Tonight, for the first time ever, I got quad Aces, and wouldn't you know it, I failed to get paid.

Here's the story...

I'm playing over at ESPN, trying to qualify for their big tournament, the winner of which gets a seat in the main event of the World Series this June.

I bust out three players in the first hand of this single table tourney, so I'm sitting at around $4000 in chips, and the remaining 6 players are around $1000 each.

I'm dealt "Big Chick," As Qs, in late position. It's raised twice before my turn to act, and I limp in, just calling.

Flop comes Ac 4c Ad, so I've got a set, and I'm sitting pretty. Everybody checks it around, and I check too, slow playing it, making sure not to scare anybody off.

The Turn comes: 8s. First guy bets at it, two guys fold, another guy raises it, and I call. Initial raiser calls as well.

The River: Ah.

I've got AAAAQ!

First guy makes a bet twice the size of the pot. The guy to my right raises him. I'm thinking they've each made boats. I raise it again.

First guy goes all in. Guy to my right goes all in.

I'm waiting for my action dialog to pop up on the screen so I can crush these guys with my Quads... And waiting... Waiting... The dialog never comes.

About 30 seconds later, my client reconnects with the server, and I see my hand auto-folded by the computer due to my delay, and the winner has AAA88, beating AAA44.

I totally owned those guys.

It would have been a great story.

I guess I'll forever be telling the even better poker story about the time I held 4 Aces and a Queen, and folded the hand.

• I am growing exceedingly weary with this election cycle.
• This has by far been the dirtiest, most negative presidential campaign of my lifetime, and I doubt it will hold the record for more than 4 years.

Now, I realize that most of the people on Slashdot are either Kerry or Nader supporters, and have liberal leanings. I attribute this primarily to the average age of the Slashdot demographic, which in my estimation, runs from teens to young adults (15 - 26).

I have long been aware of the quote "A young person that isn't a democrat has no heart; an old person that isn't a republican has no brain." Overly generalized perhaps, but I think true for the most part.

For the record, I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I'm a Libertarian, both philisophically, and politically. I voted for Harry Brown in the last election, and I may end up voting for Badnarik in this one (unless it looks like Virginia is in play).

There are a number of reasons not to like President Bush. I am not a supporter, or a fan, by any stretch of the imagination.

If your reasons come down to your personal preferences between the liberal and conservative approach and general philosophy, that's fine, and I hope you go out and vote on Tuesday the same way you always do.

If, however, you've decided to vote against Bush for any of the following reasons:

• Uneccessary war in Iraq
• Bush/Cheney/Powell lied about WMDs
• Saddam Hussein posed no threat
• Alienation of our Foreign Allies
• Failure to adhere to the desires of the UN/World Community

If any or all of those are your reasons not to support this President, there are a couple of news stories that aren't getting a lot of press this week, which should be, and they might have an impact on your decision next Tuesday.

First, the Washington Times is reporting that the 380 tons of high explosives that are missing from an Iraqi ammo depot appear to have been removed from Iraq prior to the US forces invasion. These munitions were moved with the assistance of Russian special forces to Syria, Lebanon, and possibly Iran. In addition the the explosives, components used in the manufacture of chemical weapons may have also been convoyed out with them. In addition to relocating these munitions, Russian forces were also charged with assisting in the destruction of all documentation tying Russia to having provided these munitions to Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

The story can be read here. If it's true, was war in Iraq still the "Wrong War in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time?" Consider that carefully.

Second, ABCNews has received a video tape from an alleged al Qaeda operative. They turned it over to the CIA and the FBI a couple of days ago so that it could be authenticated, and late last night, it was authenticated. It warns that the next round of attacks will dwarf 9/11, that "the streets will run red with the blood of Americans," and that "America will mourn in silence" because they will be unable to count the many dead.

ABCNews has not reported the story, even though in the past, they've reported about these kind of tapes prior to any kind of government authentication. They claim they don't want to panic people prior to the election. It is equally possible, however, that they don't want people walking into a voting booth with "Terrorism" as the foremost issue in their minds, because if you look at any polling data, you'll see that Bush leads Kerry by a huge margin on the issue of Terrorism.

Information about this story can be found at Drudge, and specifically at this link.

I will conceed readily that the Washington Times is a conservative newspaper, but while you may take issue with their editorial bent, they have never been accused of sloppy reporting, or lying.

Drudge on the other hand is commonly viewed as a Republican shill, but terrorism is not a political issue.

