From: Jonathan Greenwood II (gwood83@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Jun 30 2008 - 11:28:18 ART
Congratulations Dale man I knew you had it. Next time I'm in VA I'm going
to have to toast it up with you. Congrats again.
R/
Jonathan
On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 9:22 AM, cciestudy <cciestudy@mid-world.net> wrote:
> Congratulations!
>
> This gives the rest of us hope that the summit is achievable.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
> Dale
> Kling
> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 5:53 AM
> To: Cisco certification
> Subject: Damn, I finished the lab in 4 hours and had 4 hours to verify and
> I
> still didn't...........
>
> get served that coffee Brian Dennis was talking about. At least I got my
> number on my first attempt though, 21330 baby!
> BTW, never ever ever take your lab on Friday, the wait was worse then the
> night before christmas as a kid! I didn't get my results until I woke up
> this morning and have been on edge with people all weekend.
>
> Some people already know me from class and know my story. I began studying
> because of all the paper CCNPs out there, especially my work. Now I have
> nothing against CCNPs or any paper certs if you did it the right way, but
> what pissed me off is that our employer thought this other guy was as
> qualified as me because he got his CCNP and this guy announced himself as a
> Senior Engineer. Well this schmuck took two days to get an SVI on a Cat
> 3750
> up and just started networking about a year ago. While I worked hard for
> mine and have recertified it twice over the past 7 years now, he got his in
> weeks with you know what...... Pretty blatant about it as well as they
> passed them around work talking about how they can get CCNP in just a few
> weeks. These guys blow and I wish Cisco would do something about their
> testing system.
>
> In any case, I got mad, I mean really mad that nobody could see through the
> charade of these fake qualified network engineers. February of this year I
> had enough and I knew there was only one thing to do. Get something that
> they couldn't get or at least they would have to work real hard to get and
> based on their work ethic, I doubt they would ever get it, the CCIE. I
> worked my @$$ off since I got the materials end of February, and by the
> grace of GOD and my lovely wife I was able to get my number in RTP on June
> 27th. I pretty much shut my family off for the last 4 months, while my
> wife
> took care of everything, the kids, the house, the dogs...... To give
> everyone an idea of the hours I put in.... I worked 40 hours a week, I
> studied everyday after work, from 6 pm to 2 am labbing and 12-15 hours
> each
> day on the weekends. I took one day off and that was Mothers day and then
> I
> attended InternetworkExperts 12 day bootcamp. I actually finished their
> bootcamp material by the 3rd day of the bootcamp and Brian Dennis and
> company was nice enough to let me mock lab the rest of the days I was
> there. The InternetworkExpert bootcamp was nice to get away for 12 days
> and lab for about 12-15 hours a day. I went outside once the entire time
> I
> was there and that was for a 5 min walk to look at the pool and I didn't
> turn on my tv once. I probably squeezed in about 3 weeks of lab time in 2
> weeks of time. In essence, I was driven to get the CCIE from start to
> finish in about 4 months. Granted I have about 8 years Cisco experience,
> but it hasn't been hands on everyday the past 3-4 years because I work in a
> lab environment now and no longer do operational support, thank god for
> that
> too.
>
> It was a hard road, and there was many times I kept telling myself this is
> too hard and will I never get there. However, I kept telling myself as
> long
> as I keep studying and as long as I keep labbing I will always learn
> something and will get closer. You might think I'm crazy, but I had a goal
> and my wife said go for it. As I've said in previous posts, my motivattion
> was not money, but to gain the knowledge these other guys didn't have and
> to
> achieve CCIE status, something most of these paper certifiers won't ever
> get. I have to say that I must thank these guys at work for the
> motivation, and I will today when I go in to work in 2 hours after I get my
> Cisco polos embroidered with the CCIE logo and install an LED behind it. :P
> Seriously though, they gave me that spark that I was missing for years and
> passing this lab attempt has ignited it even more. Now if you've managed
> to
> endure the past few paragraphs of blah, all you first time CCIE candidates
> enjoy my recommendations, which you've all heard time and time again I'm
> sure.
>
> Study the Core, lab the Core until your fingers bleed. Get your Core down
> to at least 3 hours or less. InternetwokExpert WB3 labs are awesome for
> this, I got those down to 2 hours or less, some of the hard ones took 2 1/2
> hours. Speed and time management was huge for me. I probably put in about
> 500 hours of harcore lab time the last 4 months. I initially started
> InternetworkExperts WB2 doing labs in like 10 hours, learning and
> understanding the theory behind things. They were tough at first, but I
> constantly would go back and reread the DOCCD and reference all my books, I
> have ton of books. I watched their technologies COD 2 1/2 times in it's
> entirety. It took a lot of coffee and doing it hands on with them to stay
> awake. Brian Dennis's jokes couldn't even keep me up anymore after the
> first go around. ;) After a few months I started completing their labs in
> entirety in about 4 hours. Once this happened, I would do them and then
> look up everything in the DOCCD, no matter if I knew it or not. This was
> my
> DOCCD familiarization stage. I actually picked that up from Scott Morris
> from somewhere I believe. Here it comes, you've heard it before, and
> you're
> going to hear it again....
>
> KNOW YOUR DOCCD.. I guarantee you will get something in the lab that you
> haven't seen before. This is where speed on the CORE was essential for me.
> By lunch I had completed the lab once over , ran my TCL script, and was
> feeling a little uneasy still, but I had the meat done. I'm a paranoid
> guy,
> you can ask others. The only thing left was verification and digging in
> the
> DOCCD for those few things I didn't know. I verified twice and each time I
> found one small mistake that would have cost me 2 or 3 points each. Oh and
> by the way, I still don't know the answer to one of them weird questions,
> even now that I'm home and I have google, so here it comes, here it comes
> again, KNOW YOUR DOCCD. My last suggestion is make sure you know theory
> very well in the CORE IGP, well everything you learn really, but especially
> your CORE. you've heard time and time again Switching, FR, and IGP
> probably
> will be half your points. If you understand the mechanics and how things
> work, no matter what scenario you get you can work through it. If you
> memorize the vendor WBs, it won't help in the real lab.
>
> So I guess I should recognize people and materials that have helped me.
> First off, my wife and GOD. If I don't mention her first, she might kill
> me
> and probably the same about GOD... O_o Next, InternetworkExperts ver 4 WBs
> and their Technology COD. I have the Brians' voices engrained into my
> head. Brian Dennis, Josh Finke and crew from InternetworkExpert were nice
> enough to hook me up in the last hours. Also, IPExperts audio CD with
> Scott
> Morris. I bought their WB package, but I only used the audio portion. I
> thought it was very good and I probably listened to it about 5 times in
> it's
> entirety driving to and from work everyday. It was just an extra tool to
> feed my brain the knowledge it needed.
>
> I already have the materials from InternetworkExpert for the SP track and
> will hit that at work starting this morning since this is what I do at work
> everyday and my boss will let me study while I lab it up on our 7604s. :)
> MMM Knowledge, I think these guys at work turned me into an animal. Watch
> your back Petr, I'm coming for your CCIEs and I'll probably pass up Brian
> Mcgahan in 6 months because he's a slacker. j/k man. ;)
>
> Good luck to all other CCIE candidates and I hope this email helps.
>
> regards,
>
> Dale
>
> P.S. Don't unicast me for any NDA crap either, I'll turn your ass into
> Cisco.
>
>
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