2023 – Year in Review

The year 2023 is over and done. Time to look back.

Faith

As a family our faith continues to grow. I have enjoyed watching the faith of my wife and children grow and mature this past year. God continues to grow and stretch my faith and performed a miracle late in the year after one of my brother-in-laws was injured while at work.

My friendships have gotten deeper and I thank God for the Christian men He has allowed me to be in relationship with. I played on the church softball team for my second season – injuring myself again this time later in the season and different muscle (make sure you stretch as you get older). I continue to serve on the tech team and have expanded my responsibility to additional areas.

Our church continues to grow and we thank God for how we are seeing Him work and bring people to Himself.

Family

We continued to get closer as a family this year. My wife continues to home school our children which continues to be the right choice for what seems like even more reasons.

We traveled less this past year, but did manage to get the following trips in:

Buckingham, VA – I attended our church men’s retreat in April which was a great time away allowing me to connect with God, other Christian men and recharge.
Cincinnati, OH – I played on our church softball team in the Nazarene Nationals Softball Tournament over Labor Day weekend.
North Carolina – local trips around Raleigh to see the sights

Health

Unfortunately, this was another year where I put very little effort into my physical health. Physical fitness will be a top priority for me in 2024. Mentally I continue to feel great which I attribute to focus on Jesus and the books I decided to read this past year.

Career

I completed two years at Microsoft in my Sr. CSA – Engineering role in May. When Microsoft’s new fiscal year started my job title changed again – this time to Sr. Cloud Solution Architect. I continued to support the same two large customers this year and had additional opportunities to run workshops for other manufacturing sector customers.

I renewed the following certifications:

Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate – renewed on February 15th
Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert – renewed on February 15th
Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate – renewed on February 15th
Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate – renewed on April 3rd
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate – renewed on May 23rd
Microsoft Certified: Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty – renewed on June 5th
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solution Architect Expert – renewed on June 21st

I passed the exams to earn the following certifications:

GitHub Administration – passed on May 16th
GitHub Advanced Security – passed on June 2nd

A big thanks to those of you that found my blog this past year and are still here given that I did not post much content. I hope I provided you with some value and helped you on your Azure Cloud Journey.