I find ABCNews' actions to be highly irregular. Generally, the battle cry of the press is "the people have a right to know." ABC seems to be saying "the people have no need to know."

I hope these stories find their way into the public consciousness prior to the election, and I hope people can start to realize that the opinions they believe they have formed on their own based on "all" the information, are really the result of having been provded only with the information that can lead to a single conclusion, rather than the whole.

America has been duped.

Everything went great, and she was awake, alert, and talking just 40 minutes after they closed up her little chest.

You can't imagine the horror of learning that your little girl is going to have to undergo something like this. For the past 6 months, it's hung in the air of my house like a foul stench that nobody wanted to acknowledge. We snuck around the subject because facing it, and the potential outcome, was simply too awful.

We also tried to protect our son, age 10, from worrying too much, but ultimately, we had to tell him that there was a very real possibility that his sister might now be coming home from the hospital.

Thankfully, the worst is now behind us. My daughter is recovering well (the next 24 - 48 hours is still key), but if she continues to hit her recovery milestones at the current pace, we should be able to bring her home this weekend.

I'd like to commend an exceptional team of doctors working at VCU MCV (Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia) in Richmond, and especially Dr. Allen (her Pediatric Cardiologist), and Dr. Mehta (her Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon). In addition to being exceptional physicians, these men were supportive, approachable, and emotionally invested in seeing this through. Maybe it's because they do pediatric work, but I've never met two doctors that were less "distant" in my life.

I owe each of them a debt of gratitude that simply can't ever be repaid.

Just got the green light from my new employer, and I'll be resigning my current position on Friday. I'd been waiting for the new place to complete my background investigation, and I got the word this morning that it's been completed.

I gaze around at the suck ass company that I've been working at for almost 3 years, and I can now tell them to pound sand.

I still can't believe I've been here that long. It's by far the worst place I've ever worked, and yet, this is the longest period of time that I've ever been in ine place. I've resigned from much better places that this, usually around the two year mark.

I knew when I got here that I wanted to leave, but the economy was so crappy for so long, I was stuck.

All of that will soon be behind me.

Careful... Smiling too much... I don't want to tip them off about what's coming... Tee Hee!

As should have been expected, we all laughed, particularly at the photographs.

That was about two weeks ago...

Last week, the Don and Mike radio show called him up and did a half hour interview with him... I laughed again, and was shamed for having known about this guy beforehand.

Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel had him on his late night show, and I was simply dumbfounded.

Maynard is a good sport for letting all of these people make fun of him, but I can't believe how much attention he's gotten.

He's become the William Hung of the geek world!

Anyone else noticing these kind of issues?

I can't help but wonder if maybe /. has been the target of a DDoS.

So many scams... So many write-offs.

Why didn't I do this years ago?

Seriously, I'm looking for feedback. I'm about to incorporate, and I see a lot of upside potential. What might I be overlooking, both advantages and disadvantages?

It read just as I'd expected it would, some $30k short of what I'd earned the previous year. That's a first for me... I've never had a year where I went down in annual income.

I'm back to my 2002 level now, but it still leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.

The owner of my company, in an effort to "inspire" me, had reduced my salary dramatically back in January last year. It returned to the previous level in September, but by that point, I was already out the $30k.

My loyalty to this company was precarious prior to that reduction, but along the way, there has been a steady diet of catalyzing events that manage to erode it further.

The most recent is the institution of a new dress code for "Professional Services" staff. I'm a network consulting engineer. There are primarily two facets to my job:

• Pre-sales support
• Post-sales support

During Pre-sales, obviously, there's not much chance of getting dirty. It consists of meetings with the customer to get a handle on their requirements, and to study their existing network environment.

Post-sales is another beast entirely. It consists of unpacking a lot of equipment, staging it, configuring it, and repacking it. Then it has to get from our facility to the customer's facility. Then it has to be unpacked again, mounted, and integrated. There's usually a lot of squeezing into tight, dirty spaces with sharp edges, and crawling through ceilings and raised floors.

I don't have a problem with business casual for the pre-sales role.

I definately have a problem with business casual in the post-sales role. I can't count the number of khakis I've ruined doing installation work.

The new policy does not respect the difference between the two roles, and requires business casual regardless of the type of work I happen to be engaged in on a given day.

I am almost looking forward to submitting that first expense report for my next pair of torn khakis. I'm sure it'll occur very shortly. I'm not even expecting them to pay, but I will relish the look on their faces when I hand it in, and listen to them explain how it's my fault.

