IT Specialist · Topeka, Kansas
Helpdesk support, Windows systems, and cloud infrastructure by day.
A fairly involved homelab by night.
I've been building things on the web for over 20 years — starting with forum software and SEO in the mid-2000s, and these days leaning more toward self-hosting, virtualization, and digital archiving.
Infrastructure & Systems
Homelab & Self-Hosting
Web
Everything runs on Proxmox — a mix of VMs and LXC containers.
- 🎬 Emby — movies, TV, and archived YouTube channels
- 📸 Immich — self-hosted replacement for Google Photos
- 📥 Pinchflat — automated YouTube channel archiving
- 💾 3-copy backups, because one is none, two is one
📖 Media Lab setup · Data hoarding & archival
| Guide | What's In It |
|---|---|
| 🛠️ The Essential IT Toolkit | 54 tools I actually use, sorted by category |
| 🤖 AI Prompting Guide | Beginner-friendly intro to prompts, chatbots, and agents |
| 🔌 Public API Finder | Searchable directory of free public APIs |
| ♻️ E-Waste & Metal Recovery | Responsible recycling + local pickup in Topeka |
Before IT was my full-time career, I spent years in the online forum world:
- Founded vBulletinSetup, a vBulletin support community and services business, later acquired by Crowdgather
- Ran Admin-Talk.com, a webmaster forum for community administrators
- Was one of six core members of Think Big Topeka — the 2010 grassroots campaign that got our city temporarily renamed "Google, Kansas," and prompted Google to rename its own homepage "Topeka" for April Fools' Day
📖 vBulletin & forum admin history · The Think Big Topeka story
🌐 sheley.org · 💼 LinkedIn