created a control panel from a 27” Dell touchscreen monitor for easy home management. A bunch of dashboards for home automation, monitoring networking devices and containers, and an overview of my 3D printer stats and cameras. It now serves as a central control panel in my living room for everything IoT and anything new that comes in.
WLED Project: Picked up a couple of ESP32 boards, installed and configured WLED for dynamic lighting in my office for my tool/electronics shelf. Got a couple of diffusers and an old housing for an LED panel and soldered the WS2812B strip together. Fully integrated into HomeAssistant and hooked up with Google Assistant with various scenes and automations. The effects are just amazing, and I love playing around with different effects. Got one more 16x16 LED matrix and printed the housing for it. The pixel art is just an amazing addition to our living room and really lights up (pun intended) the place.
VLAN Overhaul: Ever since moving to my new apartment, my network setup was a chaotic mix of devices. I finally took the time to properly redesign it, isolating work, entertainment, IoT devices, servers, and my son’s gadgets (he has a knack for downloading all sorts of sketchy stuff 😄).
Network Firewall Overhaul: With the VLANs now in place, I implemented a zero-trust security approach. This ensures that communication is optimized, and devices only interact on a need-to-know basis, significantly enhancing overall network security and performance.
Rack UPS: Recently, I started having random power outages, so I integrated a CyberPower UPS with my UNRAID server and network gear for power management and surge protection. Set up various monitoring and scripts to bring my devices down based on the available battery runtime. Now I sleep better without worrying about my stuff frying or data corrupting.
RetroPie: Built and configured a RetroPie setup for retro gaming on my RPI 5. The EmulationStation UI is just phenomenal, and the games run really well. As soon as my Aliexpress shipment of Sanwa sticks and buttons arrives, it’s going in a custom arcade cabinet in my living room to relive my childhood of playing Mario, Tekken 3 and MK IV.
TP-LINK TL-WR703N Mod: I had this compact device sitting in my drawer for quite some time, and it’s incredibly handy for traveling. I decided to enhance its functionality by adding an external antenna. Now, it performs exceptionally well, providing that extra boost needed to capture weak WiFi signals. Credits to @the_plaid_scientist for making an easy-to-follow guide: TP-LINK TL-WR703N Antenna Mod
Themepark: With a bunch of containers and apps running on my UNRAID server, I wanted to get them styled and uniformed. Themepark is an amazing integration that works with a bunch of self-hosted apps. You can even use it as middleware in Traefik to inject your own CSS!
Paperless NGX: Like everyone, I got a drawer full of paper that I don’t even know what they’re for. I looked for a way out of the mess and stumbled upon Paperless NGX. Easy to self-host, easy to integrate, works with OAuth and my home SSO, easy to use - just perfect! I set up my printer to send documents to my NAS, Paperless picks it up and analyzes the document with OCR so I can find anything I need. After a couple of days of scanning documents when I was bored, I finally got it sorted out. Cleaned up my drawer and kept only the really important documents. The drawer is no longer a mess.
Notes/Bookmarks/Watchlist Sorting: My notes, bookmarks, tabs, and everything related is a culmination of years of just piling up stuff. I semi-managed to get it under control. My environments feel lighter and clutter-free now.
Windows Reinstallation: My main PC is running the same Win10 installation ever since it first came out. I hated using it because things were just slow, and it was in desperate need of a fresh install. Backed up my data, hit format, and installed a clean Windows 11. Things were flying. Really liking some improvements they did, especially the maximize button hover to split windows any number of ways. I gotta get something like that on KDE; it’s a game changer. If anybody knows a similar feature on Plasma, let me know!
KodeKloud Courses: I accumulated a lot of knowledge over the years while using Terragrunt. I decided to work with KodeKloud to release a course for it. We agreed on doing an OpenTofu course as well. It was really fun to do and turned out really good, IMHO. Working with the KodeKloud guys was just a breath of fresh air; they’re professional and take as much of the heavy lifting as possible, so you’re left with focusing on how to make the course better. Check it out if you’re interested in OpenTofu and Terragrunt ( releasing soon).
V Rising: Any vacation without gaming is not a vacation for me. My wife and I had a blast playing it. It was a perfect mix of Diablo and Rust/Valheim. I usually don’t like crafting games, but this was really nice. I got hooked and grabbed all the achievements for it. Check it out if you’re looking for a game to play; you can even run your own server in Docker and set up the settings and progression any way you want to.
Programming with my kid: My son loves to build things and is definitely more creative than me. I guess he gets that from his mom. We decided to work on some simple websites together, and with a little help from ChatGPT, we managed to bring a few ideas to life. It was incredibly rewarding to see him so proud of creating something from scratch.
Trips: While they weren't to exotic destinations, I did manage to carve out some time for travel to nearby cities and resorts. Exploring these locales was an absolute delight and added a refreshing touch to my vacation.
Tattooing: I recently had the pleasure of getting inked by devilseed.ink, and I must say, he exceeded all expectations! His craftsmanship is truly exceptional, and I invite you to take a look at some of his remarkable work.
"Lost" Rewatch: Revisited one of my favorite TV series, "Lost", with my wife. We had a blast watching it again, really one of the best shows out there. If you haven’t watched it, I really recommend that you do!
SHFW Scooter Mod: I had a Mi Scooter Pro 2 gathering dust in my hallway for a while, and I decided to give it a refresher. Picked SHFW for it and played around with the settings for various profiles and configurations. It has a great feature that it can modify values on the fly to test out different settings. After getting hit by a car (again :’D), I decided to drop it again. Drive carefully, people!
In conclusion, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my wife for staying sane amidst all the mess I made during my projects. Her support and patience mean the world to me. I also want to thank Trustsoft, especially @Lukas Pour, for managing two months without me and organizing everything so I could enjoy a long vacation. They truly care about their people and understand the impact of burnout, recognizing that sometimes we just need to relax and recharge. I'm fortunate to be part of such a supportive company.