Pricks.

If anyone in the Northern Virginia / Washington DC area is looking for a CCIE with over 10 years of network consulting experience (At the likes of AT&T, Sprint, and IBM), please let me know.

Christmas was delightfully peaceful and tranquil at my house this year... It was just my immediate family (My Wife, two Kids, and Myself). A Christmas without the strain of visiting parents (or worse, in-laws) shouldn't be stressful, and mine fully lived up to it's low-key billing.

My wife actually utterred the words: "This is the most relaxing Christmas I can ever remember."

There was plenty of stuff to open... I got pretty much everything I put on the list I had prepared (I balked on the XM Radio for now, telling my wife to hold off on that... As much as I'm sure I'll enjoy it, for the most part, I just listen to Howard Stern and Don & Mike anyway... What am I going to do with 100 channels?).

I'd done most of my shopping for my wife while we were in Vegas earlier in the month. I got her a Dooney & Bourke purse that caught her eye, and a lovely Movado bracelet that she totally wasn't expecting. I should get a lot of milage out of that one.

The kids, typically, made out like bandits. In addition to all of the stuff we got for them (Which was, in my opinion, too much stuff to begin with), they got a bunch of additional loot from family and friends scattered around the country.

We're going to leave all of our decorations up for a while, probably through mid-January. One of the advantages of an artificial tree, I suppose, is that there's no rush to dispose of the tree before one of two things occurs:

• It drops all of it's sappy needles onto your carpet
• It catches fire and burns down your house

The wife was horrified last year when I told her that I wanted to get an artificial tree, but she's a true believer now.

We got a 7-foot pre-lighted tree. It comes out of the box, and you assemble the three sections, and viola, the hard work is behind you! You just have to hang the ornaments, and start drinking heavily skiped egg-nog, or Peppermint Shnaps Milkshakes. What could be better? You can put it up in early December, and take it down 6 weeks later, no watering. Try that with a real tree.

I was also fairly pleased with the lights I'd put outside this year... I covered all of our shrubs with white net lighting, and I lined our sidewalk and driveway with small staked lights with gold ornamented toppers. It was really easy to do, and it looked really nice (And classy... In my neighborhood, we vocally mock multi-colored lights, and goofy free standing caricatures.). The lighted walkway effect was enchanting, so much so that I'm going to install some permanent lighting this spring. I think I'll go with the solar light stakes, so that I don't have to mess with any electrical stuff.

At any rate, I hope you all had as nice a holiday as I did, and that your next credit card statement won't cause a cardiac arrest. :)

Last night, at about 1:00am, my wife rolls toward me in bed and whispers, "Hey, if we were still in Vegas, we could do downstairs right now and play some craps..." Normally, at 1:00am, she's been asleep for 2 or 3 hours, but we've got two things working against us:

• We're still on West Coast time.
• Worse than that, we're still on Vegas West Coast time, which is like being on Hawaii time, because you stay up till 3 or 4 in the morning in Vegas, only going to sleep because you know that you should, not because you need to.

The trip was fantastic. It was my second visit, but it was her first time out there, and even though I'd done everything I could to prepare her for how much fun it was going to be, it continued to exceed her expectations at every turn. (There's not many things in this world that live up to the hype, and even fewer that surpass it.)

As I mentioned in my last journal, we stayed at the Mandalay Bay. Our room was on the 32nd floor, which makes for an ear-popping elevator ride, and a spectacular view. December is the slow season in Las Vegas, so the table limits in the Casino were pretty low... That was an unexpected surprise. I didn't expect to find $10 minimums on table games on a Friday and Saturday night at one of the nicer resorts, but there were a lot of them, so your gambling dollars stretched pretty far. Bonus.

My wife was initially intimidated by the table games. She wanted to play slots and video poker, and that's what she did the first couple of days. Two things changed that:

• She caught up with me at a craps table, and watched me turn $100 into about $400 in precisely 6 minutes.
• I convinced here to fill the 4th seat at the Caribbean Stud table while I was there with the other couple we were travelling with, and on her second hand, she was dealt a straight (But unfortunately, the dealer failed to qualify, or she'd have gotten a pretty good payout).

After that, she was finally ready to try Blackjack. She sat between my buddy Ryan and I, so we could give her advice, and she did pretty good. She also played "Let it Ride," and even won there.

On the last full day we were there, Sunday, she probably only put about $40 into machines, and spent the rest of the time playing the table games.

