It would take 92 grande nonfat lattes from Starbucks to kill me (from caffeine). After 2 I feel pretty bad.

So I’m back from my vacation. Meggy and I spent the weekend in a log cabin up in the north georgia mountains. I made up my mind to get one of those for myself. Obviously I can’t afford it right now, but I’m putting it on my list. It was very good for my mental health.

We went to the Dillard House and watched a lot of really fat people eat a lot of fattening food. Obviously, from having to eat dinner with dad and fat janet, I’m used to seeing that sort of thing. But it Meg had it rough.

We also went to Highlands North Carolina and did some shopping. Mostly we sat around and relaxed. Also we made fires in the fireplace every night. I’d forgotten how relaxing that was. It’s tempting me to use my own fireplace.

Tonight, laundry, groceries, and studying. I’m thinking of trying the CCIE again on December 13th.

Got my score report from Cisco.  I didn’t pass.  I was pretty sure I didn’t, so now I know.

I’m not really disappointed.  I knew it’d be a slim chance.  The good news is that now I’ve seen the exam, and the mystery is over.  My preparations can now focus in on the areas I was weak in.  I should do fine next time.  I’m thinking early January for the next try.

For now, I need to restore some balance to my life, which means spending time with the Meggy, and drinking some beers with my friends.  And riding my bike again!

Well, I’m done.  The test was not bad.  I don’t think I passed, but I could have!  I’ve got a list of things I need to work on for next time.  But for now, I’m taking a break.  No thinking about voice over IP for at least a week.  I do have to go back to work Wednesday and Thursday, but my brain will be off.  Friday Meg and I are going into the mountains for a little vacation.

After that, I study some more and do it again.  Life as a super geek.

Well, here we are.  After many months of preparation, tomorrow is the day.  I have spent today doing some last minute reviews, and it’s going well.  I think I’m ready.  Of course, it will all come down to the test.  There are different scenarios that I could see on the exam.  If I get a scenario that I’m not all that familiar with, like SIP proxies, then I’m in trouble.  But I’m betting that I’ll see an exam that features fairly typical things.  If that’s the case, then I’m in good shape.

I’m anxious to start the test, but surprisingly I’m not that worried.  I’ve done my prepration.  If I get a test with topics that I know, I’ll pass.  If I get a test with topics that I don’t know, I’ll have a tougher time.  Most first-timers fail the exam, and everyone knows this.  This actually is decreasing the pressure that I feel.  I think I can compete on this with a clear head.

I don’t know how long it will take to find out my results, but rest assured, the world will know one way or another.

Well, it’s Friday night.  I made it through the week.  It was pretty rough.  It was a lot of information that I tried to cram into my head.  Looks like most of it took.  My test is on Monday.  I’ve been preparing for it for many months.

It’s funny, a long time ago when I worked at Best Buy, I hatched a plan to drop everything, and move to San Francisco, and one day get my CCIE.  I stopped caring about moving a while ago, and I went through a period of time where I wasn’t interested in the technology field.  But here I am, in San Francisco, about to attempt my CCIE.  It’s really weird if you think about it.

So tomorrow I’m going to do some decompressing.  I’m not much on tourism, but there are a couple things I want to do while I’m here.  I want to visit City Lights bookstore and buy a Kerouac book, and I’d like to visit the San Francisco Zen Center.  Other than that, I don’t have much of an agenda.  I’m thinking I might drived over the Golden Gate bridge and go see some Redwoods.  Maybe re-enact the final scene in Vertigo.

Speaking of weird movies, I saw a thing on 20/20 tonight about a guy who filmed the GG Bridge for a year and captured like 20 suicides.  Apparently the Golden Gate Bridge is the place where more people have killed themselves than anywhere else on Earth.  Pretty creepy.

Anyway I am going to bed.  I’ve only been here a week, but my sense of time is all jacked up.

Freddy Fender passed away.  He’d been sick for a while, but it’s still sad.

I am in San Francisco now.  Today was my travelling day, and most of you who know me understand that flying is stressful for me.  Today was no different.  But now that I’m here, and checked into my hotel, I can relax myself and get ready for the week.   This is going to be an important week for me.  I’m going to be doing a 5 day boot camp to prepare for my CCIE exam next monday.  Right now, if I were to take the test, I’d fail.  So I have to use this boot camp to fill in the cracks in my abilities, otherwise this will be a wasted trip.  I feel pretty good about doing that though.

