Hello everyone, my name is Adrian. I currently work as a teacher within a drug and alcohol recovery program. My primary duties are to make or use the available curriculum and what we call discipleship, a form of mentoring.
For eight years, being in this position has shown me how to be a good role model even with my quirks. During my free time, I have been busy studying for my degree. I am currently attending a local community college and am majoring in networking with some cybersecurity thrown in for good measure.
My two main focuses in life are working at my job and studying to build and secure networks. So I like that Cardano’s ecosystem needs systems that have these technical aspects. I also enjoy working with people to make this whole thing do what it does.
*My current pledge is 200 Ada. My validator’s ticker is STONE, which has a fixed fee of 340 ADA and a variable fee of 2.5%.
From what I’ve seen and read, my chances are non-existent of minting a block with these numbers. Is that true?
- You can reach me here if you would like to know more about my pool’s uptime or want to ask me something more general
On Twitter @Stone_Curator
On Telegram @Stone_Curator
- Pool ID
8b9a73accec94d747dbeba74c3da0b0871936c1cd2ea9b99c6a0acb1
- Location
I’m from Phoenix, Az. I have one node here, another running in California through a VPS.
- Pool infrastructure
Currently, my infrastructure involves one VPS and one local node hosted in my house. I run both instances on Ubuntu 20.04LTS, and my internet speeds vary between nodes. For example, I’ve seen my relay get rates above 15 Mbps, while my Block producer can get as high as 2 Mbps.
I have a spare block producer running in case I need to switch nodes for maintenance. I do have some periodic downtime on my block producer, but my block and relay nodes are entering into their longest stretch being online. I accomplish this daily by following the block producer’s metrics using Prometheus and Grafana, and I’ll use any logs or other readouts to troubleshoot issues. So far, the worst problems I’ve had were corrupted database files on all my nodes.
- Operator experience
I have my CompTIA network+ certification, and I am obtaining my CompTIA security+ certification by summertime 2022. I am in school for Computer Information Systems, and I am a few semesters away from completing. When I’m not studying for these things, I’m getting ready to compete in the National Cyber Leagues for the first time. There’s a bit of hacking and other stuff involved in the competition, so wish me luck because I don’t know much yet.
I am a small stake pool operator now. Here’s one reason why my node can compete. I am willing to learn no matter the circumstances. Let me explain to you how that works.
The experience I have gained while learning how to bring these nodes online has been valuable. As a competent operator, I will become more intelligent as I commit to this project. Since I read that marketing your node is a must, I am motivated to give my block producer the chance to mint a block, so I’m learning how to get the word out. I’ve read some good resources so far from these forums on what to do in these situations.
So, like I talked about above. I chose to join the Cardano ecosystem because I wanted to be a part of a system with an involved community of individuals. I can learn more about decentralization and, at the same time, teach others how they can help achieve that.
As for ways people can follow STONE Validator’s progress, I am currently working on that. I have claimed the stake addresses and pool id via pooltool.io so that you can read messages from me on the opening page of my node’s stats. Just go to pooltool.io and search STONE Validator or use this address in its place.
If anyone adds stake to my pool, you are helping a good cause. You’ll find all the information you need to get started at pooltool.io. All the successes that I achieve with this project reflect positively on my day job. In addition, it helps my students see the need to continue their education to help change lives.
Thank you for your time,
Adrian aka Stone_Curator