She has already decided that the next time we go out there (Next time! Score!), she's going to play table games almost exclusively, because they are so much more fun.

So that's the gambling report. We also availed ourselves of many of Vegas' other diversions:

On Firday night, shortly after our travel companions arrrived, we went over the New York, New York, for the Rita Rudner show. Her act was pretty good, and we had 2nd row seating. My only complaint was that the seats were hard as rocks, and our butts were uncomfortable in the time between when we were seated, and when the show started. Even though I liked the act, I couldn't wait for it to end so I could get out of those god awful chairs. (Rita, when you read this ('Cause I know you read my Slashdot journal all the time.), please make them get you some proper seating in your Theater...)

The following night, we went to the Venetian for Lord of the Dance. (I can almost hear the laughter now.) When at home, sometimes you have to make a concession to your wife, and go to a chick-flick at the movies. Nobody goes to the movies in Vegas. Instead, sometimes the concession has to be a chick-show. Lord of the Dance was just such a concession. I appreciated the technical merit of the dancers... They were quite good. My wife, on the other hand, loved the show, and she'd been wanting to see it live for several years, ever since she saw it on PBS way back when. We also scored 2nd row seats for that one, so as you can imagine, my stock closed at an all-time high on the WGHM (Wife General Happiness Market).

So those were the shows. On to food...

Morning fare was Buffets. We mostly ate breakfasts there at the Mandalay, which was pretty good. We did however make it a point to hit the breakfast buffet at the Rio on Saturday, because their buffet is simply the best in town. I was dismayed to learn, after our arrival, that they had half of the buffet closed for renovations. That said, the Rio at half strength is still a match for any other buffet in town, so it was still good, even though it fell short of it's usual standard. Only Ryan and I noticed the shortcoming, because he and I stayed at the Rio over the summer. The girls were quite pleased with it.

For dinners, we hit some great places, which number in the hundreds. Topping the list, in my opinion, is the Luxor Steakhouse. It was my second visit to this place, and damn, it doesn't disappoint. Over the summer, Ryan and I wandered in there just to grab a bite before seeing the Blue Man Group (which plays at the Luxor). It totally blew us away. This time, we went there on purpose. My wife's review: "That was the finest meal I have ever eaten." My review: "That was just as good as the last time, which was the 'other' best meal I've ever had."

We dined in a number of other places, and for the most part, you can get a really good meal anywhere in that town.

Lastly, as though Las Vegas hadn't devised enough clever methods of parting people from their money in the Casinos, Shows, or Eating establishments, they've also become a force in upscale shopping. Manadlay Place, The Furom Shops at Caesar's, the new Complex at the Alladin, and don't count out the store at Bellagio. Park Avenue and Rodeo Drive have nothing on Las Vegas. If you're ever looking to blow some money, you can easily do it shopping in Vegas. I must have dropped two grand on Purses, Shoes, and Jewelry.

I was glad to do it, because this was the Honeymoon that my wife and I never took, and I expect to ride the wave of good karma from this trip for quite a while. I surprised her with a bracelet from Movado that she absolutely loves.

All told, it was a pretty expensive trip, but it was worth every penny. My wife and I had the best time we've ever had together, and we can't wait until we have the chance to do it again.

Score!

We're staying at the new tower at Mandalay for 4 nights.

Last time I was in Vegas, I vowed that I'd never stay at another Hotel/Casino that didn't have it's own Poker Room. You just never know when you're going to need to find a Hold 'Em game at 3:24am, and by taxi, you're always $12 from everywhere else in Vegas.

Mandalay has it's own Poker room, so I'm hooked up.

This is my wife's first trip to Vegas. Last weekend, while in Ashville, NC, for Thanksgiving with my family, I took her to the Harrah's at the Cherokee Indian Reservation. It was the first Casino she had ever set foot in, other than what you find on a Cruise Ship. I didn't want her to be totally caught off guard when we went out West this weekend, although Harrah's at Cherokee is diminutive casino compared to anything on the Strip.

I had her playing Video Poker, and she even won a little. I convinced her that it was time to play Blackjack, so she followed me over to the table, where I proceeded to lose 4 consecutive hands at the $25 table (Not due to bad play, simply due to bad cards). I explained to her that sometimes that's just the way it goes, and that if she let it affect her too much, that we wouldn't have a very good time when we were out doing the real thing.

She tried to come to terms with that, and we ended up playing more Video Poker for another 90 minutes.

