From: Jonny English (redkidneybeans@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Feb 08 2008 - 05:40:13 ARST
Oh I didn't realize you were almost going to leave IT. Lucky you stuck with
it eh? :).
Nice story and a good read.
On Feb 8, 2008 10:33 AM, Scott M Vermillion <scott@it-ag.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>
>
> Been having some strange e-mail issues that started out in San Jose and
> apparently followed me home. I appear to have lost several sent messages,
> including my original post to the group regarding my trip.
>
>
>
> Short version follows, longer version follows that (if I can stomach wring
> all of this again):
>
>
>
> I have no idea why I set this as a goal for myself, but I did set it and I
> did achieve it. I beat the 20k mark by less than 50!! New number is
> #19953!!
>
>
>
> Products used:
>
>
>
> GROUP STUDY and its members!!!
>
> Let's not forget that it's Paul that brings us all together here!
>
>
>
> InternetworkExpert Vol I, II, & III
>
> InternetworkExpert Advanced Technologies Class (CoD)
>
> InternetworkExpert Online "Bootcamp" (marketing thing I think - I
> generally
> thought of it as a "lab strategy" class, personally)
>
> InternetworkExpert Graded Mock Labs (1-3)
>
> Generally, the Brians and also their new blog
>
> Thanks also be to Kady and Misty on the support staff
>
>
>
> Narbik's bootcamp
>
> Narbik's workbooks (all)
>
>
>
> A massive collection of posts, musings, and humor from Scott Morris
>
>
>
> Cisco Assessors (A & B)
>
>
>
> Too many Cisco Press books to list but certainly all of the mainstays,
> such
> as Doyle Vol I & II and Halabi, and lots of other less obvious choices for
> the non-core stuff.
>
>
>
> I chose InternetworkExpert largely based on advice from Joe Brunner and
> also
> because the Brians seemed to be on the same wavelength as me regarding
> Dynamips. They gave me some great suggestions as to how to put together a
> good topology that would support their workbooks and so it was an easy
> decision to make. I ultimately ran a Mac Mini as my Dynamips server and
> bridged out my router ports to four new 3560-8PC switches (just not an
> e-bay
> kind of guy). They were horribly expensive but I resolved to get 100% of
> the switching points during each and every lab attempt as my return on
> investment. I'll obviously never know if I attained that goal, but it's
> pretty clear I came close enough.
>
>
>
> I elected to attend Narbik's bootcamp after Rik Guyler planted the seed in
> my head. I also couldn't help but notice how many people who ultimately
> pass credit Narbik in their announcements. Narbik is a way cool guy and I
> enjoyed our week in Pasadena immensely. Had some great classmates in
> Santi
> and Chris Riling too.
>
>
>
> I do recommend the Cisco Assessors and the IE Mock labs. Strongly. I
> can't
> say I always agreed with the grading (never having passed a single one of
> them), but I learned immensely from them in terms of getting a lab done
> and
> looking out for pitfalls that tend to appear only when you're racing the
> clock. Ever an issue for me. I literally - and I am not exaggerating one
> bit - was typing in the final command for the final task when the proctor
> came around and told us to write mem and take a hike. I had probably 25
> or
> 30 points of stuff I needed to re-verify but never got the chance. Thus,
> my
> three-mile walk back to the hotel was spent planning my next attempt.
> Without those graded mock labs, I'm just sure I wouldn't have been
> successful. As it was, I was on the edge in terms of time management,
> etc.
>
>
>
> It's only coincidence that I have never used anything from IPExpert.
> While
> I don't believe you can pass by buying everything on the market, I do like
> to get a new perspective on things from time to time. And Scott Morris is
> a
> first-class human being. I appreciate what he does for this list on an
> almost a daily basis and I appreciate Scott as a friend. Thanks again for
> showing me how to eat Japanese food out in San Jose!!
>
>
>
> OK, this last part blends in some personal history, so feel free to tune
> out
> at this point:
>
>
>
> I started my own business several years ago and the early years were
> fantastic. I made a very reasonable living and trips to Jackson Hole and
> international vacations became part of my family's normal routine. Then
> some things turned sour and I wasn't really working full time. Then my
> wife, a corporate finance type, quit her job and was unemployed throughout
> most of 2007. I decided to get out of the industry altogether and set
> about
> trying to decide what I was going to do when I grew up. Well I guess
> after
> 18 years, I'm just not capable of anything else. Nothing I thought of
> seemed to stick for very long. So by the 4th of July holiday here in the
> States, it became obvious that I needed to get back to work. But not as a
> regular employee. I'm ruined for that after being out on my own for so
> long. So I resolved that if I was going to remain in IT, I was going to
> climb the mountain. I ordered a pile of books and tore into written prep
> probably around the second week of July.
>
>
>
> Conventional wisdom held that the written was designed primarily to filter
> out only the least likely candidates to pass the lab. Plenty of people
> told
> me how easy it was and that it was basically a CCNP-level exam. I still
> studied hard, but did not bother to incorporate lab time into my
> preparation. Thus, I may very well be the first guy to have passed the
> lab
> with a single attempt but not the written! LOL. I regrouped and passed
> on
> my second attempt about a week-and-a-half later. Booked my Feb 5 lab date
> the next morning and got busy.
>
>
>
> I spent FOREVER working my way through Vol I. My routine was basically
> this:
>
> 1. See what the topic of the technology lab was
>
> 2. Go read EVERY SINGLE word I could find on the topic in the DocCD
> (supplement with books as needed)
>
> 3. Do the lab.
>
> 4. Break the lab
>
> 5. Play with the lab
>
> 6. Return to the DocCD as needed
>
>
>
> I sometimes stretched a 20-minute lab into an all-day affair. I finally
> moved on to the Vol II labs but was taking something on the order of four
> days to complete one. Still returning to the DocCD constantly. Finally,
> I
> got serious about working on speed. It was difficult, to say the least.
