From: Darby Weaver (darbyweaver@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Feb 09 2008 - 06:36:17 ARST
Very good story Scott. Congratulations!
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nobody@groupstudy.com
> [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
> Scott M Vermillion
> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:34 PM
> To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
> Subject: Beat the 20k Mark in SJ on Tues!
>
> 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
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Mar 01 2008 - 16:54:48 ARST