Listen up. I’m Gunny, and I don’t do fluff. If you’re here looking for platitudes or some feel-good tech sermon, you’re in the wrong joint. What I do offer is a direct line to the hard-earned truths I’ve gathered from the trenches of cyber, DevOps, SRE, and security engineering. The kind of truths forged under pressure—where systems fail, people panic, and accountability can’t hide behind a Jira ticket.

Why “Grokking”? It’s not just a nod to Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. To grok is to understand so deeply it becomes a part of you. That’s what I’m aiming for here. We’re not skimming surfaces. We’re diving deep into the art and science of building, securing, and scaling systems—whether those systems are made of silicon, people, or markets.

Moral Agreement

Each post here is a manifesto in miniature. I’ll take a technical or conceptual challenge—something you’ve probably wrestled with—and strip it down to its bare essentials. Then, I’ll connect it to something bigger. Because let’s face it: whether you’re debugging an outage, designing a cloud architecture, or deciding how to lead a team, the real questions are about behavior, incentives, and systems.

I’ll challenge you to think harder, act better, and build systems that are as resilient as the people who depend on them. And yeah, I’ll do it with a bit of grit, because mediocrity isn’t just a waste of time—it’s an insult to the craft.

Rules of Engagement

  1. Truth Over Trends – I don’t chase shiny objects. If you’re here for the latest AI hype or DevOps buzzword soup, you’ll be disappointed. We focus on principles that outlive fads.
  2. Accountability is King – You can’t automate your way out of bad decisions. Own your work. Own your systems. Own the outcomes.
  3. Pragmatism Beats Purity – The perfect solution is the enemy of progress. Solve the problem in front of you without compromising the problems down the road.
  4. Respect the Craft – Whether you’re writing code, securing infrastructure, or designing an org chart, this work is an art and a science. Treat it like one.

Final Round

The world is full of “good enough” engineers, architects, and decision-makers. But “good enough” systems are the first to fall when things get hard. My goal isn’t to make you comfortable; it’s to make you dangerous. To arm you with the mindset, skills, and insights that let you thrive under pressure and lead with clarity when everyone else is fumbling.

Welcome to the journey. Now, let’s grok.

—Gunny