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About Nick Bauer

The Short Version

IT Versatilist with 20+ years of experience building systems that connect people and technology. From founding a Las Vegas computer shop at the dawn of broadband to running a 50-service self-hosted platform today, the thread has always been the same: take complex systems, make them work together, make them useful.

The Journey

Las Vegas Roots (2001-2008)

In 2001, when custom PCs were still a craft and broadband was just arriving in homes, I founded Sin City PC in Las Vegas. What started as a one-man custom build and repair shop grew into the go-to tech resource for gamers, small businesses, and anyone who needed their machine to actually work.

For seven years, Sin City PC served the Las Vegas community with custom builds, hardware repair, networking, and IT consulting. The shop became a gathering point for the local tech scene -- the kind of place where you'd come in for a RAM upgrade and stay for two hours talking about overclocking and the latest GPU benchmarks.

The Gaming Years (2008-2014)

By 2008, the gaming community around Sin City PC had grown large enough to deserve its own space. I spun off 8wire LAN -- named for the 8 wires in an ethernet cable. A Network of Gamers.

8wire was a dedicated LAN gaming center in Las Vegas: high-end PC stations, tournament hosting, eSports events, and community meetups. The Las Vegas Review-Journal featured the shop. For six years, 8wire was where Las Vegas gamers came together to compete, collaborate, and connect.

I ran both businesses simultaneously -- Sin City PC handling the service and consulting side, 8wire handling the community and gaming side.

The Pivot (2014-2022)

8wire closed in 2014 as the gaming landscape shifted. Sin City PC continued as a consulting-focused business, but the next chapter was already forming.

In 2020, I moved to Northern Virginia for work in the transit industry, and Sin City PC officially closed after 19 years. But closing the physical doors opened new ones. I started building the personal infrastructure that would become something much larger -- exploring self-hosting, knowledge management, and the emerging AI landscape.

The Platform Era (2022-Present)

What started as "let me self-host a few services" became Elitebench -- a production infrastructure platform running 50+ containerized services across 5 domains.

The platform includes:

  • SARA -- PostgreSQL with connection pooling, distributed storage, and continuous backups
  • Cortex -- Automated reverse proxy, centralized logging, uptime monitoring
  • Keycloak SSO -- Single sign-on across every service
  • Abyss -- Integrated media management with AI-powered classification
  • QP -- Local-first AI system with OpenWebUI, Ollama on an RTX 4090, and MCP integrations
  • Captain's Log -- Knowledge management pipeline connecting Obsidian vaults to documentation

Everything is containerized. Everything is backed up. Everything talks to everything else.

What I Build Today

My current work sits at the intersection of infrastructure, AI, and knowledge systems:

  • Infrastructure Architecture -- Elitebench platform: PostgreSQL, Docker, Caddy Docker Proxy, Keycloak, JuiceFS distributed storage, WAL-G backups, PgDog connection pooling
  • AI Systems -- QP with OpenWebUI, Ollama (local RTX 4090), LiteLLM proxy, MCP server integrations, custom classification pipelines
  • Knowledge Management -- Obsidian vaults, Captain's Log daily notes, MkDocs Material documentation with live editing, automated media classification via n8n + GPT-4
  • Media Platform -- Abyss/PlexAbyss: Plex, Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr, Immich photo management, Hoarder bookmarks, VPN-isolated downloads

Philosophy

IT Versatilist -- not a specialist in one thing, but someone who connects systems across domains. The value isn't in knowing one tool deeply; it's in seeing how tools fit together into something greater than their parts.

  • Systems thinking -- Every service is part of a larger system. Design for integration.
  • Local-first -- Own your data, own your infrastructure, own your AI.
  • Privacy-focused -- Self-hosted by default. Cloud services are the exception, not the rule.
  • Knowledge preservation -- If it's not documented, it doesn't exist. Build systems that capture and organize knowledge automatically.

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