Just want to see if this works:

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Cisco Exam Number: 640-801
Passing score: 849
Your Score: 912

I rule.

Anyone looking for a network engineer?

Total Credits: Required – 100.00 Earned – 101.00 Remaining – 0.00
Total GPA: 3.517

10 Years after I started, I finally have a degree! If anyone has been paying attention, a year ago I decided to finish my degree. No pressing reason to I guess, it was just something I regretted never actually finishing. Unfortunately, because so much time had passed many of my credits from long ago didn’t count anymore. So I basically still had a year left. I set myself a goal of being done in a year, and I actually hit it. So for the past year I’ve been working 40-50 hours a week and taking 14-17 credit hours. To say I didn’t have much of a life is probably an understatement. I’m not really sure I’ll know what to do with all my free time this summer. Thursday I take a Cisco certification exam, then I’m done with studying. Eventually I may go on to get a 4 year degree… maybe in another 10 years though.

So, next chapter? I have no idea. Assuming I pass this exam Thursday (and I should) I’ll have:

• 10 years experience as network administrator
• AAS Computer Information Systems/Network Engineer
• Cisco Certified Network Associate
• Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer

Actually, I’m not sure if my MCSE is still valid – I’ll have to look into that. Too many of my exams might have been retired by now. That’s actually a pretty decent looking resume I think. I think I’ll relax for a couple weeks… maybe take a nice vacation this summer. Then I’ll tighten up the resume and see where it leads me. Know anyone hiring?

Why can’t gum companies just say what flavor you’re buying? Had I known “Midnight Cool” actually meant “black licorice” I wouldn’t have bought the crap! Damn you Wrigley!!! Stop trying to be cute and just name the stupid thing what it is.

Sigh… more stupidity requires my attention. Guess I’ll have to write the rest later.

Picture of Rainbow
I took this picture last Wednesday with my camera phone. You could actually see the rainbow from end to end, and there was a slightly dimmer one above the one you can see here. Just thought it was kind of neat. This and the lightning shot are probably two of the cooler images I’ve ever captured with my phone 🙂

I’m building an ark – anyone have some animals that need saving?

Adding to the List of Thing I Don’t Understandâ„¢
– If a print job fails, why do you try it 6 more times? Did you forget you already hit ‘print’?
– How did Terry not win Survivor?

Not much going on since my last post, so here are some random thoughts:

My bike is running beautifully now – I went wandering around last weekend for a little over 100 miles.

Have you seen Napster Links? (free registration req’) — pretty cool stuff.

I’m done with one class, and almost finished with the other two. One is actually going to take until the end of the quarter, the others I worked ahead in. Not sure what I’m going to do with myself after this quarter… vacation maybe.

Speaking of being done with this crap, I’ve been offered a job. On the upside, it’s big money, something new, in a new place, would look great on a resume, and could lead to a really good full-time gig. The bad: It’s a 3 month stint in Iraq. Sigh… yeah, I’ll probably pass on that one. The money isn’t good enough to dodge IEDs while working 7×12.

Who broke the weather? This constant cloudiness is making me grumpier than normal.

I can’t get motivated to study this cisco crap.

I’m thinking of buying one of these to play Gran Turismo 4 with. Does that make me just a little too much of a geek? I’m going to buy a controller that costs 8x what the game did, and almost as much as the system I’m playing it on. If you want, you can buy it for me. Hey, at least I’m not asking for this to go with it!

I’ll put this here for anyone that happens to hit Google looking for why their car won’t start (hopefully it’ll save you some time – the answers are out there, it just takes awhile to find) This specifically applies to Pontiac Grand Am (at least year 2000 through 02) but presumably could hold true for most GM vehicles. If you go to start your car and it does nothing – lights come on but starter doesn’t turn (some report that the starter turns, but the fuel pump isn’t on so it’ll never actually start) it may be because of the stupid passlock system. It’s a security “feature” that keeps people from stealing your car. The computer needs to ‘see’ the key turn. Of course, this only applies if your battery isn’t dead – watching your dome/dash lights for dimming when you try to start it will tell you if the battery is dead or not. With the key in the “on” position, the “Security” light will be flashing. Leave the key on for 11 minutes – the security light should stop flashing. Turn the key back to off, then try to start it. This is how the computer relearns the key. At this point I’m not sure how to keep it from happening again (assuming it does) but it’s probably either something as simple as needing a new key (if there’s a lot of bronze showing on your key, try this first) or something a little worse like the ignition cylinder needing replaced. I guess I’ll find out. I don’t think my next car will be a Grand Am – between this and the 3 replaced wheel hub assemblies, it’s driving me nuts already.

I should probably get some work done…

Happy tax day!

Well this weekend was pretty nice – I got a lot accomplished, had some fun, got ahead in my school work, made the World’s Greatest Ribs &trade and even had a few minutes to setup a Fish Cam 🙂 My bike is even (almost) ready to go for the season – just waiting on the battery that should be on my porch today. Just a note – if you decide to change the plugs yourself on a R6, it’ll take much longer than you think it will.

