Meeting Agenda Item: Introduction Paul Maconi
Hello everyone! My name is Paul Maconi, aka @aggraxis on matrix, across
the FAS, and a bunch of other places. I attended the meeting earlier
today. Thank you again for the warm welcome.
I'm currently employed by a defense contractor providing support in the
US. I lead the contractor team supporting the customer organization,
and I serve as one of the senior architects for their test enclaves.
We work with RHEL (7, 8, and 9) as well as Windows and a little bit of
Ubuntu. I have experience working with NetApp storage arrays and VMware
virtualization products in the workplace. At home I have a small lab
where I just converted everything over to Proxmox as an educational/
fun exercise.
I'm not a strong programmer. I took C, C++, and Java in college some
20+ years ago, but I couldn't see myself making that kind of
professional life for myself at the time. I did find an interest in
Python after I started experimenting with Ansible in the workplace. I
*love* writing Ansible playbooks, and running through a bunch of the
self-paced materials over at pybit.es was a lot of fun for me. So I
know enough Python to be dangerous, but I can't write you the next gee
whiz application from scratch. I have a working knowledge of Powershell
as well, but I'm hoping we won't need that here.
I currently hold a CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+)
certification, mostly because my job requires it. I spend a lot of time
assessing and remediating security controls as part of my work life,
which is the initial driver for learning Ansible at the time.
I also spent 7 years working as a Cisco Certified Network Administrator
(CCNA) back in the early 2000s, so I do have a background slinging
packets.
Honestly, I'm just a computer nerd who grew up to be a computer nerd.
I love learning things and solving problems. I will say that I was a
little intimidated at first by the outstanding issues. Even some of
the Eaxyfix items looked kind of wild from the newcomer point of view.
Still, I'm excited for the opportunity to come learn, grow, and create
with you all.