From: L. Jankok (lj@2u2.nu)
Date: Fri Jun 20 2008 - 22:00:08 ART
Narbiks technology workbook is really complete, it covers a lot of topics
with superb explanations.
On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:43:23 -0400
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4
: Tue Jul 01 2008 - 06:23:22 ART
"H M" <forhisglory97@gmail.com> wrote:
: Hi Keith;
:
: Well done and thank you for sharing your Knowledge with us , as it says it
: blessing to give than to receive ; you have share a lot of Good info.. I
: like what you mention about Narbik ....his Workbook is good and handy in
: Addition to IE Workbook
:
: Well done
:
: enjoy it
:
: hamed Moghaddam
: CCSI # 31329
: http://www.asmed.com
:
: On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 2:30 AM, keith tokash <ktokash@hotmail.com> wrote:
:
:> I am NOT a number ... I AM A FREE MAN!
:>
:> w00tness! I am now CCIE #21236! My life! Oh how I've missed thee.
:>
:> Oi vey what a ride. I worked harder on this than I did on anything in my
:> entire life, so I'm going to take my time with the email. Sort of a
:> victory
:> lap. After 13.5 months of studying, I can burn an hour typing.
:>
:> I got into networking as an undergrad because I was a political science
:> major,
:> and by the second semester I was bored numb. Rather than prolong the
pain
:> of
:> college I just finished up and two weeks after I graduated I had my CCNA
-
:> December 1999. I passed the CCIE R&S written about a year after that,
but
:> to
:> be honest I had no friggin idea what I was doing, I'm just good at taking
:> written tests. My company went chapter 7 and I never pursued the lab,
but
:> I
:> did bother with the CCNP/DP in ... 2003 I think, but I let it expire. It
:> was
:> too easy back then so it didn't mean anything to me, and employers didn't
:> seem
:> to care. I heard it has gotten a lot harder lately.
:>
:> Any way, I started the CCIE journey because I thought my company was
going
:> to
:> basically outsource anything vaguely difficult or interesting on the
:> network
:> end due to the brutally powerful charisma of a networking consultant we
:> worked
:> with. I figured that since I was going to stop learning on the job, I'd
:> take
:> advantage of the learning credits we had and actually come away with
:> something. I'm happy to say I was wrong; we bounced the consultants, the
:> team
:> and company are great, and now I have every intention of giving back what
I
:> was able to take away to get the digits.
:>
:> My journey can be divided into stages.
:>
:> 1. The Great Meandering
:> For the first few months, I read Odom's written exam guide and plunked
away
:> at
:> various technologies, most of which I hadn't touched since my last Cisco
:> test.
:> Frame Relay, EIGRP, etcetera. I truly had no direction. A guy I work
with
:> on
:> occasion had recently gotten his CCIE (hi Craig Hammond!) and told me to
:> stop
:> farting around and get IE's workbook since that's what he used. He also
:> recommended the Class-on-Demand (COD).
:>
:> 2. The Beatings Commence
:> I thought to myself, "self, you've been in this field for years, just
start
:> with the mock labs." Boy was that dumb. It's REALLY hard to learn a
:> technology in any meaningful way if you do 3 seemingly random tasks in a
:> row,
:> then move on to another technology you suck at. Think QoS. I had no
real
:> knowledge or experience with it, so I was learning snippets here and
there,
:> then moving on to multicast, another topic I had no knowledge or
experience
:> with. It's like trying to put eight 1,000 piece puzzles together at
once,
:> just adding 2 or 3 pieces to each, then moving to the next.
:>
:> 3. Ya Basta!
:> I melted down around the end of IE Volume 2, Lab 16. It was just one of
:> many
:> burnouts, but I remember it because it was a couple of weeks before I
went
:> to
:> Narbik's class. His material went really deep into every individual
:> technology, and I found that that methodology was far more conducive to
:> relaxed learning than straight mock labs. This isn't a shot at IE, they
:> make
:> great material. Furthermore, they flat-out tell you on their site not to
:> skip
:> Volume 1, which I happily ignored and then wondered why I was having so
:> much
:> trouble.
:>
:> Anyway, I spent about 4 months just sitting there tinkering with every
:> technology on the exam. I went as deep and as crazy as my mad little
mind
:> desired, without any artificial constraints like trying to finish a
section
:> in
:> an hour, or trying to make it through a workbook in three days. None of
:> that
:> crap. I dug and dug, and if I didn't know what a field meant in a BGP
show
:> output, I dug some more. I found the childlike fascination again.
:>
:> 4. Back to the Grind
:> After finally fumbling my way through every one of the various
technologies
:> on
:> the exam blueprint, and sweating ALL of the details, I went back to the
:> mock
:> labs. I now had a solid grasp on all of technologies, and just needed to
:> work
:> on IGP redistribution, time management, diagramming, and build endurance
by
:> doing 8 hour labs routinely. I also grabbed IE Volume 3, which let me
:> pound
:> on core technologies harder. You can't do an 8-hour lab every day, it's
:> just
:> not feasible. Even if you're good enough to finish them all, it's too
:> intense. Your head starts to throb after day 2. So the 4-hour labs I
:> liked
:> because I could mix them in between the 8-hour ones and take a half-day.
