My name is Steve (actually, Stephen, but no one calls me that) and this is a personal blog. I’ve made many annual trips around the sun and have lived in New England since mid-2008. My family relocated from Richmond, Virginia where I worked for in the corporate headquarters for a major, no longer in business retailer. Before that, we spent almost a dozen years in the greater Phoenix area where I worked primarily for yet another company that is no longer in business. In 2017, I married the woman who is truly my life partner – we just needed to have children with other people first. She’s a New England native (although she’ll tell you she’s really from California) and we live on property her family has owned for close to 100 years. My three kids live all over. My natural children are both living in Northern California. My stepson is away in Virginia at college. We live with our Covid rescue, a loving older pooch.

I’ve been blogging for over a dozen years, mostly to keep my mind sharp and to document the randomness of my life so I can re-read it after I go insane. If you stumbled across my blog and want to stay, that’s great. I’ll continue this for my own sanity so long as I have time and have topics worthy of a personal journal. I post when I have something to say, sometimes going weeks or a month or more between posts but I try to post more often. Lately, I’ve started posting more pictures from my phone so update them when I get a chance to add context. Hint – hit the subscribe button if you want to know when it’s updated.

Professionally, I have been involved with computers for 30+ years and data security for over 25 of them. I’ve only had three long term gigs at work, all three with over 10 years each including my current one. Back in January of 2004, I earned my Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and recently renewed that through 2025. I’m never, ever sitting through that exam again so earn Continuing Education Credits (CPEs) whenever possible! My current employer is a large, non-publicly traded Fortune 200 firm. I am currently involved leading an email security program which is a really cool program to fight the malicious actors that use email. Often, I answer data security questions company-wide and occasionally get to work on some really cool projects. I occasionally get to talk to some of my company’s largest business partners to get email working.

Outside of work, my hobbies include digital photography (Nikon and iPhone fan), running (mostly shuffling along near the back of the pack), biking on either a great road bike or a sort-of-crappy hybrid (rail trails, mostly), working on our 7 acres of wooded property and exploring the outdoors near where we live. I hold a general class amateur radio operator license that I almost never use anymore (first licensed in 1979). I’m somewhat active on Facebook, more active on twitter (@sealexander for my info security / professional life; @runct for my running life) and automatically reporting the weather @simsburyweather because I love technology. For a link to my other sites, visit my about.me page.

Thanks for checking out my blog and for circling the sun with me.

Disclaimer: The words on these pages are my own. This is a personal blog, and should not be confused with my daytime job which involves lots of sitting, typing, and occasionally running from meeting to meeting (albeit virtually these days). This should never be construed to be related in any way to that employer – just in case that wasn’t blatantly obvious.