Life, Home, and Work
Welcome to Bert’s Blog
This blog is a place where you will find insight into a variety of topics that might be of interest. I’ve been an information architect, technical lead, a serviceman, and I’ve engaged in a plethora of other ventures, professional and hobbyist alike. I’ve created this blog as a venue for me to share some of my experiences, skills, and insights with my readers.
About My Blog
Bert’s blog is an amalgamation of successful blogs that I have owned and managed in the past on topics such as career development, information technology, writing, reading, and gardening. I’ve made the decision to combine all of my blogs into one to simplify life and provide a one stop place for the some total of my content. As such, this is a very versatile blog that can give the inspiration and the know-how for my readers to engage in hobbies, learn new, marketable skills, and grow their careers. Bert’s blog is now a comprehensive blog that can help its readers approach self-improvement from multiple angles.
Career and Personal Growth
Nowadays, I mostly work as an information architect and a tech lead, but through the years, I’ve also been employed in the commercial, public, and defense sectors. My blogs that focus on career and personal growth will reflect the extensive knowledge I’ve garnered through my professional experience. That professional experience spans 40 years, and during that time, I’ve come into professional contact and have cooperated with essential people in the business world, the defense industry, and the government.
My work has often involved management, so I’ve often assumed positions of leadership. I also possess three certifications and have published a book to help my readers better understand the many forms in which power comes and how it is used for personal growth. All of this experience and the insight that it has provided me has taught me many things about the concerns and the inhibitors that people have, which often stifle their career growth. Many times, my management positions have put me in a position to help employees overcome all sorts of professional or even personal hurdles. My blogging ventures have allowed me to do the same thing, only to a larger audience of people who need the same kind of guidance.
That’s sort of how I ended up starting my first blog on this topic, called Scientia Compendium. It started out very simple because all I really envisioned was a way for me to preserve all of the knowledge that I’ve gained in the course of my professional career. Sharing that insight with a few keen individuals was more-or-less an added perk. However, my blogging venture eventually started to gain traction, and more and more people began showing interest. Blogging turned out to be more rewarding than I had anticipated, and the whole idea grew on me. This blog was the one that made blogging more than a hobby for me, and as it grew, it gradually turned into a part-time commitment. Since then, my commitment to blogging has only grown.
To be more precise, some of the things I cover are career management, Linux, data integration, databases, information security, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and systems development life cycle (SDLC). These are some of the specific fields you can expect to learn from me via this blog. Along the way, you will also learn about the principles of career growth and self-improvement.
My blog uses a holistic approach that teaches not only specific skills but also the mentality behind improvement and development for whatever your field of focus might be. I share my personal stories in this blog as well, which means that many of the professional hurdles I discuss and teach are the same problems that I’ve had to deal with at some point during my long career.
These are obstacles that many professionally accomplished people have had to overcome at some point. I strive to preserve, share, and even improve and perfect that knowledge through my blogs. Indeed, during my time as a blogger, I’ve found that I’ve grown just as much as my readers have. They have gained skills and motivation to pursue their goals, and I have found that this fact has been a source of great fulfillment for me personally. If these topics are relevant to your life and goals, you’re welcome and encouraged to tune in because these matters will play a major role in the content of Bert’s Blog.
Gardening
Gardening is another topic that’s dear to me, and many of my readers. It’s a topic I expanded into after I became particularly fond of blogging. At that point, I had decided that I wouldn’t focus solely on topics that had to do with careers and professional growth but that I would also focus on things that I truly loved and enjoyed. These are things that give my life a special spice and have helped me fill the gaps in between periods of intense work, giving me much fulfillment and balance in the process.
Many of my readers have felt the same way, and so I was able to manage another one of my blogs, the Homestead Gardener, quite successfully. This blog also started to gain traction, and it soon grew into a blog about more than just gardening. Apart from gardening, I began to share my thoughts and insights on cooking and other things that go into homemaking. As such, this blog was yet another one of my blogging ventures that became quite versatile, comprehensive, and eclectic.
