sudo reboot: The 14-Year Upgrade

It wasn’t a crash. The system didn’t fail. But after 14 years of continuous uptime, it was time for a major kernel upgrade. Here is the log of how I went from a Software Architect back to a Student.

$ sudo reboot
Rebooting system…
[OK] Unmounted /dev/sda1 (Corporate_Job)
[OK] Mounted /dev/sdb1 (Personal_Enhancement)

For over a decade, I ran in high-performance mode. My professional career started at HRSmart, scaled up at Slack, and optimized operations at Samsara.

I spent years building scalable teams, enforcing ITGC/SOX compliance, and designing efficient processes. But hidden in the logs, there was a warning: I was spending more time designing projects for others to build them than building them myself.

I Always worked because it was fun, it felt meaningful, because I was constantly telling myself: I can’t believe they pay me to learn and have fun. . But one day the cache reset and the spark and fun were no longer there.

I pulled the plug after a year and a half. The hardware was there, but the software was corrupt:

1. Latency: Had to take physics (Mechanics) multiple times because the way it was taught wasn’t right for me. The problem was, there was only one professor teaching the class - I Finally passed once I taught myself physics; Didn’t attend the lectures, didn’t use the course’s textbook, I replaced that with The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Dr Feynman explains things in a fun, engaging, and thoughtful way).
2. Packet Loss: Remote Learning means Zero interactions. I am introverted, but I am social. staring at a screen in isolation wasn’t education; it was data entry. It felt void of learning.

Current Directive: Finishing the BS in CS, pursuing another passion of mine since I was a kid, Rocketry, and getting back my spark.

Failover Plan: If an Aerospace role doesn’t open up, the sequence continues to a Master’s in Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering .

I’ve mounted the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) - UTD Chapter - Comet Rocketry filesystem. This is the launchpad for the theory, previous experience, and new skillsets I acquire. It’s the perfect environment to test my engineering mindset:

Applying CS rigor to hardware problems. Apply industry standard practices to the rocket’s controllers.

Designing, building, and breaking - I mean testing - physical circuits. KiCad had always been my to go schematics editor, but I’m moving to Altium Designer; An industry used tool in EE/CE.

Bridging the gap between high-level software and low-level embedded systems, in the aerospace industry.

The new system is live. Here are the processes currently running in user space (and what you can expect to see on this blog):

ps -e

1 L1 CERT : Currently studying for my L1 High-Power Rocketry certification (Modern High-Power Rocketry 2 - Mark Canepa) by building Silver Surfer , a single stage, cardboard and plywood rocket modeled with OpenRocket .

2 MAKERLAB : Upgrading the 4040 CNC with a 4th axis, dialing in the Bambu X1C and Prusa MK4S for structural parts, and working with my laser cutter, a Creality Falcon A1 Pro to speed up fabrication through subtractive manufacturing.

3 PAYLOAD TEAM : Designing modular experiment boards (RP2040 based, CANBus enabled) and the telemetry stack for the team. A complete redesign of the Payload capabilities from the ground up: A new payload box, modular experiment bays, CANAerospace support, and a Ground Station to consume the telemetry.

4 ROCKETRY COMPETITION : Preparing the payload architecture for the next major competitions, Lone Star Cup 2026 and IREC 2026 .

This site is the syslog for these processes. Welcome to the new session.

root@SirFixAL0t.me:~# exit 0