Now, time to get some dinner and try to adjust to the timezone difference.

Check out my friend Sarah’s blog, Girl Gastronome, which is not only a cool site, but an awesome superheroine name.  She’s all about some food tips, NYC style.  And she didn’t get hit by that plane, which is awesome.

So I decided to go downtown to study tonight, even though I knew it would be a freak show.  The Tennessee game is tomorrow and already people are packing downtown.  But I’m hear and fortunately, the coffee shops are usually pretty empty weekend nights, and tonight ERC is basically a ghosttown.

First thing I noticed when I got here, was that Morphine was playing over the radio.  That’s a good omen for me.  I feel pretty good about my studying tonight.

So yeah I ditched the show last night.  It would have been good.  But I’ve got to keep up the work.  I’m in the home stretch now, and I would very much like to pass this test on my first attempt.  The recent averages are that it takes 3 to 4 tries to pass it.  I’m not expected to pass this time.  But I’m going to try.

Coffee time…

Spent the evening traipsing around the Mall of Georgia while my wife bought things.  I’m pretty damn tired, so no studying tonight.  I’ll get back on track tomorrow.

One other thing, I’ve got a problem looking at CarMax’s website.  I can’t seem to stop doing it.  It’s beginning to interfere with my studying.  I think I am under some type of nervous compulsion brought on by the test.  Either that or there’s something subliminal on their website.

So in order to process the copious amounts of data that I’m having to learn for this test, I’ve become addicted to coffee.  Now, if I go without for a day, I get a serious caffeine headache that actually feels like my head is trying to somehow open itself from the inside.  It’s not pleasant.  I’ll be dealing with this for the near future, since I obviously can’t quit drinking coffee right now.  That’s a prepostorous idea.

I mentioned in another post that I’m planning on getting a new car soon.  I have narrowed the field to 3 choices.  Either a 2002-3 BMW 540i, a 2002-3 Audi A6, or a 2004-5 Subaru WRX.  The BMW is the most luxurious of the 3, with a kickass V8 engine.  The Audi has a strong V6 with twin turbos and the best interior of the 3, and the Subaru has all wheel drive and is probably the most fun.  They all will cost about the same, so it will probably come down to which one Meghan wants me to have, since I like them all equally.  We’ll see what happens with that.  I’m not going to buy anything till January probably.

Time to get a little work done.

So I’m finishing my weekend of studying.  I’m sitting here at ERC, getting ready to pack it in for the night.  I spent most of the weekend reviewing some key issues that I felt weak on.  Maybe it was concentrating on those topics that led me to believe that I was fucked, and didn’t know what I was doing….panic, in other words.

But then I took a look at a few of the multiprotocol challenge labs in my ipexpert lab manual.  These are lengthy labs that are supposed to simulate what we’ll see on the actual test.  Glancing through there, I felt like I knew at least 80 percent of it pretty well.  That helps me feel a little better.  I’ll feel a lot better once I know that 20 percent.  I’d like to go into the test with that level of confidence.  This way I won’t have to hope that they concentrate on topics that I know.  That’s a sure way to disaster.

Time to go home.

That familiar panicky feeling is slowly returning.  I spent most of this weekend studying (when i wasn’t watching football).  I realized that there are two topics on this test that I really need some lab time with:  Quality of Service, and IPCC Express.  And I can count on both of those topics being addressed by the lab exam.  If I don’t do something about it in the next two weeks, I’m going to be in trouble.

The good news is that I’ve got plenty of time to get it done.  Tonight I’m going to do something that I haven’t done in a long time:  memorize some commands.  I can’t find a good QoS document in the Doc CD, so I’ve got to memorize everything.  It’s only about three pages of material, but it’s going to be rough.  I figure I can get that done tonight and practice it this week, I’ll be in good shape.

The IPCC stuff, on the other hand, is not going to be as easy.  I was hoping to get some hands on experience with it in our lab, but we’re having some issues removing the old version.  I do have 2 labs scheduled for next weekend, so worst case, I use those to learn it.

I can feel the panic creeping in.  That’s good!  I was expecting that.