Thanks for the help and the pizza, I appreciate it! Being the tech nerd that I am, I have a few ~2013-14 generation HP proliant and dell poweredge servers in my home office that I have picked up second hand as retired gov systems, but they are in great working order.

I am running my node on a native linux ubuntu installation on a semi souped up dell poweredge T320 that I just added 64 gb of RAM, though I may move it to my old dell R730 virtualization server in the future as I have more resources on that. I recently got my ISP to give me a static IP and a 2 gigabit direct fiber line. I'm starting to feel like I have my own datacenter in my home office lol (it runs a solid 82 degrees in there in the summer and I don't have to use my furnace in the winter anymore, which for context, I live in an area that has frequent sub-zero temps from Nov-Mar 😂)