Time really flies – wooosh – another three months gone. I’ve been struggling a bit to keep this blog consistent. Whenever I start a new project, I tend to go all in and stay laser-focused until it’s done. The downside is that everything else gets pushed aside, and sadly, this blog often ends up on that list.
Things have been changing fast – my learnings, experiments, and projects are evolving at an insane pace. Huge credit goes to AI for that. Before, I’d spend hours or even days researching a specific tool, language, or solution before doing any real work. Now, the process has changed completely. From idea to a working solution can take hours, not weeks, because AI handles the heavy lifting – coding, analysis, research, you name it.
It might feel like cheating, but I genuinely believe we’ve entered a new era of speed and project delivery. “I don’t know how to do this” is no longer an excuse. Sure, AI makes mistakes and there’s plenty of hype, but as an assistant, it’s phenomenal. The ideas are still mine, the direction is mine – AI just helps execute, any time, anywhere (yes, even at 2 a.m. or while walking the dog).
Anyway, enough philosophy – let’s recap what I’ve been up to since my last post.
I was running my production websites on WordPress in AWS Lightsail. While it’s technically “self-hosted,” the process is so automated that it feels like SaaS – just a few clicks and WordPress is up. But the convenience comes at a cost. The Bitnami image is heavily stripped down and locked. I couldn’t upgrade PHP, set up proper monitoring, or harden the system in a meaningful way.
So, I decided to move everything to AWS EC2 – but instead of bare metal, I went for Docker. This way, I could run multiple, fully isolated WordPress stacks on one EC2 instance. What a project that turned out to be.
Quick summary of what’s now in place:
- Deployed and hardened a new EC2 instance
- Installed and secured Docker
- Designed and deployed three independent WordPress stacks
- Placed them behind a reverse proxy (also Docker-based)
- Locked down SSH and wp-admin access through my private VPN (Tailscale – another mini-project on its own)
- Added progressive fail2ban protection
- Built my own monitoring system that feeds straight into Home Assistant
On top of that, I set up Glances probes, custom systemd timers, and n8n workflows that push live metrics to Home Assistant via MQTT. Now my HA dashboards show everything – from WordPress updates and system health to security events.
Three months ago, I had to Google how to run apt update, navigate folders, or even use nano. Now, I’m confidently managing a production-grade web server – fully secure, fully mine.
Next up: my own n8n instance. I spun up another EC2 for it, deployed it via Docker, and it’s an absolute game-changer. It now monitors all my sites every minute, sends real-time SMS alerts, and pushes data into HA dashboards. What used to rely on my home internet (even with UPS backups) is now hosted in the cloud – enterprise-ready, production-grade, and still very cost-efficient.
Then came WSL. I never imagined I’d enjoy Linux this much, but learning with AI makes it ridiculously fun. Plus, YouTube adds fuel to the fire. A huge shout-out to NetworkChuck – his content gave me the confidence to keep going.
Next goals on my list:
- Dive into MCP and start integrating it with my CRM. It just got released, perfect timing. Imagine the team being able to ask an LLM questions and get data straight from the CRM – incredible.
- Scale n8n to use AI agents. I’m still exploring where they’d fit best, but experimenting always sparks ideas.
- Upgrade our backend CRM and finally roll out the new workflows my team’s been waiting for. I’ve been holding back until the platform upgrade, and now it’s time.
And one last gem – Obsidian. I started using it for runbooks, notes, and ideas. Instead of paying for their sync, I linked it to my private Git repo. Works beautifully. It’s fast, local, Markdown-based, and distraction-free – everything I wanted from a notes app.
Can I promise I’ll post more often? I’d love to, but I can’t guarantee it. What I can say is that whenever I come back, I’ll be at a completely different level again. The things that seem confusing today will be second nature by then.
So – thank you AI, for making learning and building so accessible. Thank you to all the amazing creators out there who share knowledge and inspire others. Thank you to my team for keeping things running and staying sharp. And thank you to myself – for the curiosity, discipline, and drive to keep learning and doing.
See you in the next one …
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