Most of the time, you’ll find me behind a monitor staring at CLI terminals or troubleshooting connectivity. But this December, I traded the keyboard for a safety vest.

I had the privilege of joining my son and his Trail Life group to volunteer at Beautiful Feet Ministries in Fort Worth for their annual "Christmas Blitz." It was a marathon day—we clocked in at 12:00 PM and didn't leave until almost 10:00 PM.

My role wasn't technical. I was working security and coordinating traffic flow for about 40 trucks and trailers, prepping to load gifts(bikes, toys, food, and Bibles for people, ensuring everyone got in and out safely. Once the crowds cleared, I moved to the back of the house to help scrub down the kitchen and cafeteria where we fed the volunteers afterwards.

Between this event and the 10+ hours I’ve logged with Verizon’s volunteer program this year, I’ve realized how important it is to step away from the screen and serve the city.

The Network Perspective. As I was standing in the parking lot directing cars, I couldn't help but look at it through a Network Engineer's lens. Managing the flow of hungry families and excited kids is exactly like configuring Quality of Service (QoS) on a busy router. You have to prioritize the critical traffic, prevent bottlenecks at the ingress points, and sometimes, you just have to drop a few cones (Access Control Lists) to keep the network secure. Whether it's data packets or minivans, the goal is the same: keep the traffic moving without a collision.

I’ve lived in Texas for a decade now, but up until recently, I had a glaring gap in my residency file: I had never been to the Texas State Fair.

Last year, I finally patched that bug. I packed up the car and headed out with my family and friends to see what the hype was about.

If I’m being fully transparent—in the spirit of "Building in Public"—the event itself felt a little overrated. The crowds were massive and the prices were high (though the Turkey Legs and French fries were definitely a win). But as the day went on, I realized that the quality of the rides or the cost of the food wasn't the point.

The Critical Error of "Uptime" In this industry, we often wear "busy" like a badge of honor. We grind for certifications, we stay late for deployments, and we chase the next pay bump. But money is fluid. Jobs are just temporary configurations—they come and go.

Your family? That’s your permanent infrastructure.

I realized that while I was worried about the cost of the fair, I was ignoring the cost of not going: missing out on my kids growing up. Working hard without pausing to enjoy life is a critical error.

The Network Perspective Standing in the middle of the State Fair chaos, eating a turkey leg, reminded me of the concept of Scheduled Maintenance Windows. If you run a server at 100% CPU utilization for too long, the hardware fails. It overheats, processes lock up, and the system crashes. Humans are no different. Taking a day off with your family isn't "downtime"—it’s a necessary maintenance window to clear the cache, reset the counters, and ensure you have the bandwidth to keep performing at a high level.