by Douglas | Jul 9, 2026 | Doug Was Built Not Born, Thoughts, What Doug's working on now
There are moments in a career where you can feel the window opening. The question is whether you have the nerve to climb through it. I’m climbing through it. I’ve accepted a position as a Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Assessor, and I...
by Douglas | May 10, 2026 | Thoughts, What Doug's working on now
I traded in my Macbook Air M3 for a MacBook Air M5 with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB drive 1. It’s light, yet fast 2. No fan or noise – although it can get warm when I task it 3. I not only run macOS, I also run Linux and Windows via Paralles VM 4. Battery last...
by Douglas | Feb 17, 2026 | Doug Was Built Not Born, Thoughts
I received tons of feedback following my post last week. So I’m sharing another flashback from my job search last summer: Networking.I was already an active member of Project Management Institute and ISC2 and regularly attended local AWS User Group meetings. With more...
by Douglas | Jan 9, 2026 | Thoughts
Maintaining professional certifications not only cost you time, but also money. My Certified Federal Contractor Manager (CFCM) certification renewal came to an end on Dec 31st. I had enough CPEs to keep it, but decided to forgo renewing it due to cost and lack of...
by Douglas | Dec 22, 2025 | Doug Was Built Not Born, Thoughts
II was a horrible student K-12. I wasn’t good in my first couple technical schools in the navy either. But I earned the following professional certifications: CCNA, Sec+, Net+, PMP, CFCM, CISSP, CISM, CISA, ITIL, PSM, CEH, and most recently CMMC CCP & CCA. I...
by Douglas | Dec 15, 2025 | Thoughts
I recently debated upgrading my MacBook from Sequoia to Tahoe. Like many IT professionals, my standard operating procedure is to wait out the initial release (26.0) and hold off until the first major patch (26.1) ensures stability. When I looked for community...