Let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, it sounds like crucify. Yes, it sounds like Lucifer. No, this is not a metal band, a cult, or a cryptocurrency. It’s just a blog. A very normal blog run by a very normal person who spent an embarrassingly long time picking a name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Welcome to Crucipher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It started with a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was deep in the rabbit hole of trying to find a name for this thing \u2014 a blog about everything, which meant finding a name that meant nothing specific, which is harder than it sounds. I’d been workshopping combinations of math terms, space concepts, literary references, and general nonsense for longer than I care to admit when I stumbled onto something I didn’t know about the word cipher<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew cipher as a tech term. Encryption. Code. The thing that scrambles your data. What I didn’t know was that cipher is also a noun for a person \u2014 specifically, a person of no importance<\/em>. A nobody. A zero. The blank space in the equation that doesn’t change the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That stopped me cold. Because that was it. That was the whole blog in one word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wanted something with cipher in it. It felt crucial that it fit \u2014 and there it was. Crucial.<\/em> Cipher. Crucifer. And then the name just… assembled itself. Crucipher. I said it out loud and immediately started laughing because it sounds like someone named their blog after Lucifer’s less successful cousin. The dark lord of homelabbing. The data devil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And honestly? That’s exactly the kind of accidental poetry that makes you commit to something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A cipher has a different definition that nobody uses; is nobody important. That’s not self-pity \u2014 that’s the liberating part. Starting from zero means no expectations, no niche to defend, no audience to disappoint before you’ve even written anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here’s the thing about nobody important: sometimes nobody important is exactly who needed to say the thing. The person in the room who isn’t supposed to matter, doing the math nobody asked for, occasionally getting it exactly right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s the energy. The dude who thought something was cool so he learned every little thing about it. Up until he got bored so he learned the next cool thing. Rinse and repeat until the only thing left is to share that data. It’s up to you whether it’s useful or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The honest pitch is this: something for someone, or everything for everyone.<\/em> Whichever one you are, you’re welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s what’s in the mix:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sim racing and flight sim<\/strong> \u2014 I built my own sim rig out of wood and a salvaged car dash, which felt like a completely reasonable thing to do. Now I spend time trying to drift in BeamNG.drive with a direct drive wheel, which started as just a project. The project became the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tech and homelabbing<\/strong> \u2014 My homelab is a collection of servers frankensteined together from parts other people upgraded away from and discarded. Someone else’s trash, my entire network infrastructure. I’ve always been the person who was constantly at the computer tinkering with something, learning something, pulling a thread until it unraveled into something new. This is where that lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ham radio<\/strong> \u2014 which sounds like a retiree hobby until you realize it came from a very practical place. Military life means PCS moves, driving through dead zones, and two cars trying to stay in contact across a mountain pass with no cell service. Local emergencies like fires or tornadoes mean immediate evacuations, wanting live updates straight from the emergency responders, even just knowing what others can see from another spot. I wanted a way to talk to my wife in the other car when the phones gave up. FRS (walkie talkies) couldn’t cut it, and could barely reach a mile. GMRS was the solution, but I got hooked and wanted more, Ham radio was the answer. It spiraled from there, as these things do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personal finance<\/strong> \u2014 I’ve done well with investments and I have opinions about it. Not the “quit your job and trade crypto” kind of opinions. The quieter, less glamorous kind that might actually help someone build something real over time. The advice you can take action on today. The mindsets you need to make money less of a problem, regardless of your current financial situation. Just advice, I can’t fix bad debt and I can’t fix homelessness, but I can share how to make lunch money if you just can’t scrape by that day. Or turn $20 into $50 without quitting your day job. All the way up to retirement at age 40 instead of 50. Things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Real world takes<\/strong> \u2014 sometimes something happens and I need to write 800 words about it at midnight. You’ve been warned. You will find opinions — opinions based on facts — that you might disagree with. I welcome conversation, as these are usually just rants. If there are things I didn’t understand or interpret correctly, or if there is more to the story, I will never tell you you’re wrong and I WANT you to tell me I am because I don’t believe anyone is getting the full or correct story. I want to be the Data Devil and pick apart all the pieces to see the full picture. I can’t do that without starting the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything else<\/strong> \u2014 reviews, hiking, travel, things I built, things I broke, things I fixed after breaking them. Whatever’s currently pulling my attention. The format is flexible by design because the moment I promise to stay in a lane is the moment I get bored and disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every piece of advice about building an audience online says the same thing: pick a niche, go deep, become the person people think of for that one thing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I tried. I get bored. The thing stops being interesting the moment it becomes the thing I’m supposed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here’s my alternative theory: the most interesting people aren’t specialists. They’re the ones who went deep on enough different things that they started noticing connections nobody else was looking for. The ham radio operator who understands antenna physics better than most engineers. The sim racer who can explain tire dynamics from first principles. The homelabber who accidentally became a decent network administrator while trying to watch movies on his own server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cipher is nobody important. But it’s what they de-cipher that’s important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Crucipher<\/em> The Data Devil. Nobody important. S<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, it sounds like crucify. Yes, it sounds like Lucifer. No, this is not a metal band, a cult, or a cryptocurrency. It’s just a blog. 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\n\n\n\nCipher? I Hardly Know Her!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhat You’ll Actually Find Here<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nA Note on Being a Generalist in a World That Wants Specialists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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