My affinity for gardening was in the making since my earliest days, but my current living situation has been particularly favorable for taking on this sort of hobby again. My wife and I live in San Antonio with Cupcake and Rosie, our two pooches that we rescued from the pound, while our daughter lives and works as a corporate attorney in Arizona. With my parental duties taking more of a backseat in my life during these later years, I’ve been able to focus more on homemaking, and so an idea was born to blog about it as well.
The personal history that I have with gardening goes back to my youth, a large portion of which was spent in rural America. The family farm I lived on during those years was the real deal in a way that many city folks nowadays just wouldn’t imagine. The food that I helped my family produce on the farm wasn’t a hobby or even merely a business – it was the food we needed to eat.
My latter encounter with gardening came where you might not expect – in the US Army. Like many servicemen, I was transferred to quite a few places in the world during my career, including Japan, Panama, Alaska, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia. I came to know many different ways of gardening during my time stationed in these places.
I am certainly not a professional or expert gardener or farmer nowadays, but my experience is extensive, just like my obsession with this skillset. That experience and my reading about the topics, has certainly provided me with many ideas to share about gardening. As such, my blog will help those that are interested in growing various sorts of vegetables and making them flourish.
My enthusiasm for gardening wasn’t something that I had intended. Life just sort of led me back to the craft and I found that I now enjoy it more than ever. On top of helping those with an existing interest, my blog might also help you find out that you have an interest in gardening that you never knew existed within you. After all, gardening is a big step toward self-sufficiency. Even if you don’t commit to it enough to become truly self-sufficient, you will still find that producing a part of your own food, no matter how small, feels incredibly satisfying.
Personally, gardening has helped me build a small community and not just online. The insights I’ve provided have helped those around me who have tried their hand at gardening. Gardening has brought me closer to all sorts of people, such as my wife’s friends, my daughter’s vegan friend, and some of my friends. On top of all that, gardening provides you with a physical and mental place where you can go when you need some peace when life gets hectic, and my blog will demonstrate that as well.
Writing
Writing is another big passion of mine, so it was only natural that I would eventually start blogging about it. My blog on this topic was “Writing and the Written Word,” and its content focused on a range of useful skills and insights to assist writers as they make their way to success in this day and age of digitalization. Writing has always been an important part of my life, and my exploits in the world of blogging have only made that part greater.
Whether you’re having traditional writing problems, like writer’s block, or are looking for insight into how to publish and self-publish your works, Bert’s Blog is the right place for you. My content on these topics will delve into those common obstacles and help you improve as a writer. Furthermore, I make it my mission to ensure that young, up-and-coming writers remain safe in the world of publishing by avoiding pitfalls that can stifle or even ruin your career before it even starts.
In all, my blog is a destination both for professional writers and for those who aspire to be one. If you are looking for ways to ease your path toward publishing, you will find plenty of them on my blog. I provide resources and guidance that will help you with self-publishing, marketing, submissions, and construction of author websites. I focus on all of the unique challenges and needs that writers face, whether the issues are traditional or modern in regards to the world of writing.
My blog on this topic was best summarized as snippets on writing, blogging, publishing, and the English language, but my area of focus is always expanding, just like my blogs. You will also find that my blog will often present you with various services that can provide you with more specific, tailored help that you might need to kick-start your career or grow as a writer. Information, resources, and a writing community – all of these things are here.
You’ll find interviews with bestselling authors, rising talent, as well as my essays that go into more depth on all sorts of predicaments of writing. When it comes to writing, Bert’s Blog takes special care to look at the industry through a modern prism. It’s an age when it’s never been easier to bypass all the middlemen that used to make things more difficult for writers. Everyone can become an instant influencer or find major success via self-publishing.
The digital world is dynamic and full of opportunities, and writing is no exception. My goal and calling is to help you take full advantage of that. This blog focuses on the business side of writing and strives to make you the most self-sufficient writer you can be. Furthermore, you will find useful and practical tips regardless of whether you are committed to poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.
All in all, whatever sort of writing you are hoping to do or get better at doing, this blog is a place for you. Hopefully, this blog will help you perfect your skills and then guide you every step of the way toward getting the results of your skills out there into the world. Over time as my commitment to blogging grew, I have also gathered the assistance and participation of various folks with backgrounds in writing, so my blog will often be a team effort as well, enabling us to adopt the most versatile approach.