After struggling for a while on my original install, I decided to bite the bullet and do a fresh install from scratch. For this rev, I used microk8s from the start, but also used the latest and greatest LTS from Ubuntu, instead of my original (so 20 instead of 16). Also, I used reduced requirements for the base vm hardware, using only 1 vCpu and 1 Gig of RAM. After running a bit, I noticed things were a bit laggy and that my disk read/writes were going at a base level over a long time. I quickly figured out that the VM was swapping due to too litttle RAM, and bumped this up to 2GB, and the disk usage and lagginess went away. I have a decent grasp of the basics, but need more practice. I'm looking to do two things, shorter term -- first is run true multiple nodes, maybe in two vms on two different boxes, and run an actual real-life application -- in this case, I'm thinking Monica, the personal CRM.