From: Howard C. Berkowitz (hcb@gettcomm.com)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2003 - 19:41:11 GMT-3
At 5:45 PM -0400 10/5/03, Scott Morris wrote:
>At least the nurse didn't tell you they were going to simply have to do
>a "write erase" and reload! ;)
It could be said that they _did_ do lots of traceroutes through my
heart, followed by TCP resets.
>
>'93 huh? Teaching before routing was invented! That was back before the
>courses actually had names, right? (or "course" singular, I believe)
It's rather frightening to realize that I was _certified_ in early
'93 but had been working with Cisco gear for a good part of '92.
Over 10 years with Cisco, UNIX host-based routers before that, X.25
and SNA before that.
Actually, there were two courses that did have names: Router
Software Configuration and Router Hardware Configuration (not sure
about the last word). I never formally took the hardware course, but
had to do it on-the-fly in about my second solo course, when I had to
replace a board in an MGS. Unfortunately, the geometry of the chassis
was such that I had to pull several boards to reach the board in
question. I had a set of spares, but, when I started to put them
back, I discovered the MGS slots were NOT marked but the machine
would NOT work with any-board-in-any-slot.
There were some internal Cisco courses that made their way to the
outside. CID was like that, and the original version was very
different in focus than todays -- and, I would say, considerably more
technical. For example, it went through the internal forwarding
paths, in those simple years when there were only three (process,
fast, and autonomous, that last on the AGS and early 7000's without
the Silicon Switch Processor).
Come to think of it, the original RSC had an Introduction to
Networking course, which briefly split off on its own, went back into
RSC when it was found companies wouldn't pay for non-configuration
courses, and then eventually made a prerequisite. RSC then split
into ICRC and ACRC (remember, no switch products back then). ICRC,
with the addition of some switching, became ICND, and ACRC generally
became BSCI (less the desktop protocols).
>
>Contact the nice folks at irp@cisco.com and I'm sure they'd find a new
>way to laminate things for you Howard! They may even give you something
>extra like a T-Shirt (rarity these days) for the hardship induced back
>then! I doubt it, but it's always worth a shot!
>
>Scott
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
>Howard C. Berkowitz
>Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 1:51 PM
>To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
>Subject: RE: CCSI
>
>
>At 10:27 AM -0400 10/5/03, Scott Morris wrote:
>>You will actually get a letter (you should get this upon completion of
>>the ICP stuff you did), but Cisco will send you a little laminated card
>
>>with your CCSI number and name and all that jazz along with the chunk
>>of legal information about all of the fun things you are and are not
>>allowed to do.
>>
>>Welcome to the instructor's world!
>>
>>
>
>Hmmm...I wonder if I could get a replacement card and certificate,
>even if it says retired? I'm rather proud of that, especially since
>it was an "old-style" (i.e., pre-CCIE) number (93005).
>
>At the time, to get my provisional certification had me out at the
>Cisco lab for 4 or 5 weeks. At least 2-3 of those weeks were either
>in hospital or recovering.
>
>One day, early in my observed teaching, the proctor gave me a hard
>time and pulled me out, telling me he'd let me know when and if he'd
>again let me in front of a class. He berated me for appearing to have
>no energy and being mentally scattered.
>
>I wonder how many CCIE candidates have had the opportunity that I did
>to get a bit of revenge by inducing the guilt I did, when I called
>Larry from intensive care the next day? It really wasn't his fault --
>I had had a recurrence of a heart blockage, and had a successful
>angioplasty that week. It wasn't a heart attack as such, but I
>definitely wasn't moving enough blood to the brain and was having
>assorted weird symptoms.
>
>Actually, I had a zing-the-proctor-equivalent in El Camino Hospital
>in Mountain View (incidentally, a generally superb hospital). My
>initial reason for deciding something was physically wrong was that I
>had been getting a heart drug adjusted, and had a standing order that
>let me go to the hospital daily, get blood drawn and tested, be given
>the results, and I would decide how to adjust the dose. My
>assumption was that my symptoms were due to a low potassium level.
>
>I left Cisco, had dinner, still felt weird, and decided to go to the
>hospital. In the emergency room, I was hooked up to a cardiac monitor
>(think Sniffer equivalent) and set aside for a time. Watching the
>cardiac monitor, I made the diagnosis of part of the problem, and
>then saw some disturbing changes (think beginning by seeing bad TCP
>sequence numbers and then seeing several short-duration broadcast
>storms).
>
>Pushing the proctor...I mean nurse call button...I politely said to
>the somewhat harried nurse "I seem to have developed an ST segment
>depression and have had several runs of bigeminy and trigeminy in the
>last ten minutes. Do you think I could have some aspirin, have blood
>drawn for cardiac enzymes, and have somebody decide if a lidocaine
>and perhaps heparin drip is in order?" This is sort of like telling
>the proctor to fix the hardware, down to the specific board to be
>replaced. In this case, of course, I was the hardware. ;-(
>
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