Slacking on the labbing / InternetworkExpert Boot camp / More study time

I’ve been slacking on the labbing lately. In the last month I might have done (3) 6 hour sessions on the rack. I’ve been un-motivated lately, but that might be aggravated by the fact that I have no real place to sit at my apartment. I bought a cheap stool at Wal-Mart to sit at the kitchen island, but that’s not comfortable for more that 10 minutes. I have tried folding my Aero Bed in half to sit on, but something had to give. I’ve been eyeballing a desk from BioMorph, who makes some pretty sweet desks. I prefer to have a low desktop to work on, and the split desktop which is fully adjustable seems ideal. To go along with that I am on the verge of getting an Aeron from Herman Miller. The icon of the “dot bomb” era is amazingly comfortable. I was in love the first time I sat in one at a Sheraton Inn.

On another note, Christmas was a success and I managed to score 3 more books from my Amazon wish list. I got these three:

• Internet Routing Architectures (2nd Edition) (Networking Technology)
• Internetworking with TCP/IP, Vol 1 (5th Edition)
• Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches, and Internetworking Protocols (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

My job may be allowing me to attend the bootcamp I won from the InternetworkExpert.com CCIE scholarship. I am interested in their new bootcamp – CCIE Routing & Switching Advanced Foundations Bootcamp. This objectives of this bootcamp more closely reflects where I am at right now. I’m shooting for the February class. I’ll know in the next week if it is a “go”.

Some of the training I am going through at work is stuff that I already know including basic, CCNA level routing and switching. I am trying to negotiate a deal where I do my own self-study to prepare for the CCIE lab exam. I sat through the first 3 days of class before we went on break, but when a class starts with a definition of classes of IP addresses, I tune out. If I have to sit through 6 weeks of that kind of stuff I will shove the closest sharp object in my eye. It’s like graduating college, only to return to grade school.

IEWB vol 1 v5 EIGRP done (finally)

This section took quite a while to complete, but not because of the difficulty, but because I am in the middle of moving to a new state. The move coupled with a different work schedule has left me little time, but things should improve.

I finally have internet access at the new apartment, which was nothing short of a miracle. The guy they sent out to do the install couldn’t figure out how to determine the ip address of my computer, so I had to help him. He had zero luck getting the modem to lock up. In the end he left, and after he did I went to the cable box outside the apartment, removed the trap he put on to filter out all the TV channels (I didn’t order cable TV stations) and the voila it worked. After that I got a cheap Belkin WAP and I was ready to roll. Last night was the first rack time I scheduled in the past week, but by the time I got home, ate and prepped for the session I was beat. About the time I logged in, the Z monster attacked and I was out. I have been getting up about 4:30am and it’s a little bit of an adjustment. Last weekend I was pretty useless due to the sleep deficit I was running during the week and it finally caught up to me. This week shouldn’t be as bad since I got 2 nights of decent (5+ hours) sleep.

I’m sitting on the floor right now because I have no furniture, which gets a little old when trying to do rack time. Next week I should have something to sit on, thereby increasing my productivity 10x. At least that’s how I hope it goes. Now on to OSPF.

InternetworkExpert sale on classes + IEWB VOL 1 v5 OSPF updates

InternetworkExpert is running a sale on CCIE Voice, Security and Routing and Switching 5 day bootcamps. The add on the homepage says $3995 for the R&S bootcamp but when you visit the R&S bootcamp page it’s listed as $3495, might be a typo but I’d imagine they’ll honor the deal.

More importantly the OSPF section of Vol 1 v5 is going to be updated again. They currently list the release as alpha. I’m half way through the EIGRP stuff, and I think OSPF will be next for me. This updates comes just in time so I can stay on track with my plan.

I was in a hotel this week and last week battling the internet access issue, finally this week I am in a room where the wired connection is working solidly, allowing me to do my rack time at night. I went home this past weekend and reserved that time for the family, this weekend is a long one, so I may sneak in a few hours here and there of study so I can close the chapter on EIGRP. In the big picture I guess EIGRP is fairly easy compared to other sections and protocols, but when 90% of the stuff I am doing is my first exposure to it, it’s a little daunting at first. I am reading in the Routing TCP/IP vol 1 as I am going through the sections, as well as watching the IE Advanced Technologies class on demand material. The CCIE 2.0 open lecture series times haven’t been working for my work schedule, so i’ll catch them as they are posted (have they done it yet?). I’m going to have to revisit most of the vol 1 stuff again, at times my mind is the opposite of a steel trap, but I’ll attribute that to the fact that this is my first exposure to the material and I have to build the “frame of reference” before I can begin to fully understand and retain it.

THE FRAME PROBLEM

The name “frame problem” derives from a common technique used by animated cartoon makers called framing where the currently moving parts of the cartoon are superimposed on the “frame,” which depicts the background of the scene, which does not change. In the logical context, actions are typically specified by what they change, with the implicit assumption that everything else (the frame) remains unchanged.

Shitty free Wi-Fi at Hampton Inn

So I’m staying at the Hampton Inn. Nice rooms, decent breakfast, shitty free Wi-Fi. I have been unable to do rack time the past 2 night because I can’t seem to keep a decent connection. When I finally get one, the internet is crawling. That’s the problem with free Wi-Fi, all the retards use it and watch useless streaming crap that hogs the bandwidth. A few bucks a day would be worth it as a barrier to entry to the network for the cheapskates that are bunging up the network. Maybe it’s a network issue, no a fast enough connection, no QoS supporting telnet etc, but I’d like to think it’s some retard watching streaming HDTV on his piece of shit computer. The response delay on telnet is unacceptable, especially for someone who can’t type (like me) and uses the command completion all the time. I’ve given up. Now I’m on the hunt for a place to go to do the rack time. The local book stores are pretty busy with people doing meaningless stuff, and taking up valuable space. The library’s close early, so I’m SOL until I can get an apartment.

