My work is an okay place, but it lacks some major items I would like, such as healthcare and a structured work environment. So I'm looking for somewhere else to work.

In July I updated my resume. In September I updated it again. So during Thanksgiving I pulled up an old cover letter, cross referenced it with a cover letter my brother recently wrote, and came up with an updated cover letter.

Wednesday I sent the cover letter and resume to a company about 17 miles from where I live (thats a 22 minute drive at midnight, and a 45 minute drive at 7:30 am). Today I did the first round of HR pre-screening interviews. When she said "Do you have any questions about the company you'd like to ask?" is about the time I assume that I passed her interview with flying colors. After a bit more conversing she said she would pass my resume and information to the hiring manager.

Oh, and the comment on the education verse work experience verse certification topic: I have an associates degree (2 year technical college), 7 years IT experience (4 years help desk, 1 year jr programmer, 2 years sys admin), and a handful of certs (A+, Network+, MCP x 2, 2 x misc specific domain certs). The first five years of my work history was based entirely off having an A+ certification. I was in college when I switched jobs and the sys admin job landed in my lap because I was about 75% done with college and promised the employer that I would complete the degree. Todays interview was based off previous work experience and certifications. So I believe that certifications are important, but it is just one part of the puzzle.

Thanks for reading (no, you can't have three to five minutes of your life back!)

Rumor has it that I'm getting hitched tomorrow (Saturday). Huzzah!

And mad props to Blinder for giving me advice 27 months ago that lead to me getting a first date with my fiance.

So who is protesting on Saturday? Feel free to respond as an anon coward if you wish :-)

I agree with the concept of the federal government investigating the "church" of scientology a little closer, but I'm not sure I agree with Anonymous as a whole. Anonymous started on 4chan/7chan and has a very hazy and immature past..

So anyone want to admit they are protesting on Saturday? Speak up and be heard. Convince me that Anonymous isn't a bunch of jerks out for the laughs (or lulz, as the case may be on *chan).

This information was forwarded to me by a Girl Scout troup in Decatur. Figured this might come in handy for any Atlantans that have computer electronics they want to get rid of.

Subject: Recycling Day at Decatur High

      FREE Electronics Recycling Date
  Bring out your old computers, pagers, radios, printers, batteries,
answering machines and other dead electronics.

  A spring collection for broken and obsolete technology is set for
March 24 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Decatur High School parking lot,
at North McDonough Street and West Howard Avenue.

      Electronics will be sorted and broken down into raw materials, then
sent to recyclers for reuse. New to the collection list this year are
batteries of any type, mercury-filled thermometers and thermostats,
bubble wrap and clean Styrofoam packaging, including peanuts.

  Sponsored by area businesses and the city of Decatur, the electronics
collection is open to all area residents.

  Last year, residents recycled 30 tons of electronics that otherwise
would have been buried in a landfill.

  Items accepted this year include: adding machines, answering machines,
batteries, cables, cable converter boxes, calculators, component parts,
copiers, fax machines, GPS receivers, desktop computers, digital
cameras, digital projectors, DVD players, hubs, joystick game
controllers, keyboards, label makers, laptop computers, mainframes,
mice, minitowers, monitors, pagers, PDAs, printer cartridges, printers,
portable CD players, portable game players, radios, remote controls,
routers, scanners, servers, speakers, stereo equipment, telephones,
typewriters, UPS units, VCRs, workstations and Zip drives.

I popped the question tonight and she said yes. We're engaged :-) Looks like we'll be having a 12 month incubation period for the wedding.. so a spring 2008 wedding.

Now its time to sign up for the premarital class offered by our church, and time to start planning the wedding.. and time to start figuring out all the details like where we'll live. I'm sure some people look at this stuff as a pain, but I'm up for the challenge. I'm in point-in-click mode (you point me in the right direction, and I'll take care of the rest).

I've been studying for the Network+ exam for 4 hours a day for the last 3 weeks. And today I passed :-)

Boring details will now follow. Probably only of interest for folks looking to get Network+ certified.

The test requires a score of 554 out of 900 possible points. They give you 100 points for showing up, so the scale is really 100 to 900 points, and you need 69.25% correct which is 554 points. The test is multiple choice (4 answers) and contains 85 questions. It is not adaptive, so it doesn't get more difficult as you take it.. and you have 90 minutes to complete the test.

The objectives on the CompTIA web site accurately represent what is on the test. I used two books to study from.
Network+ Guide to Networks, 4th edition, Tamara Dean, Thompson Course Technology
CompTIA Network+ Certification Study Guide, 3rd edition, Glen E. Clarke, McGraw-Hill/Osborne

The book by Tamara Dean was used in a networking class I took through my college last year. It is a decent primer for networking knowledge, but not a very good book to study from for the exam. The book by Glen E. Clarke was much better about pointing out what will be on the test, and helped me focus my time on important material. Each book included a CDROM and I used the programs and PDF files to help study. I also used the ExamSaver software that is available at examsaver.com as a practice test.

All that being said, the test is $245 USD, and failing will mean you have to pay to take the test again.

Overall I felt the test was easy enough. It does need someone with an English or Journalism degree to go over it with a fine toothed comb though. It was inconsistent in its use of acronyms, its grammar was poor, and often sentences were confusing. I expected better from a test that has been in use for more than 3 years (and a test that costs $245!)

Last night was the first night of the small group meetings. It was awesome. Plenty of nice people with good hearts, and I appreciate all that met us, and hopefully the rest of the meetings will be just as blessed.