In case anyone is accessing my home Cisco lab – it might be a little goofy for the next few weeks. I do have a Cat 5000 that I’m dropping in, as well as a new 2600 to do trunking. It’ll be on the diagram eventually.

So the “Tax Professionals” are going out after work to celebrate the end of their busy season. I wish I could cram 80% of my job into 3 months, then have a party thrown for it. “Yeah for you! You did your job! We’re all so proud!” Gag. Why don’t they throw me a party for driving 40 miles to click a button for some moron? (No, seriously, I did that last week) Ingrates.

I guess that’s about it… everything is boring here at the moment. But it’s summer, and that always gets a little exciting.

Yesterday was a spectacular Monday. Ok, so work was bad for a Monday, but after…. after was good. I got home in record time (I was tired, I skipped class) and decided to run some errands. Didn’t have to wait at all to get my haircut, and the guy did it in less than 10 minutes. Went to the grocery, had a ton of stuff, went right to an open cashier who had to be the quickest cashier I have seen in my life. If I decide to open a grocery store, he’s my lead cashier. Seriously, I was the bottleneck – I couldn’t throw stuff on the belt fast enough for him.

My night was even educational – at the gas station I learned that “… you don’t need a million dollars if you’re dating someone with a million dollars!” When I start my own country, talking loud on a cell phone in public will be a serious offense. I may even allow law enforcement to just shoot you if you’re doing that. At least those of us standing in line got a good laugh out of it. Oh, and ordering $20 worth of food at a fast food drive thru will also get you shot. Yes, some lady did that Sunday – and of course had no idea what the entire family wanted when she pulled up to the speaker. But I’m not here to complain about Sunday, Sunday was still decent too – my mother was in town, she came out to the DZ to watch and had a good time.

Maybe sometime this week I’ll get the ‘old’ stuff back up on here. When I rebuilt the whole thing, I never put the links back in to the old stuff… probably time to do that. And I may put up a ‘fish cam’ – I have a small saltwater tank now and a webcam that’s doing nothing. I don’t get searches for ‘balki’ anymore, but now there’s a dozen or so a month looking for casts, broken bones, legs in casts, etc. That just seems odd. And a link to something on here was posted on a car forum, but I have no idea what. And I got hit with guestbook spam… seriously people, what’s the point? You suck.

Ok, back to playing with VMWare and planning a vacation for the summer….

I’m thinking of becoming a weatherman. We were supposed to get 8 inches of snow today. They had the stupid ‘Winter Storm Warning’ thing scrolling across the bottom of the TV all day yesterday. Schools were posting delays and closings as of last night. This morning they say ‘Well, we’re not getting as much as we thought… maybe just an inch or two.’ I actually got to work early today (side-effect of taking a 4-day weekend, I doubt I’ll make it a habit) and it hadn’t even started snowing yet. An hour later, and there’s about an inch on the ground here downtown.

Well it’s been about 3 months since I’ve put anything on here, so this will probably be long. I’ll try to break it up a little….

School: One more quarter. I’m actually on Spring Break right now (Wooo! Party!!!) Last quarter was decent – one “A” and two “B” I should have ended up with an A in stats too, but I just ran out of love for that class and bombed the last few weeks. Oh well. The other B was a pile of crap too – almost the entire grade was based on a group project, and my group was stupid. One more quarter, and it should be an easy one.

Just got done with a few days off work – nice 4 day weekend. Work is annoying me, I’m be glad when I get a different job. There’s one lady here that is just a complete pain in the ass – she puts everything off until the last minute, then demands I help her out of the mess she got herself into, and get snippy with me when I don’t. This last time, she tried to complain about me (said I had a negative attitude) but just ended up making herself look stupid. Maybe one of these days I’ll tell the whole story, it’s actually pretty funny.

Season is about ready to start. My reserve is being inspected and repacked as we speak. (Well, maybe not exactly at this instant, but it’s in my rigger’s possession) I’m looking forward to it – it’s been since late October that I’ve jumped.

Black for the PS2 isn’t that bad. Rent it though, don’t buy it. And Resident Evil 4 was really good – I need to rent that again to finish it. I can’t wait for the PS3 to come out. I played a Xbox 360 for the first time awhile ago – damn it’s pretty!

Watched a ton of movies lately. Not much else to do here during the winter. Jarhead and Murderball are about the only two ‘must see’ movies I’ve watched lately. Cinderella Man is close to making that group. Saw 2 wasn’t nearly as good as the first, but still decent – if you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one. Final Cut and 28 Days Later were both worth a rent too. In the Mood for Love is probably a good movie, I just wasn’t in the mood for it (pun intended). Pushing Tin and Mighty Wind I would call rent-worthy as well, along with Lord of War. In the “Mindless eye candy” category we have The Island, – long on Special Effects, short on everything else. I think my postman is taking the movies I’m trying to send back and watching them first. If I mail the movies back at my house, it takes 3-5 days for them to get it. If I send it from work, it’s there in a day or two. I’m starting to wonder if I upset him somehow.