When she was ready to leave, I said "I know you're kind of shell shocked about the last trip to the Blackjack tables, but I have to go play it again before we head out." She was cool with that.

This time, there was an open seat at one of the $15 tables. I took $30 in chips, and ripped off 6 consecutive wins, including 2 Blackjacks. I got up and handed her my stack of chips, and said:

"Here's your $100 back."

She's replied "That was much more fun than the first time you played."

The difference between gambling and most other forms of entertainment is that while you put your money down on the gaming table, there's a chance you'll have it or maybe even more, when you get up. With everything else, once you lay it down, it's gone for good.

I played poker at Binion's last summer for 9 straight hours, and it only cost me $10. That's pretty cheap entertainment, a about $1/hr. I played for another 3 hours at the Luxor, and left up over $200. I should have sat longer. I was making $66/hr.

Go out there with some strict daily loss limits, and you can lose every day, and still have it cost no more than any other good vacation destination.

At any rate, I can't wait.

So far, I've got:

The Sopranos: The Complete Fourth Season

XM:Radio

Blink 182 CDs

Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks (DVD Set)

X-Box Game: Crimson Skies

X-Box Game: SSX3

Family Guy Volume 1 (DVD Set)

Family Guy Volume 2 (DVD Set)

Die Hard Trilogy (DVD Set)

That's it... Looking over it, it looks mighty damn boring to me.

What should I be adding? What are the single biggest items that everyone else is looking for?

In the last 6 weeks, I've had about 12-15 different headhunters call me out of the blue, looking to get certain networking positions staffed.

My phone hasn't been ringing like this since over 2 years ago.

Is anyone else tracking increased headhunter activity?

(Greenspan be damned; I've got my own "Leading Economic Indicators.")

The last two times, I had blazed through the exam, finishing very early, and then using some of the balance of my time to review my solutions. You can only review your work so much before going crazy, so I'd left fairly early in each of those attempts.

When you finish as early as I did, that gives the lab proctors time to grade your exam the same day, and each time, my score reprt had been posted by the time I'd finished my 3 hour drive much.

In both of those attempts, I'd driven home feeling very confident, alomst certain that I'd made it. In both of those attempts, I'd come up short. That'll shake your confidence.

I've been doing Cisco networking for 9 years; I'm not some rookie with a study guide. I took each of those failures very personally, and it really was having an adverse affect on my life.

This time, I took a different approach. I made a deliberate effort to complete this exam as slowly as possible, but not so slow as to prevent me from finishing it.

You have 8 hours... In the past, I'd finished in 5 hours, and 5.5 hours. This time, I took 7 hours.

In the past, I'd reviewed my solutions over and over again for and hour and a half, or two hours.

This time, I reviewed everything just one time, in about 30 minutes. I caught two errors, and corrected them, and when I was done going through it all, I got up and left with only 15 or 20 minutes left until "time" was called.

This time, my score report was not waiting for me when I got home. I got to go through the night of the exam thinking "Well, at this point, I still haven't failed it."

I fully expected to have my results by 10:30am the next day... It had never taken longer than that.

I kept checking... No email. 12:30pm. Nothing. 1:30pm. I logged into the website, and my results were not yet posted. 3:30pm. No change.

The waiting was killing me, but all through it, I was able to keep saying to myself "Well, at this point, I still haven't failed it."

On into the evening... 8:30pm... 9:30pm... 11:00pm... No results. I went to bed a full day after having taken the exam, and still I hadn't failed it. I was anxious, but willing to continue waiting, so long as the wait was worthwhile.

This morning, I check my mail at 7:00am, before leaving for work. Nothing.

On the drive, I called my boss, and we commiserated about how crazy it was that I hadn't yet heard. My Mom hadn't called, fearing the worst, and knowing that I'd be in no mood to talk about it had I failed.

When I arrived at work, at about 9:20am (Goddamn DC area traffic...), I set up my laptop, VPN'd home, and started downloading all my email. My buddy came over to my cube, and we were bullshitting. When a break in the conversation came, I glanced back at the mail client.

There it was... I message received at 8:30am from the CCIE program. It came while I was driving. I didn't open the message, logging directly into Cisco's website to go right to the results page. I quickly navigated through the site to the certification section, and began logging into my results page. It occurs to me now that I'd been holding my breath since I saw the email message...

There it was:

Status: Certified #XXXXX

I clicked on the link to the actual score report, which on failures, gives you percentages in broad categories... You got 45% in Exterior Routing Protocols... 87% in Quality of Service... Etc.