I’m fed up.

In Augusta, GA as the Ambien lulls me to sleep

I just rolled into Augusta, GA which I will call home for the next 6 months. I am here for some training, but most weekends will be spent with the family 3 hrs away in Fayetteville, NC. This could be a great opportunity to have Mon- Thurs evenings open for study time. I’ll reserve the weekends for the fam. I’ve got big plans to use this time to maximize my study, and build my foundation for the lab exam. I’ll keep this up to date as the course plays out. Starting Monday night I have racktime every night through Thursday. Friday I’ll drive the 3hs back home and spend the weekend off the computer as much as I can stand to be away from it.

A component of the course I am in includes the Cisco Networking Academy Curriculum for CCNA. I’m going to try to work a deal whereby I study for the CCIE while others are learning CCNA. I am a CCNA/CCNP so to go through the CCNA material again would not be the best use of my time. I’ll keep you posted. Time to sleep, I’ve gotta rise at 4am when the fun begins.

Next CCIE Track

This was a good post from Jared. I have been wondering what the next easiest CCIE track to take was. I’m always looking ahead however far that might be, and found that Jared made a strong argument for what I might do next , assuming I finish the R&S without getting my feelings hurt too bad. The CCDE though would be more interesting to me though. I think there are inherent design tasks in most networking jobs. Rarely (I imagine) are you handed a “design plan” CCIE R&S lab exam style, and all you have to do is get it working by configuring it. It seems that you are expected to be a one stop shop to design and configure. I struggle with questions like, “is this the best way to approach this problem?”. I think the CCDE could help me understand the correct, top down approach to network design that is required in a functional design.

Ethan over at CCIECandidate is thinking about going to for the gusto.

CCIE Pursuit is scared

IEWB Vol 1 v5 – EIGRP

I have made it up to EIGRP in the vol 1 v5 workbook. I got about 1/3 of the way through it. Initially I loaded the wrong initial EIGRP config and noticed part way through the 5th task. I reloaded with the correct config and started over.

I started to use the TCL script and macros on the switches to verify connectivity in the labs. IE has a good post here for using these tools to save time. I will make this a habit to ensure that I’m good to go for the lab. I found myself copying and pasting the script and had to stop myself. I won’t have access to my notes text file in the lab and want to ensure I memorize it.

I also tuned in for the last bit of InternetworkExpert’s CCIE R&S Open Lecture Series which was open to the public. The topic was Multicast. Yesterdays was Multicast Troubleshooting, the order of the two seemed backwards to me, but there must have been a reason for it. It looks like the lecture ran almost 3hrs. It started at 4pm on the east coast, so it ran into my rack time that started at 6pm.

This EIGRP section will probably take me another 2 rack sessions to complete. It would be nice to have the Vol 1 complete by 4 Dec so I can fall in line with the Lab Meet Up Sessions that IE has scheduled. If I can finish the workbook, take Mock Lab 1 and do Lab 1 from Vol 2 I’ll making some swift forward progress.

CCIE 2.0 Begins Today

I just watched the first half of the first Open Lecture Series from InternetworkExperts CCIE 2.0 program. The topic is Troubleshooting IP Multicast. It’s going well so far. Brian McGahan is walking us through troubleshooting PIM dense mode on the Vol 1 v5 workbook topology. We are on a 10 minute break right now. About 45 minutes into the lecture I got a bad case of the “itis” ref Dave Chapelle; as defined in wikipedia as

The itis is a Caribbean term in Black American Vernacular English to describe a condition of sleepiness associated with eating meats and sauces, a real human phenomena known as food coma.

I had to get up and get a beer to make it through the rest. Just then, the FedEx dude rolled up to deliver Routing TCP/IP vol II. I registered one of my many Cisco Press books at ciscopress.com and got 35% off and free shipping which beat out Amazon for my business.

Brian is back, gotta go.

Lab preparation up to now

I started preparing for the lab in the beginning of October. The game plan to start off with was to do the InternetworkExpert Vol 1 v4.1 labs using rack time from GradedLabs. I made it through Bridging and Switching before I decided to switch to the vol 1 v5 which is currently in beta. They aren’t complete with v5 but at the rate I was moving I wasn’t going to catch up to them, and complete all the sections they had released. I switched over to Vol 1 v5 and started back at Bridging and Switching. Between those sections it took me about a month, approximately 35 hours to complete. It was slow going, especially tedious at time as you have to “undo” configurations you just did to begin the next section. All in all the material was fairly easy. When I get hung up I hit the DOC CD and try and find the answer before I check the solution given in the guide.

The next section I moved on to was frame relay. That was a considerably shorter section, requiring 1 – 5 hour session to complete. I felt like I was gaining momentum, and would be able to move at a reasonable pace in the future sections.

Next up was IP Routing. That section took me 2 – 5 hour rack sessions to complete. Some material I hadn’t had much hands on with slowed me a little, otherwise I could have completed it in one sitting.

Which brings me up to RIP. I just finished my second session and will aim to finish up this section during my next rack time, tomorrow morning bright and early at 6:00am. EIGRP is on the horizon.

What is a hack?

Hacker Slang: hack

[very common]

1. n. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.

2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed.

Not sure which definition I fall under, but I’m sure it’s one of the two. I toiled over what to use for a name for this blog. My wife came up with CCIEorBust, but that WordPress URL had been taken, and I don’t want to seem like a rip off. The guy who uses CCIEorBust has a tiny presence on the internet, but alas I settled on CCIE hack. I’m not too concerned with anonymity, but we’ll see how well this works out.