Re: [OSL | CCIE_RS] Introducing CCIE #24347!!!

Hi Joe,
Congratulations on your pass! Enjoy the time now, very well deserved!

Jo

2009/5/12 Joe Astorino <joe_astorino_at_comcast.net>

> Yes, it's official!!!! After a grueling 9 hour wait, most of which was in
> my hotel room here in Raleigh, I just got my score report, and I am
> officially CCIE #24347!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! The greatest 5 #'s I have
> ever heard! Keep in mind, that I am 5.5 beers in at this point as I decided
> around 10:30 that no matter what I was having a 6 pack for my troubles
> hehe. So what can I say? I guess I will give you my experience today and a
> little bit about my preparation.
>
>
> I flew into Raleigh Sunday afternoon, and stayed at the Wingate. The
> Wingate came highly recommended by the many that have gone before me, and
> they were right on. I can't recommend it enough. They picked me up at the
> airport, and took me right to the hotel. When I inquired about where I
> could walk to pick up some redbull for the lab the next day, they DROVE ME
> to the nearest gas station like it was just normal. I guess that is the
> southern love...being from Detroit, I'm not used to that sort of thing
> hehe. When I was picked up at the airport I was told I was the 3rd CCIE
> candidate being picked up that day...they knew exactly what I was there for,
> and exactly what to do.
>
>
> The lab started at 7:15, and I was told the shuttle from the hotel to Cisco
> would leave about 6:30, giving us plenty of time. I woke up at 6:00 AM,
> threw on my jeans and T-shirt (opted against the sweatpants!!!), grabbed my
> 3 large size redbulls from the fridge and headed down to the hotel breakfast
> area. I was too nervous to eat a thing. I chatted up the other 2
> candidates staying there and passively sipped a cup of coffee. The other 2
> guys were doing voice, so there wasn't really much to talk about. The
> shuttle drove us over to Cisco and we were there by 6:45...in total there
> were about 6 of us waiting outside...it was the most awkward thing
> EVER....after some brief introductions by a few of us, it was DEAD SILENCE
> for 30 minutes as we stood outside and waited for the proctor to show up.
> Our proctor pulled in about 7:10, and took us into the lobby where we were
> ID'd and given our temp stickers and rack numbers. The proctor gave us all
> the regular instructions and told us basically where the bathrooms and
> drinks were, and gave us the general rules of the lab (get rid of any macros
> at the end of the day, save your configs often, etc...).
>
>
> I sat down at my pod and started in on the OEQ ... the first one threw
> me....it seemed very simple. All I can say without breaking NDA is that it
> was some command output and a diagram, and I couldn't place the answer... I
> gave it my best shot and moved on. The other 3 questions were no problem at
> all, although later in the day I feared I might have messed up the wording
> of one of them....all in all it took me about 5 minutes. Guys, after
> reading all the posts and fear regarding this I have to say, IF you have
> studied properly, there is nothing to fear!!!
>
>
> I moved on to the lab just like I would any other mock lab I've been doing
> for 10 months....followed the method Jared Scrivener gave us at IPexpert
> bootcamp, which was AWESOME. Yes, I read the entire lab first, which was a
> good thing, because there were things towards the end that definitely
> effected how I did other tasks. I made a list of tasks, point values, and
> notes for every task. I redrew the diagram...I made 1 diagram with all my
> L3 and IGP information. The BGP diagram they provided was sufficient enough
> for me, and I didn't feel the need for a seperate switching diagram. Having
> initially read through the lab, I felt pretty good. There were only 2
> things I had not done before...it was just a matter of implementing all the
> things I had learned and practiced time and time again, and making sure to
> pay special attention to detail.
>
>
> I was not going for speed...I knew one of my weakest areas was not paying
> attention to detail enough, so I took my sweet time. I knew I had good
> speed coming in and I'd likely have plently of time.
>
>
> Just as the proctor called lunch (11:15) I was starting in on multicast and
> had full IP reachability, so was feeling pretty good. My personal
> experience on the point system was that all my points added up to 80. At
> lunch time I had 42 points and was feeling pretty damn good. Lunch was
> basically silent....they had a pretty decent tasting chicken contraption
> with soda, water, and salad. It was pretty good. I was actually so juiced
> up on redbull and coffee that it didn't really matter, as long as it was
> food : ) We had to wait through the whole lunch time that was allotted to
> us. Actually, the proctor let us start working 5 minutes earlier, noting to
> everyone that we would lose 5 minutes at the end, which I found fair. I
> approached the proctor more than anybody else in the lab...probably about 4
> times. Guys, you are paying $1400 for his time, do not be ashamed!!! Most
> of my questions were just verification of things to be 110% sure of what
> they were asking!
>
>
> Later in the day I felt a bit less confident, as I hit my weaker areas
> (QoS, Multicast)... I felt 75% sure on about 75% of these tasks....maybe 85%
> sure...like you know you are right or very close to right, but the kind of
> thing where you want to look at the solutions guide to double check
> yourself. No solutions guide today gentlemen : ) I completed all the tasks
> by about 2:00 and started verification, which was SOOOOO important to my
> success I can't even explain! I went through task by task and did the
> appropriate show commands to prove I had done it right. What I found was
> suprising. It is a little unnerving to have already marked down points and
> with 90 minutes to go find you have one section broken completely, and a
> routing loop somewhere else , as well as about 3 other stupid minor
> mistakes. Had it not been for verification I don't know if I would have
> made it out OK. I wasn't in it for speed...I stayed until they called time
> verifying and reverifying with my trusty TCL scripts. At 3:28 the proctor
> told us we had 2 minutes left and to save our configs, remove any macros and
> TCL scripts (which I don't get because TCL scripts are not saved), return