Also in that vein, Band of Brothers this morning was a success. See, meeting at 6:15am on a Saturday doesn't appeal to very many people. So when Pastor Kevin asked the men of Crossroads Community Church to show up at 6:15 on a Saturday morning, we all thought he was a little bit Crazy. He even went so far as to give us reasons not to show up at all. He made it very clear that if we didn't want to show up, that we shouldn't, but that those of us who think we should show up, should show up. Its that simple. . . And boy, oh boy did the men of Crossroads show up this morning. The sanctuary seats about 700 or 800 people. It was about two thirds full, and in those two thirds it was packed with nary an empty seat between the men. I wouldn't say the men of Crossroads showed up in full force, but 'droves of men' would describe it pretty well. It was probably close to half the men that attend at Crossroads. And dang, I was impressed. It made me proud to follow a god that is capable of putting that many people in one place, for such a Crazy vision. But of course its not good enough for Pastor Kevin until we get Crazier. So it won't just be 500 men getting together to have a large group of men church session. Nope, that would be too easy. PK wants to help teach the men of Crossroads how to 'Carry the Vision, Complete the Mission' and how to be 'Protectors, Gatecrashers, Providers'. Once a month we'll meet, and PK's goal is to lead the men of Crossroads so that we're meeting the goals of God. Not just as observers but as participants through prayer and possibly action (side note: almost the opposite of Peter taking up a sword for Jesus, but refusing to pray).

14 more days till my WoW account expires. I removed my credit card information from Blizzard's web page and I'm not going to subscribe again till after the new year. I can't afford to spend hours upon hours playing a video game that is not giving me as much entertainment value as it used to. And more specifically, I need that time to keep my grades up. The $15 a month will barely be noticed.. I'm jobless (and a full time student) but $15 won't make or break me.

So 14 more days of grinding reputation from Argent Dawn. Yes, my main is a level 60 human priest. I have two other characters I play. One is a level 32 Gnome mage and the other is a level 28 Undead rogue. I'm going to miss playing this game, but I think of all the time I wasted saving up 500 gold that I'm not spending.. and all the time I've spent grinding reputation from AD.. and I can't justify it to myself.

Oh, and check out this WoW Burning Crusade beta preview.

Today is the first day of my status as a full time student. It only took a little more than a years worth of planning to pull this off, during which time I was a part time student and was able to rack up 50+ hours of a 102 hour degree (including classes I have tested out of). My parents, grandparents, and great grandparents are all quite proud of me, and I suppose I'm proud of myself too. Now I just have to pass a dozen more pesky classes and I get a fancy piece of paper with my name on it :-)

My three classes are:
SQL Programming - 4 hours of class, 6 hours of labs, but only worth 7 credit hours
Introduction to Linux/Unix - 4 hours of class, 4 hours of labs, but only worth 6 credit hours
Introduction to Humanities - 5 hours of class, worth 5 credit hours

So now I'm enrolled for 18 hours worth of classes. I know the Intro to Linux/Unix class will be a breeze. I used SCO Openserver and Redhat Linux 7 and Redhat Linux WS 3 for 5 years at the job I just left so that I could attend school full time. I'd like to think the SQL class will yield a B to me without much effort. Since I want a better GPA I'll probably bust my butt and pull off an A.

The Intro to Humanities course is a different beast altogether. I don't grok art. I appreciate it, but that is wholly different from grokking it. So my aim is for a B in this class.

Seeing Snakes on a Plane tonight.

Other than that things have been busy around here. Being responsible takes up too much time.

I hope everyone is doing well.

I looked everywhere for my zen this morning, but I couldn't find it. So instead I ate a poptart.

At work we're looking into selling Windows based thin client solutions to our customers. All we need it to run is Acrobat Reader v5 or higher, a driver for the USB/HSB signature pads we use, and a custom graphical Windows telnet client.

Does anyone have any suggestions on brands of thin clients to check out? We already inspected one IGEL solution and I'm testing another IGEL solution today. However, I would really like a recommendation from someone that actually deploys thin clients.

Hardware specs of what we need:
100 to 150 megs of hard drive space.
256 megs of ram.
1Ghz or faster x86 processor
10/100 Ethernet access and DHCP support is a requirement.
At least 4 USB connections.
at least 1 parallel port

So.. anyone have any advice or suggestions?

TIA.

Nothing much going on around here lately.. so I'll just keep my trap shut.

Oh, and thanks to all you folks who keep posting journals and keep me entertained with your sillyness and geekyness. I 'priciate it.

I'm a tad behind on posting here. So I'll give you guys a quick update on the fun I had last weekend. My girlfriend Joni is a troup leader for her niece's girlscout troup, so I got to help set up the Hawaiian luau. Kroger, Mama Fo's, and Moe's donated tons of food and drinks. About 100 couples (father and daughter) attended from 15 or so girlscout troops.

Seeing a bunch of 30 and 40 year old men on the dance floor with 5 to 11 year olds was pretty funny. The girls were loving every minute of it. I'm not so sure about the dads though. Joni doesn't dance, so I didn't have to get out on the dance floor *whew*

Hopefully I'll be able to attend a dance like this in the future when I have kids. It looked like a lot of fun. I know I'll remember this weekend for a long time to come, I hope the fathers feel the same way. And I hope the limbo and hula contest winners took their coffee mugs to work yesterday and got razzed by their office mates :-)

Tomorrow night will be my first Dropkick Murphys concert. I'm thinking of wearing the t-shirt of the band that I'm going to see ;-)