Must. Ride. Now.

I guess I have owned at least four guitars in my life and have never really been able to play.  My son seems like a guitar genius to me so I keep assuming from a genetic standpoint maybe there’s some hope I can at least learn enough not to embarrass myself…

Well, Diane signed the two of us up for an Instant Guitar for Hopelessly Busy People class at the community college and while it wasn’t instant; it was helpful.  Enough so that Diane and I each bought new guitars.  Now, in addition the my Martin D-15M, I have a new Taylor 214CE.  This means that according to anyone that knows anything about guitars, I own two instruments that should be reserved for musicians with a much higher pedigree.

Back to practicing…

Is it riding season yet..?

Postponed my CCNA exam today… just for a couple of weeks.  Although I thought I had mastered the material in the training videos, as I began to go through the exam simulations, I concluded that there was material on the exam that the videos simply didn’t cover. Further, the test format itself proved to be a little ominous for a guy who hasn’t taken a test in some time. No worries though, a little extra time should allow me to master the exam simulations and give me a bit more confidence walking in the exam room…

Well the new web site is all set for the South East Arizona Touring Riders.  Diane and I will be taking on a larger role with the club allowing our long-time benevolent dictators, Deryle & Wanda time to ride more and tend to clerical matters less.  The site can be seen at www.seatrider.org   and hopefully gets good feedback.  The S.E.A.T. folks deserve a nice website and Diane and I have been enjoying being a part of the group for several years.

Ride often and ride safe!

Time flies when you’re having fun!  As the weather has begun cooling off somehow our social calendar has gotten busier and busier.  I am scheduled to take the CCNA exam November 9th and before that day rolls around it seems a never-ending stream of social obligations.  As anxious as I am about my pending exam date, I am also looking forward to all of the coming events…  S.E.A.T. has a fall overnighter in the White mountains, Adam & Sara are coming to visit, and Halloween in Bisbee never fails to entertain.  There is quite a bit of weirdness to go along with all the fun, though.  Suffice it to say that this has already become a year to remember.

More soon…

I am sure the only person excited by this is... Me.

My 851 router is finally working as a firewall AND my frame relay hub & spoke lab is up and running! Maybe frame-relay isn’t that bad after all.

I get excited about the weirdest stuff…

Cisco Lab Rack

So far, so good actually.  There have been a few surprises; but, nothing in the CCNA curriculum is too difficult so far. In fact, I can already see that to gain any real expertise in this is going to require at least a CCNP certification.  Binary math and subnet masking have been far less intimidating than I expected- And switching has been far, far more complex that I thought.  Who knew?  If all goes according to plan, I should be testing for the CCNA before the end of September.

Well, it’s back-to-school time and today’s lesson is binary math and IP sub-netting…  Really.  I am working on the Cisco vendor specific CCNA certification and hope to add the Security specialty soon thereafter.  Honestly, I haven’t found the dreaded binary and sub-netting portion of this to be altogether too difficult.  After all, how hard can math be when all you have are ones and zeros?

My original plan was to take the full exam by mid-September.  That may be just a bit too ambitious; but, I may split the CCNA cert into the two separate exams in lieu of the single composite exam so I can still have the CCENT portion complete in September…  Still, six weeks may be enough time to cover all the material.  I guess we’ll see.

Wish me luck!