:> At
:> this point my manager had let me stay home and study full time, so I'm
:> lucky
:> there. I also took both Cisco mock labs ... and failed them both quite
:> horrifically. I think I got a 46 and a 53 or something like that, but it
:> was
:> worth it to see how Cisco words things and draws their diagrams. It's
like
:> being behind enemy lines.
:>
:> - The lab itself
:> I tested today in San Jose. I'll spare everyone my views on Silicon
:> Valley's
:> deathgrip on the human soul (ok, maybe not entirely...), but the lab
:> environment wasn't that bad. I had heard everything from it being
freezing
:> cold to the mouses being all old and covered in nastyness from thousands
of
:> clammy hands. Nah. I brought a sweatshirt, never put it on. My monitor
:> had
:> a refresh rate that was low enough to flicker with a white background and
:> give
:> you a headache, but I didn't have much white background anyway. Besides,
:> who
:> cares? The point is it wasn't that bad. There was rack noise, but I
:> brought
:> earplugs and never bothered to use them. A few phones rang every 10-15
:> minutes. Meh. The rack noise was white noise, it kind of made it easier
:> to
:> dig in.
:>
:> The night before I took a Unisom (over the counter sleeping pill) and
still
:> had a little trouble sleeping. I probably banked about 6 hours, which is
:> good
:> enough. I brought my own oatmeal to the hotel, because it's filling, and
:> if
:> you mix the sugary packets with the plain ones you aren't just eating
gobs
:> of
:> brown sugar.
:>
:> The material was hard. It wasn't impossible (obviously), and it wasn't
:> easy.
:> It was, as my co-worker told me last night, fair. The whole test was
:> actually
:> quite fair. I believed going in that if I knew the technologies inside
and
:> out, time wouldn't be an issue, and I wouldn't be easily tricked. I
walked
:> out feeling the same way. The only thing that I was really stressing
about
:> was the stupid little mistakes. The mis-named ACLs, the wrong
router-ids,
:> the
:> neighbor relationships with the wrong IP of your neighbor ... all that
:> stuff.
:> That stuff would kill me in the home labs. Overall I'd say it was just
:> like
:> IE claims - a 7-8 lab of theirs. Probably right in the middle. But of
:> course
:> you're in a foreign environment under a lot of pressure, so a 7.5 lab
:> becomes
:> an 8.5.
:>
:> Fortunately I finished everything but a few skipped items with a lot of
:> time
:> left, so I was able to comb over everything from the beginning, then
still
:> had
:> enough time to pick up the skipped tasks.
:>
:> Advice
:> I told my manager I could shave months off of the prep time of the next
guy
:> on
:> our team to do this. How? DON'T SKIP AHEAD. Start at dum-dum level and
:> work
:> up from there. I started in the middle, and ended up going *back* to
:> basics,
:> then working up again. Waste of time, and very frustrating.
:>
:> Learn every technology to a RIDICULOUSLY deep level. You probably won't
:> need
:> to explicitly call upon that knowledge, but it makes it easy to decipher
:> things like the correct OSPF network type to use, because you're not just
:> memorizing things, you truly understand them. Once you know why things
:> work
:> the way they do, you have no fear of them wording a task in a wacked out
:> way,
:> because you're going to see through it like Louise Lane's skirt. Here's
an
:> email from Joe Brunner I kept from January 08.
:>
:>
:> "No you need to learn
:>
:> 1. the technologies so well you can be fooloed
:> 2. to stop what ever you are on at 2pm sharp (3pm in CA) and spend the
rest
:> of the time just verifying the "easy" sections. Don't underestimate the
:> importance of this. You WILL probably fail otherwise."
:>
:>
:> Thanks for that advice man, I really took it to heart.
:>
:> Finally, thanks to my wife, who could probably do better. My parents and
:> siblings, whom I've completely ignored for the last year, including my
new
:> niece, who is about to get an even newer baby sister. My co-workers for
:> pulling my weight increasingly until I ducked out 100% to study a few
weeks
:> ago. My manager paid for all of this garbage and gave me time off,
which,
:> counting the lab rack he financed, probably came out to about 30k. Also,
:> thanks to Ethan Banks for letting me blog until that ... yeah, ya know.
:> This
:> list was also a help. Just reading these emails helped keep me going.
:> Finally, I'd like to preemptively thank all of the strippers that are
going
:> to
:> be smiling at me in the near future.
:>
:> Enough of this crap, I have books to heave from the balcony and a gaming
:> rig
:> to build.
:>
:>
:>
:>
:> The information in this e-mail is intended for the
:> attention and use of the everyone in the world, or I wouldn't have sent
it
:> in
:> an unencrypted email. This message or any part thereof can and should be
:> disclosed, copied, distributed and retained by any person without
:> authorization from the addressee. Furthermore, I reserve the right to
:> disclose, copy, distribute and retain anything anyone sends *me* via
email,
:> up
:> to and including putting the exact text in a MySpace bulletin.
:>
:> _________________________________________________________________
:> The i m Talkathon starts 6/24/08. For now, give amongst yourselves.
:>
http://www.imtalkathon.com?source=TXT_EML_WLH_LearnMore_GiveAmongst
:>
:>
:> _______________________________________________________________________
:> Subscription information may be found at:
:> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
:
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