Re: CCIE#25612

Congrats - great story - way to hang in there through the lengthy
journey!

Regards,

Wayne A. Lawson II - CCIE #5244
Founder & President - IPexpert, Inc.
Mailto: wlawson_at_ipexpert.com
Mobile: +1.810.334.1564

:: Message sent from iPhone.

On Oct 4, 2009, at 5:51 PM, Ronald Johns <rj686b_at_att.com> wrote:

> I know I already posted a quick response to my "lab score" question,
> but wanted to tell my story. Hope this encourages anybody still
> hammering out their studies for the R&S lab. Thanks to all who have
> already congratulated me including tv. Sorry I flew off the handle
> a little - I was a bit stressed out playing the waiting game.
>
>
> My journey began a little over 5 years ago. I had already obtained
> some Cisco professional level certs and figured the CCIE couldnbt
> be much harder so I booked a lab and a bootcamp with IPexpert. I
> had some experience, but nowhere near the skills necessary for a
> CCIE candidate, which I realized the first day of Scott Morrisbs
> bootcamp back in 2005. That was back when ATM and ISDN were still on
> the exam. At any rate, I barely made it through layer 2, and got
> stuck on layer 3. I knew I didnbt have a chance.
>
> 3 years later after gaining some valuable experience on the job, and
> putting together a lab of 7x 2811bs, 5x 2600 series (2 of them
> XMbs), 3x 3560bs, and a 3550, I started hitting the books. I
> purchased the IPexpert Blended Learning Solution, and worked through
> all 3 volumes (Volume 1 I worked through twice), watched the videos
> and listened to the audio throughout my study time, and read the
> following Cisco Press books:
>
> Cisco QOS Exam Certification Guide
> CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Quick Reference Sheets
> Routing TCP/IP, Volumes 1 and 2
> Internet Routing Architectures
> CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide
> Developing IP Multicast Networks
>
> I started studying on a regular basis after I passed the written
> back in October of 2008, but really started hitting it hard the day
> they announced the change and I scheduled my lab date. For the
> OEQbs, I used the IPexpert as well as the Internetwork Expert Core
> Knowledge sims. Ibve studied for more than 500 hours since May.
> I put everything on hold b my band, my bmusic to pray byb blog (http://www.musictoprayby.com
> ), and my wife and 1 year old child. In fact, we sacrificed
> celebrating our 10 year anniversary on September 25th so that I
> could wrap up preparing for the lab. My wife is awesome b she did
> this without complaining once. I couldnbt have done this without
> her support.
>
> I want to thank IPexpert for putting together some of the most
> challenging material Ibve ever put myself through. After working
> through all the labs and understanding the solutions, I actually
> felt a little over-prepared, which is certainly not a bad thing. I
> would also like to thank everyone in groupstudy for helping me out
> with the questions I posted. I didnbt participate much compared to
> a lot of the other professionals who are a part of this awesome
> community, but Ibve been reading religiously for over a year now,
> and that knowledge gained from yall has been a tremendous help!
>
> Herebs a little bit about my lab experience:
>
> I flew into San Jose from Austin on Wednesday just so that Ibd have
> Thursday to relax and get mentally prepared for the big day. On
> Friday morning, we met the proctor b I actually remembered him from
> my last lab date over 4 years ago. He showed us to the lab, and to
> my surprise, there were these really nice Dell 24b displays at each
> station. I remember them being junky CRTbs the last time I was
> there. The OEQbs were not super easy, and if I would have relied
> solely on my lab experiences, I probably would not have passed. I
> think the reading I did certainly prepared me for these more than
> anything else. The irritating things were my keyboardbs space bar
> made this squeaky sound that was really annoying and the guy next to
> me had this habit of humming, but once I started my lab; I zoned in
> and finished in a little over 4 hours. At this point, Ibm freaking
> out thinking there has to be a page missing or something. So I took
> a little over 2 hours going over everythi!
> ng again very carefully and found a few mistakes. At 3:15, I
> figured it was pointless to stay any longer so I did another round
> of tclsh pings and write mems and left. As most of you know
> already, my score came in around 11:00 PM Saturday night.
>
> Thanks again to everyone who has already congratulated me. Now,
> itbs on to the SP track before they add OEQbs!
>
>
> Ron Johns
> Sr. Network Engineer
> IT Department
> CCNP, CCDP, CCSP, CISSP, CCIE#25612
> AT&T WiFi Services
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
 

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Received on Sun Oct 04 2009 - 18:23:34 ART