Michael BilousSenior Cloud and Backend Engineer with a passion for scuba diving, world travel, photography, DIY projects, homelabbing, and cooking.

From “Hello World” to production

I still remember the first time I wrote Hello World. It was a small moment—just a few words printed to a screen—but it opened the door to something much bigger. Back then, I was just experimenting. Today, I work on high-availability, high-scale systems that power real-world applications and serve millions. What started with basic logic and syntax has grown into a deep understanding of software architecture, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure.

Learning through failure

The journey wasn’t a straight line. I’ve broken things that were in production. I’ve deployed bugs that took hours (or days) to trace. I’ve learned the hard way about race conditions, deadlocks, memory leaks, and how “it works on my machine” is never enough.

But every failure came with a lesson. Over time, I stopped just writing code—and started designing systems.

Scaling up

Today, I think in terms of services, latency, observability, cost-efficiency, and user impact. I’ve worked on systems that scale horizontally, recover gracefully, and stay online when things go wrong. Concepts like load balancing, circuit breakers, and eventual consistency aren’t just buzzwords—they’re part of my daily toolkit.

Writing code is still fun. But building something reliable, fast, and maintainable at scale? That’s the real thrill.

Still learning

The more I grow, the more I realize how much more there is to learn. Tech keeps evolving. Tools change. Patterns shift. But the mindset stays the same: stay curious, keep improving, and never stop asking why.

This blog is where I’ll share some of what I’ve learned along the way—from debugging weird bugs to designing resilient systems. If you’re on a similar journey, I hope you find something here that resonates.

A whole new world

The first time I sank below the surface, I felt something click. The noise of the world faded. My breathing slowed. And suddenly, I was floating through another dimension—weightless, silent, alive. Scuba diving isn’t just a sport. It’s a doorway to an alien world that’s been here all along. Underwater, time moves differently. Colors shift. Creatures drift by with complete indifference to your presence. And you realize: we are guests down there.

More than just a dive

Every dive is a story. A curious turtle. A shadowy wreck. A swirling school of fish. Or maybe just sand, silence, and your own thoughts. There’s no agenda—just discovery. And in that exploration, you find something deeper than depth itself: presence.

You can’t think about emails or to-do lists when you’re watching a moray eel peek from coral, or navigating a narrow swim-through. Scuba demands your attention. And rewards it with wonder.

Respect the water

Diving also teaches humility. Nature isn’t a theme park—it’s raw, real, and sometimes unforgiving. Conditions change. Currents surprise you. Equipment matters. Training matters more.

That respect is part of the beauty. The ocean isn’t yours to conquer—it’s yours to learn from.

Why I keep going back

Every time I dive, I feel more connected to the planet—and oddly, to myself. It reminds me that most of the world lies beneath the surface, both literally and metaphorically.

So I keep exploring. Not just reefs and caverns—but my own limits, my comfort zones, and my curiosity.

And that’s why I dive.

Beyond the lines on the map

The more I travel, the less I believe in borders. They may exist on paper and in politics, but on the road, they start to blur. What matters more are the people, the places, and the stories you carry back. Cultures overlap. Smiles translate. Curiosity leads the way. Travel teaches you that the world is too rich, too human, too interconnected to be divided by imaginary lines.

Faces, flavors, and lands

From bustling city streets to quiet hilltops, each place leaves its mark. You meet people who cook differently, speak differently, think differently—and yet somehow, you feel connected. You taste new things, take wrong turns, find moments that no guidebook could’ve planned.

And with every trip, the world feels both bigger and more familiar.

Finding yourself in foreign places

Sometimes travel isn’t about the destination—it’s about what it reveals in you. When your routines are stripped away and you’re somewhere completely new, you notice things: your fears, your joy, your patience (or lack of it), your adaptability.

You leave comfort behind. And you return with perspective.

Why I keep going

I’d be lying if I said I don’t travel to escape—because I do. Sometimes I need to disconnect from routine, from screens, from the same four walls. But what starts as escape often turns into something else: reconnection. With nature. With strangers. With myself.

I chase new landscapes not just to run away—but to remember there’s more out there. That life can be spontaneous, strange, and breathtaking.

Because when you erase the borders—even just for a while—you rediscover the world, and maybe even a piece of yourself.

My cloud, my rules

It started with a simple thought: I don’t trust anyone else’s server. Not because of paranoia—but because things break. Services go down. Providers change policies. Internet cuts out. And cloud platforms? Great for scale, not so great when you’re just tinkering and the bill still shows up. So I decided to host things myself. Not just because I could—because I wanted to rely on me, not “someone else’s uptime.”

