Hello, and welcome to Fat32Ham! This will be a website to talk about all of my random interests, but will primarily focus on my experiments with computers and Linux, ham radio, and my Halloween yard haunt display. I will also have a section for more random things such as repairing small engines and cars, household DIY projects, pets, christmas light display, and even some family trip stuff. There will be spelling errors, run on sentences, and all kinds of other mistakes. If that will bother you, than it's probably best if you move one. This is going to be my voice on the internet, my home. My articles and html code will not be done with any AI assistance. It is all mine. The name is a combination of ham radio and the FAT32 file system. But first, a little about me.
Since 2023, I have worked in the maintenance department at a college campus in the midwest fixing everything
including electrical systems, damaged walls, clogged drains, leaks, and whatever other random things
come up. I also was a diesel mechanic for 7 years prior to this. I hold certifications in arc flash,
asbestos remidiation, and EPA section 609 refrigerant handling.
I have a family including a wonderful daughter and wife. For privacy reasons, I'm not going to
share too much about them. We love going on camper trips together and heading up to the family cabin
on a lake. My wife and I both enjoy science fiction and fantasy books and television. We have been w
watching through the entirety of Star Trek and she has been introducing me to the Stormlight Archive
by Brandon Sanderson. We also enjoy family and friend board game nights, our favorite games include
Catan and Wyrmspan. We also enjoy the occasional round of cards against humanity and similar games.
Below, you will find links to different sections of my site. They are in alphabetical order.
I have been playing around with computers since the early 2000s, starting with digging old computers out of my grandparent's basement and trying to fix them up to see how well I could get them to run. I would've been in middle school at the time. As I got into high school, I started playing around with Linux, Ubuntu, to be exact. As time went on, I started fiddling with more and more distros and desktop environments. I currently run PopOS on my primary laptop as a dual boot with Windows 11. In more recent times, I have become a follower of the degoogle and de-big movements. I have also, partially related to that, started self hosting whatever I can. This section will cover projects and thoughts related primarily to self hosting, degoogling, and Linux. However, I will sometimes throw in something else I might be working on as I see fit.
I started doing a Halloween yard haunt display in 2005 while I was in elementery school. At that time, it was just a couple foam tombstones and some stringy fake cobwebs. Every year, I added a little bit of decorations, I expanded my skills in prop building, and added different displays. Now, with owning my own house, I have been doing a large display that people come from all over town to see on Halloween night. This section will cover prop building, display layout, lighting tips, and more.
I got my technician's license in 2023 and upgraded to general in 2025. I'm still scratching the surface of this hobby, but will try to put some posts about my mobile setup, operating tips, portable operations, and related things. This section is still a work in progress as I am still relatively new at working my way through this hobby.
This will be a catch-all for anything that does not fit in another section. This may include, but is not limited to: movies, music, my obsession with dogs, my job, DIY house projects, small engine repairs, car repairs, family trips, our camper, boating, fishing, personal rants, anything else I want to put here. I have a large variety of interests and things happening in my life, if I made different sections for everything else, this homepage would be a mile long.