About
I’m a full-stack engineer and systems administrator in the United States, with more than twenty years of building and running software for online communities. In January 2023 I founded Digital Den, and I design, build and operate everything it ships.
That means Discord bots running in hundreds of servers, a competitive FiveM and RedM platform, a library of free developer tools, and the infrastructure, monitoring and documentation that keep all of it up.
01Now
I run Digital Den as DGDEN LLC. I write the code, run the servers, ship the releases, write the docs and answer the support tickets. Four bots are in production, the free tools keep growing, and SKIRM, the successor to iSe.GG, is in closed beta.
02Before
Communities came first: Battle.net clans in the early 2000s, then Tactical Carnage and Vast Gamer, which grew past 40,000 members. Running them meant running their servers and websites, and that turned into a career: hosting, virtual worlds, freelance bots and server builds, then iSe.GG, the first combat server on FiveM. The full timeline.
03Approach
Least privilege by default, documentation in the same commit as the change, and small steps that can be rolled back. I use AI coding tools every day, mostly Claude Code in VS Code, and hold their output to the same review as anything else I ship.
04Stack
What I ship with today, what I’ve worked with, and what I’ve moved off, with the vendor’s end-of-life date where there is one. Keeping systems off unsupported software is part of the job.
What my current repositories run on
Used on real work, comfortable picking back up
What I moved off, and what replaced it
| Moved off | Now | Why | End of life |
|---|---|---|---|
| Node.js 20 | Node.js 22 and 24 | Superseded by the two current LTS lines. | |
| Node.js 18 | Node.js 22 and 24 | Where the older bots started. | |
| Windows Server 2016 | Windows Server 2019 to 2025 | Extended support runs out in January 2027. | |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | Windows Server 2019 to 2025 | Out of support since 2023. | |
| CentOS Linux | Debian and Ubuntu | Red Hat ended CentOS Linux; CentOS 7 was the last to go. | |
| Fooocus | ComfyUI | In bug-fix-only support since its last release in August 2024. | No vendor EOL |
| discord.py and Pycord | discord.js | Role Tracker’s rebuild as RostaBot moved the bots to Node. | No vendor EOL |
| ESX | QBCore and Ox | My FiveM work moved to QBCore and the Ox libraries. | No vendor EOL |
| cPanel, WHM and WHMCS | Cloudflare and Pterodactyl | Sites moved to the edge and apps to containers. | No vendor EOL |
| TCAdmin | Pterodactyl | Game and bot servers run on Pterodactyl now. | No vendor EOL |
| vRP | QBCore and Ox | One of the first FiveM roleplay frameworks, from years back. | No vendor EOL |
| Certbot and manual TLS | Cloudflare | Certificates are issued and renewed at the edge. | No vendor EOL |
| Bootstrap | Tailwind CSS | Utility classes and design tokens won out. | No vendor EOL |
| Ventrilo and TeamSpeak | Discord | Where every community I run lives now. | No vendor EOL |
| LSL and virtual worlds | Moved on | Second Life, ActiveWorlds, There and OpenSimulator, from 2008 and 2009. | No vendor EOL |
05Off the clock
Competitive gaming taught me to read a situation fast, adapt mid-round and perform under pressure. Those habits carried straight into everything I build.
1999 to CS2 · Retired
I joined the Beta in late 1999, straight off a CD-ROM, and competed through the organized leagues of the era: CAL Open, Intermediate, Main and Invite, OGL seasons, and fill-in matches in the CPL. I won my share of cash tournaments as an entry fragger: first through the door, unpredictable, changing angles and tactics mid-round. If you’ve played against me, you know.
Raid progression
Hardcore raiding: studying boss mechanics, tightening rotations and being the one who shows up prepared. Tactical Carnage started as a Horde guild on Stormrage that ranked in the top 10 across all servers. A serious raid team runs like any other team, on consistency and communication.
JustinTV, Twitch, Kick · Retired
I streamed on JustinTV when live broadcasting to the public was brand new, became a Twitch Partner well before streaming was a mainstream career, and later verified on Kick. I retired from streaming years ago. The accounts stand; the grind doesn’t.