> all the devices to priv exec mode and reboot our PCs. I found it a bit
> alarming that they didn't say something like "OK you have 30 minutes left"
> but just like that BAM , OK you are DONE in 2 minutes! Oh well...I got
> about 75% through re-checking everything.
>
>
> I counted up about 68/80 points I thought I had for sure....and I had about
> 8 points "on the fence" that I just wasn't sure about...so I felt pretty
> good walking out. I felt like I probably had a good shot at it.
>
>
> The worst part of my entire day was the waiting game...I am staying the
> night here in Raleigh, and have no car and nothing to do...I coudn't sleep,
> I couldn't eat much...I pain stakingly sat here refreshing my email and
> watching TV for about 4 hours....finally I decided to go take a walk. I
> walked about a half mile to a gas station and bought a 6 pack of beer while
> listening to the new Dylan album on my iPod. When I got back I killed some
> time talking to a friend on the phone....right before he hung up the email
> came in...I checked it live on the phone. I HAD PASSED!!! CCIE #24347!
> Obviously, I couldn't even describe how I felt, but it was a great
> experience to share with a friend!
>
>
> Wow this is getting long, so let me tell you a bit about my preparation. I
> am a straight forward kind of guy and I am not on here to promote any
> company over another, just to tell you my experiences. As far as vendors
> go, I uses STRICTLY the workbooks and blended learning solution from
> IPEXPERT. Their blended learning solution came with all 3 of their
> workbooks (1 technology focuses, and 2 workbooks of full scale labs), as
> well as the full Scott Morris Video On Demand / Audio on Demand series (When
> Scott was still with IPexpert.) This was my bread and butter guys. I
> passed my written at the end of July, 2008 and immediately started on the
> material. I read most of the usual recommended books cover to cover, and
> really tried to grasp the concepts...I went through the entire video on
> demand, and listened to the audio portion countless times. In fact, my wife
> even does here Scott Morris impersonation now : ) Thats how you know you
> have a keeper hehe....Anyways, I worked through these labs with all my heart
> and soul for 10 months. I got involved in the various communities, and I
> can't say enough about them. Groupstudy especially...there are so many guys
> on here that you can learn from, it is just awesome!
>
>
> Just when I thought I was ready, I booked an IPexpert 5 day instructor led
> bootcamp just to touch up my weak areas and hope that it would be mostly
> review and a confidence builder. I did this 2 weeks before my lab date, and
> it was well worth it. You can read my review of that that I posted earlier
> as well. Jared Scrivener was our instructor and he was at the top of his
> game...just a really great experience for me.
>
> Going into the lab I felt confident...coming out of the lab I can honestly
> say I was exteremely well prepared.
>
> And now the obligatory thank you section : )
>
>
> Big thanks goes out to -- Scott Morris -- Dude, no matter what shirt you
> were wearing you were ALWAYS willing to help me with my issues, and I can't
> say enough about how much I appreciate that. Weather it was a question on
> a lab you had authored at previous jobs, or an annoying IOS bug I was
> struggling with, you helped me. Even when you had moved on professionally,
> you gave me honest and productive support. Yes, your voice is forever
> etched in my brain from the VoD and we know you don't pay for therapy!!!
>
>
> Huge thanks to Jared Scrivener, Tyson Scott, Mike Down, Sean Orr, Wayne
> Lawson and the ENTIRE IPexpert team, who have been with me from start to
> finish. These guys have been just awesome...from Mike and Sean in sales, to
> Tyson and Jared with the technical material. It's been a fun and good
> experience! I got what I expected -- world class training, support, and
> customer service, and THAT is hard to find these days! A special thanks
> personally to Jared for his excellent teaching methods, and willingness to
> go the extra mile time and time again, and for giving his students personal
> 1-1 support!
>
>
> Huge thanks to cciejourney, the guy that runs our blog at sunpenguin.net!
> Carl, I couldn't have done it without you buddy, and you WILL get your
> digits soon man! We will all still be here pulling for you, and don't
> forget it! Carl was nice enough to give me a login here, and a place to
> dump my thoughts.
>
>
> Group Study and the OSL -- You guys have been my life for the past 10
> months...I'd read the threads every day, and hopefully I helped a few people
> along the way. It is so awesome to have a community of people just like me,
> willing to help just because well, we love it and enjoy giving back to the
> community. Special thanks to Scott, Narbik, Anthony, Petr, and so many
> others that have chimed in. Bryan B, who achieved his CCIE # just a month
> or so before me...we were study partners and bounced things off each other
> all the time...good times! Thanks to everybody that helped me along
> directly or indirectly weather I mention you by name or not.
>
>
> Last but certainly not least, my family and friends for their unwavering
> support over the past 10 months and ESPECIALLY my new beautiful wife Beth.
> I know everybody says this and I know when I read these threads it was
> usually the part I said "yeah right" and moved on but seriously...they have
> given up SO much to support me and let me pursue my dream. There were many
> times I had to come home from work, eat dinner, and by 6:00 PM tell my wife
> goodnight, I won't see you until tomorrow after work because I have to study
> 6:00 - 2:00 tonight, or do a mock lab, or read the docCD or whatever...to my
> friends, congratulations I am back : ) I have not had time to do many of
> the things I used to like to do lately, and now I am looking forward to
> hanging out more.
>
>
> I guess thats it guys...I know this was long, and thansk for anything that
> got through the whole thing...this whole post is sort of stream of
> consiousness at this point. The CCIE is doable, but like many before me
> have said, you have to seriously want it, and put in the time, effort, and
> sacrifice to achieve it.
>
>
>
> - Joe Astorino, CCIE #24347
>
>
> "He not busy being born is busy dying" -- Dylan
>
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Received on Tue May 12 2009 - 09:00:39 ART