2024 – Year in Review

2024 – Year in Review

The year 2024 is now in our past. Let’s take a look back.

Faith

Continued Growth! I continue to enjoy watching the faith of my wife and children grow and mature. God continues to grow and stretch my faith. Over the past year I have really been struggling with finding my purpose - especially at work. Insight and direction have started to become more clear during the month of December - looking forward to what God will reveal!

My friendships continue to deepen and I thank God for the Christian men He has put in my life. At 46, it has become very clear that I am no longer one of the young guys. I’ve somehow become one of the “old heads” that the younger guys are looking to for advice, guidance and wisdom. I’ve been blessed to share my story in the hope that others can learn from it and not make the same mistakes.

I wasn’t able to play many softball games this year due schedule conflicts with the family, but I did enjoy the games I was able to play on the backend of the season.

I continue to serve on the worship tech team and have recently been asked to lead some new projects at the church related to our new sanctuary that is currently under construction and some hardware modernization. I’m looking forward to using my technology background and expertise to build His kingdom.

Our church continues to see incredible growth with no explanation other than the favor of God. We thank God for allowing us to see Him work and continue to bring people to Himself.

Family

We continued to get closer as a family this year. My wife continues to home school our children (Conner graduated high school in May) which continues to be the right choice for what seems like even more reasons again this year.

We traveled more in 2024:

  • Dallas, TX (May) - I had my first business trip since joining Microsoft for a team meeting and training. It was great to finally meet my team in person.
  • Guatemala (July) - Conner and I went with a mission team from our church. We spent the week building relationship with the people in the village of Belen. Our church will be partnering with the local Nazarene church in the village to provide for the needs of the village on a long-term basis.
  • Branson, MO (August) – This past year our good friends moved back to Missouri. We took the opportunity to do a bit of a roadtrip and visit them at their new home in Branson. On our way there we took the scenic route:
    • South Carolina - drove through SA with a stop at Buc-ee’s in Florence
    • Georgia - spent a few hours at Zoo Atlanta
    • Alabama - drove through AL with a stop at Buc-ee’s in Leeds and an overnight stay in Fultondale
    • Mississippi - drove through MS with a quick stop at the Tanger Outlets in Southaven
    • Tennessee - drove through a small sliver on the way out, an overnight stay in Smyrna and a stop at Buc-ee’s in Crossville
    • Arkansas - drove through AR with an overnight stay in Little Rock
    • Missouri - saw every good show in Branson, ate some great food, visited Top of the Rock, saw Esther at Sight and Sound, spent a day at Silver Dollar City and ended our time visiting the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum
  • Brevard, NC (September) – I attended the Annual Dad Tired Retreat with 24 other guys from our men’s ministry. It was a great time away allowing me to connect with God, other Christian men and recharge. I’m already planning to attend the retreat in 2025 when registation is released.
  • Asheville, NC (October) - I joined a small mission team from our church to help with some projects at a sister Nazarene church after Hurricane Helene. We completed a critical project on the church property which allowed them to keep their insurance. We were also able to assist a family with a project on their property. The news reporting on the destruction does not provide the real picture of what we were able to see in person.
  • North Carolina – more local trips around Raleigh to see the sights

Health

The first half of 2024 was another bust for physical fitness. The second half is a completely different story. I decided that I needed some real accountability and hired a trainer in August. I’ve been working with Don LaTorre from Layman’s Fitness for the past five months. I haven’t lost as much weight as I planned - over the past five months I have dropped 20 pounds (with 30 to go). I have incredible increased strength and my body composition has changed through the Kettlebell Strength Program. When I started in August, my entire body was sore and I could barely do some of the exercises. I attempted my first Turkish Get-Up on Monday, October 7, 2024 and could not complete one on either side with the starting 16KG (35LB) Kettlebell. On Friday, January 3, 2025 I completed one Get-Up on each side using a 32KG (70LB) Kettlebell. I am extremely proud of the hard work I have put in this past year and will be working with Don in 2025 to continue my strength journey.

Mentally I continue to feel great which I attribute to focus on Jesus and the books I decided to read this past year. I’m sure the physical work I put in this year helped as well.

Career

I completed three years at Microsoft in my Sr. Cloud Solution Architect role in May. I continued to support the same two large customers this year and had many opportunities to run assessments, trainings and workshops for other manufacturing sector customers.

I renewed the following certifications:

  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate – renewed on January 2nd
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert – renewed on January 2nd
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate – renewed on January 2nd
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate – renewed on April 1st
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate – renewed on May 13th
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty – renewed on June 7th
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Solution Architect Expert – renewed on June 19th

I passed the exams to earn the following certifications:

  • FinOps Certified Practioner – passed on February 1st

I passed the assessments to earn the following applied skills:

  • Microsoft Applied Skills: Secure storage for Azure Files and Azure Blob Storage - passed on July 24th
  • Microsoft Applied Skills: Deploy and manage Microsoft Azure Arc-enabled servers - passed on July 25th
  • Microsoft Applied Skills: Secure Azure services and workloads with Microsoft Defender for Cloud regulatory compliance controls - passed on July 26th
  • Microsoft Applied Skills: Configure secure access to your workloads using Azure networking - passed on July 29th

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.

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