> I
> did a few Vol III labs but that was it. I was getting close to my lab
> date
> and I have to do some reverse and re-engineering of each lab to make it
> work
> with my 9-port switch topology. I didn't want to waste any more time on
> that so I shifted to rack rentals and graded mock labs. I'm here to tell
> you that I lose about 30 points off my IQ the instant a clock starts
> ticking. I do DUMB stuff that I would normally never do. The mock labs
> helped to shake that out of my system. Having said that, I was planning
> my
> second trip to San Jose before I even left on my first one. I literally
> checked available dates before my flight. I knew the technologies but was
> still just taking too damned long and not being able to verify my little
> mistakes away. Towards the end, I gave up entirely on any of those "have
> X,
> Y, & Z done by lunch" type of things and shifted back to more of a "build
> and thoroughly verify" approach. This final adjustment was likely the one
> that put me over the top.
>
>
>
> In the final weeks, I made extensive use of the ATC CoD again and Narbik's
> workbooks. He shows how things are configured and what the various
> outputs
> will be. He occasionally shows common configuration errors and what the
> result will be (and obviously what the correct approach is). It's very,
> very useful as a late-phase review tool. As is the ATC, as again, you're
> seeing the stuff being hammered out on the CLI as it's being discussed.
> Very helpful indeed.
>
>
>
> I also eliminated distractions, such as phone calls and e-mail (including
> the list!). This too was critical. I seriously, seriously worked hard
> those final weeks.
>
>
>
> I flew to San Jose while many were watching the Super Bowl. I took Monday
> off and, in an attempt to wear myself out, walked about 12 or 13 miles. I
> walked from my hotel to Cisco and back just to scope things out. BTW, the
> lab is in Bldg C and don't just show up asking where to go. The jackass
> working the desk at Bldg A informed me that was "confidential" and he
> couldn't and wouldn't tell me a thing. I asked for his business card so I
> could complain. Then he poked around on his computer and told me to go to
> Bldg L, which just happens to be the fitness center. I ultimately figured
> it out by using my PDA to look up that "confidential" information on their
> public website.
>
>
>
> I did not sleep a wink the night prior to my lab. I walked back to Cisco
> the next morning, having been awake for over 24 hours and physically very
> exhausted. I was starting to fade while waiting in the lobby (showed up
> about an hour early).
>
>
>
> When I got in and read my workbook, it was on. Not the least bit tired
> and
> totally focused. I KNEW I could do what that workbook was asking of me
> and
> I got very excited that I was going to be a CCIE by the end of the day.
> However, some tasks were deceptively time consuming and I began to lose my
> battle with the clock. By lunch I was pretty worried and by 2:00 or 3:00,
> I
> was fighting panic. But I learned from my mock labs and calmed myself
> down.
> Panic = lost points. Panic = failure. So I stopped even looking at it
> and
> just focused on completing and verifying tasks. Like I said, when 5:00
> rolled around, I was wrapping up a task that I had put off 'till the last.
> I actually think I nailed that one.
>
>
>
> Mr. Morris just happened to be staying in the same hotel, so I joined him
> for dinner thoroughly convinced I had failed. I didn't rule out passing,
> but not having re-verified so many points worth of stuff, it didn't seem
> likely. When I returned to my room and the message was there, I instantly
> became ill. I didn't want to read a failure report after such a nice
> dinner. But I was powerless to resist. So I followed the link. to CCIE
> #19953! Yes, I'm still rechecking every day to ensure there wasn't some
> kind of mix-up. Once, under "Status," I accidentally read it to say
> "cancelled" vs. what it really said, which is "certified." Evidently it
> should say "certifiable."
>
>
>
> I had been advised to not be shy about asking questions of the proctors.
> I
> wasn't. I demonstrated that I knew all the different ways to do a given
> thing and discussed what some of the possible outcomes might be. They
> were
> more than willing to clarify what they were after as long as they were
> satisfied that my confusion was only what the actual task was looking for
> vs. what might possibly be done to solve it. I never bothered to ask
> anything designed to lead me to an answer I didn't know, which would have
> been a waste of valuable time. I only asked how to interpret certain
> ambiguities, explained why I thought it was ambiguous, and demonstrated
> how
> I could solve it if I went down Path A and also how I would solve it if I
> went down Path B. And I'm glad I did too, as I think on several occasions
> it prevented me from choosing poorly. I am truly grateful to both
> proctors
> for their patience with me. I thought maybe they might get sick of me but
> never seemed to. I thought they might fail me for asking so many
> seemingly
> silly questions but they obviously didn't. So my advice is plan your
> questions carefully and ensure that what you are asking is something
> they'll
> be willing to answer, which is pretty much limited to how to interpret
> something that could reasonably be read in more than one way. I obviously
> can't speak for any other testing center, but I can tell you that the San
> Jose guys are not some disgruntled old hermits who hate CCIE candidates.
> I
> sensed that they are deeply connected to us and are sympathetic to our
> plight. It's an outrageously stressful ordeal and they seem to understand
> that in normal life, you'd be a lot smarter than you sound while doing
> battle with the beast. I was very pleasantly surprised in this regard and
> now I'm certain I'll never test anywhere else. And yes Joe - the
> watermelon
> juice was GOOOOOD!!! I'll credit 10 points to that stuff alone. LOL.
>
>
>
> OK, that's it. I'll be hanging around the list and will consider SP
> following a break and some much-needed work. The offers/opportunities are
> already starting to roll in. It's an amazing thing, this CCIE stuff.
>
>
>
> Cheers all and prosperous studies,
>
>
> Scott
>
> CCIE#19953
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
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>
-- Thank You,
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