From cabinet to datacenter (almost)

At first, it was just an old device running some scripts. Then came the dedicated router. The mini PC. The UPS. A shelf turned into a server rack. One thing led to another—suddenly I was running Docker stacks, managing VLANs, and watching Grafana dashboards while my pasta cooked.

Now? I’ve got a homegrown setup that does everything I need, and nothing I don’t.

Learning by building (and breaking)

Homelabbing taught me more than any tutorial ever could. When something fails, you don’t file a ticket—you fix it. You read logs, tweak configs, restart services, isolate the issue. It’s hands-on, frustrating, and insanely rewarding.

You gain real skills. And confidence you can’t fake.

Why I love it

Because I like knowing how things work. Because I want to experiment without asking permission. Because I don’t want my projects to disappear when someone else’s free tier ends or when a company pivots.

Homelabbing means freedom. Big Brother’s not watching. And more importantly? I’m not waiting for someone else to fix my stuff.

Build it yourself

There’s something deeply satisfying about building things with your own hands. Whether it’s shelves, cables, a custom server rack, or just repurposing IKEA furniture into something smarter—DIY is where imagination meets action. It’s not just about saving money or solving a problem. It’s about making something your way.

From “what if” to “look what I made”

I love tech. I love tools. And I love the feeling of making an idea real. You start with a rough sketch in your head—some vague vision—and before you know it, you’re cutting, drilling, wiring, tweaking. You mess it up. You fix it. You keep going.

And then suddenly, it works. It slides. It powers on. It fits.

It’s never perfect—and that’s the point

DIY isn’t about polished results. It’s about the process. It’s the late-night Googling, the trial and error, the overkill solutions that make no sense on paper but feel just right in real life. It’s about using what you’ve got, learning what you don’t know, and hacking things together until they do what you want.

And yes, sometimes it’s about making things way harder than they need to be—but at least they’re yours.

Why I keep doing it

Because I like knowing how things work. Because I like solving problems with tools, code, glue, and sheer stubbornness. And because there’s a unique kind of pride in pointing to something and saying:

“Yeah—I made that.”

That’s the DIY mindset. That’s how my hands bring my ideas to life.

Freeze the moment

Life moves fast. Blink, and it’s gone—sunsets melt, faces change, streets empty. But a photo? It freezes the moment. Locks in the light, the mood, the feeling. One shutter click, and suddenly you’ve bottled time. Photography lets me pause the chaos and say, “This mattered.”

It started with a Canon

My first DSLR—a Canon 1100D—was the first serious thing I bought when I started making money. It was 2012 or maybe 2013, and I’d wanted a camera for as long as I could remember. Buying it felt like crossing some invisible line between dreaming and doing.

Since then, a camera has always been with me. It’s not just a tool—it’s a companion.

More than pixels

I love how cameras work. They’re complex, precise, and packed with tech: lenses, filters, flashes, tripods. So many ways to tweak, adjust, and experiment. I enjoy the hands-on side of it as much as the artistic one.

And then there’s the magic. A macro lens showing textures your eyes can’t see. An astro shot revealing stars and colors hiding in the sky. It’s a way of revealing the invisible.

My camera, my memory

Sometimes I scroll through old photos and find a forgotten alley, a weird reflection, a moment I didn’t even realize I’d captured. The camera remembers even when I don’t. It stores the version of the world I saw—and the way I felt about it.

That’s why I shoot.

Because memories fade. But photo albums? They don’t.

Fat is flavor

When I switched to a low-carb, high-fat lifestyle, I didn’t feel restricted—I felt liberated. No more bland meals or dry chicken breasts. Instead, I discovered a world where butter is your friend, ribeye is king, and grilling is not just cooking, it’s an event. Cooking on fire connects something primal: the sizzle, the smoke, the crust. It’s more than food—it’s ritual.

Keto, fire, and simplicity

I like simple meals with maximum payoff. A well-marbled steak, seasoned just right, kissed by flame. Add a chunk of butter, maybe some roasted garlic or a dollop of chimichurri—done. No carbs, no nonsense.

The beauty of keto cooking is that it’s all about real ingredients: fat, salt, meat, and time. And when those elements come together over a hot grill, the result is pure satisfaction.

Mistakes (and smoke) were made

Not every experiment was perfect. I’ve charred things too far, undercooked the middle, forgotten to rest the meat. But I learned. I adjusted. I found my rhythm.

The grill taught me patience. Timing. And the importance of a good meat thermometer.

My kind of kitchen

Whether it’s a weekday dinner or a weekend indulgence, grilling gives me control, creativity, and a deep sense of joy. It’s not just about eating keto—it’s about owning the process. Sourcing the ingredients, firing up the coals, and taking pride in every bite.

Cooking this way reminds me: good food doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be real.