Sorry there’s nothing too exciting here… life is fairly boring at the moment. I think I need a vacation…

… sue me.

Good news: I got an “A” in every class last quarter. I are smart. More good news is that I have the next month to do whatever the hell I want (after work of course) and not worry about catching up with homework on the weekends. I’ve taken this opportunity to catch up on sleep, TV, internet gossip, movies, and video games.

Sleep: It’s good.

TV: I had a CSI: Las Vegas marathon courtesey of Tivo last week. (By the way, you can get a 40 hour Tivo for $49 after paying for service here — put seth@wildbluesky.com in as the referring email address) The show still holds my attention better than the dozen other knock-offs. But, why did they have to make Brass the guy who shot the other cop? No one really likes the girl on there, it should have been her.

And Las Vegas… seriously, blown off the roof by a gust of wind?! You couldn’t come up with a better way to kill off a character? You’re already moving up the charts on Jump the Shark – maybe the writers were really trying to out do the poisonous envelopes, open elevator shafts, and one-armed doctors being crushed by helicopters. This show was good, mindless entertainment – I think it took the ‘mindless’ too far.

I still catch Survivor every week – I hope Steph wins. Lost still has me guessing. I didn’t watch the first half of the first season, but it hooked me pretty quick midway through. I caught a few episodes of Jailbreak too. I just can’t get into it, and now you have to wait until January to find out what happens. Meh. I think Grey’s Anatomy is either going to get better and be the next ER, or it’s about to tank. How I Met Your Mother is turning out to be a decent show, as is My Name is Earl. They’re fairly hit or miss, much like Family Guy – but when they’re hit, it’s hilarious.

Internet Gossip: Ok, so I don’t have anything really. The only exciting news I have is that Tivo announced they’re going to support “TivoToGo” on your Apple video iPod and Sony PSP – that would be cool.

Movies: War of the Worlds was a huge let down, and not just because of Tom Cruise’s antics. It just wasn’t good, didn’t flow, didn’t make sense in some places, and just generally left me confused as to what Spielberg was thinking. Layer Cake was surprisingly good. And unlike a bunch of other people, I rather like Punch-Drunk Love. Charlie and the Chocolate Factgory wasn’t bad once you got past the creepy Ompah-Loompa. I’m sure there was some others in there, but nothing that stands out at the moment.

Video Games: Call of Duty 2 didn’t seem to live up to the hype. It was ok, but I might have actually enjoyed the first one more. Same with Burnout Revenge – it was ok, but basically just the first one with a few changes and online play (and there’s hardly ever anyone online to play, and the ones that are have whatever super-mega-awesome car unlocked and leave you in the dust.) Gun was really fun. But it’s a “rent, don’t buy” kind of game. I finished the storyline and most of the side missions inside a week of light playing, and there’s zero replay value. Once you get your stats up enough, it’s almost too easy.

So, anyway, it’s 10 ’till 5 on a Friday… time to head home. I might stop by for some Shiner Bock though – did I mention we can get it in this crap-hole state finally? The only decent thing that comes out of Texas, and I finally don’t have to suck-up to morons like ‘Cakes to bring me some.

That last post was my 100th. Aren’t you thrilled.

I had a revelation this morning. I know, everyone seems to have revelations and epiphanies and whatnot… but this one was new for me:

I don’t want to work here anymore.

Now, I’ve often grumbled about my job and some of the people here, but this is different. I don’t know if all the planets were aligned just right or what, but out of the blue this thought just crystallized. It’s not really that I hate my job – I dislike it at times, and other times it’s semi-enjoyable. There’s a few people I could do without, but for the most part they’re decent. I hate driving downtown everyday, there’s no good part to that. Nope, I just don’t want to do it anymore. Maybe it’s a little burn out, maybe it’s the stack of work that got left for me because I took Friday off, maybe it’s because all hell broke loose this morning with one of the servers, or maybe I’ve just finally hit my ‘stupid quota’ and can’t take any more ignorant users. I’d be lying if I said at least some of it didn’t come from being away from a computer, TV, and out of cell service for most of the weekend. I mean really, how easy could it be to face a Monday in a concrete jungle after spending the weekend looking at this?

Evidently I’m about 10 years behind on starting my own bed and breakfast down there, it’s already saturated now I hear. I keep getting emails telling me I could make thousands working from home – maybe I’ll try one of those. Or maybe I’ll just take a few more long weekends someplace nice before the year is up, regain my sanity, and realize that they pay me halfway decent for my level of education and people skills. 🙂 There is the off chance I’ll win $250 million in tomorrow’s megamillions lotto too (those being 5 in 175,711,536) I give myself roughly the same odds of being here in another year.