Learning by building.

I'm Michael Horton, an operations professional working toward a career in cloud engineering. I'm studying Cloud Computing and Computer Information Systems while building the skills in my own environment.

I've been building PCs since 2005 and troubleshooting home networks for nearly as long. Formal coursework gave that curiosity structure. My homelab is where I turn the concepts into systems I can operate, break, recover, and explain.

I earned the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner certification in March 2026. My next goal is the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification.

This site is generated with Astro and hosted from a private S3 origin behind CloudFront. A push to Forgejo starts a Forgejo Actions workflow that builds and deploys the site. The writing documents the architecture, tradeoffs, failures, and practical lessons behind that work.

I'm interested in cloud infrastructure, Linux systems, automation, and roles where I can keep learning while contributing useful operational experience.