Instead of a real score report, it read:

Name: XXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
Candidate ID: XXX-XX-XXXX
Test Date: SEP 22 2003
Test result: PASS
CCIE Number: XXXXX

Wow... I've wanted this for 8 years, and I started getting serious about it some 3 years ago. I never abandoned my life, studying for 8-10 hours a day like some many people do. I simply plugged away, a few hours here, a few hours there. Take a class. Buy some equipment for "the home lab" (See my last journal entry for details). Read a book.

Most of my studying had been based on my failures in prior lab attempts. "Crap, QoS killed me... I need to study that when I get a chance." "Damn, I know I lost 7 points on those Multicasting tasks." "Egads, I can't believe I couldn't figure out how to do ISDN callback."

If you take the test enough times, eventually you'll study everything you need to. :)

I am reminded of some unforgettable words:

"Follow your dreams, you can reach your goals...
I'm living proof. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!" -- Eric Cartman

Well said Eric... Well said.

I'm sure you've got movies like that... Movies you just can't help but watch whenever they come on. I've got a few like that.

Patton is one of them. Doesn't matter what I'm doing, if I stumble across Patton while channel surfing, I can put down the remote control. Magnificent bastard.

Two of the three Die Hard movies have the same result. The first movie, Die Hard, is a classic. Sometimes, during the annual Christmas movie viewing routine, I like to sneak Die Hard into the DVD player, hoping nobody will notice. It's so festive. I'm also hooked on Die Hard with a Vengence. Gotta love Samuel L. Jackson's character in Die Hard 3.

Speaking of SLJ, I'm going to have to add Pulp Fiction to the list. Caught that one the other night and couldn't help but watch it. (It kind of sucked, because I was about to go to bed... It was almost midnight on Wednesday, and I was tired... I mistakenly went through the channel guide one last time before turning off the TV, and there it was... No sleep for me.) Didn't like Pulp Fiction the first time I saw it, but it kind of grows on you. Now, I look back and wonder why I didn't like it at first.

In the same vein, I guess you'd have to put Reservoir Dogs on the list too. Great movie.

I also can't seem to get enough of Harry Potter. It's not like I watch it every time it's on, but it's definately my favorite thing to have on in the background while I'm in the middle of doing something else. Doesn't hurt that HBO's got it on twice a day lately, it seems.

LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring is similar. I like having it on in the background while busy with something, but there's a subtle difference. Generally, this movie ends up stealing my attention from the other task, and I end up concentrating on the movie. Not bad, I guess, but dangerous when time is short, because it's a long movie. I have to make an effort not to put this on when I've got something important to do.

Of course, this all started because I was working on something here in my basement. It's barely a basement any more... It's a dedicated home theater. 65" Mitsubishi HD set, 7.1 surround, deep burgundy walls, and heavy velvet curtains to obscure all light from the outside.

Toward the back, I have my desk set up, facing the screen. Right now, piled on top of the desk, in addition to my main desktop computer, are:

• My Laptop (Dell 5000e)
• One Cisco 4500 Router (Acting as a Frame switch)
• Two Cisco 2610 Routers
• Two Cisco 2501 Routers
• Two Cisco 1751-V Routers
• Two analog phones (connected to each of the 1751s)
• One Cisco Catalyst 3550 Switch (Layer-3 (EMI Image))
• Numerous Books and Study Materials

I'm down here gearing up for the CCIE lab again. I've been to it a few times, each time doing a little better than the last, but not quite good enough to put it behind me.

I have to be honest. I haven't passed yet because my study ethic has blown chunks. In addition to being generally lazy when it comes to study, I also don't have much of a financial stake in passing. I'm a veteran, and I'm using my GI Bill benefits to cover the hefty cost of the exam. Since I don't plan on attending college any time soon (ever), I'm going to lose my benefits if I don't spend them on something. May as well be this. Each attempt costs $1250, which I pay out of pocket initially, but I get it reimbursed the following month.

As a result, I haven't studied as long or hard as I should have. This time, however, I have put more effort into it, mostly because I'm tired of driving back and forth to Raleigh every few months. That said, I still haven't logged as many quality study hours as I would have liked. Generally, I've been at it 12 to 16 hours each weekend for the past 6 weeks. I haven't spent much time at all weeknights. I'm just too tired when I get home in the evening.

Well, break is over. Back to the stack. Wednesday is my next showdown.

I hope I've done enough.