Journal: What to do, what to do?

With the downturn of activity that I've experienced as it regards myself and the company I work for I've been trying to find things with which to fill my time. I've a number of projects that are awaiting a certain amount of money before steps can be made towards their completion.
Not the least of which are:

1. Wirelessly linking the different revenue centers that are from 2-5 miles from my central office
2. Upgrading our AS/400's processor, memory, and storage system to be more in line with our needs

I'm also caught between making the decision as to whether I should devote myself to attaining certification of MCSE, or to further study and attain skills and possibly certification using Linux.

On the latter of those two options I've noticed that RedHat has opted to no longer support RHL in favor of RHEL. More study will be needed for this decision to be made wisely.

I enjoy working with Linux and plan to build my network around it when/if broadband ever makes its way into my neighborhood at home. My only preference outside of the desktop (I've not won my wife over COMPLETELY towards a Linux desktop) that would point to an OS other than Linux is OpenBSD for a router/firewall combination. That decision predates my familiarity with IPTABLES. The OpenBSD pf does quite well and I believe is as easily and highly configurable. My experience with IPTABLES makes me believe that I'd be able to secure a minimal Linux distro almost as easily. Plus, it'd be a little cooler, in my mind...who cares about anybody else, if I had an all-linux network/frame/backbone.

I've progressed through some study material towards MCSE quite nicely. The ExamPrep Core Four MCSE pack, though written by different authors that cover some of the same material, covers the material in an easily digested way. I'm a little less than half-way through the set. I figure I could go and take a test now and become an MCP, or wait, cram, study and get the core four knocked out before I begin studying for the more specific (and more beneficial I'd say) tests that are required.