The Usual End of the Year Tripe

The year is finally coming to an end, so it’s time yet again to look at goals and embarrass myself by publicly admitting that I didn’t meet them.  Oh, well.  Let’s get this done so I can go back to sleep.

I changed the layout of the blog, so the page with my goals isn’t really visible.  Here’s what I claimed I would do this past year.

• Select a CCIE training vendor – Yeah…this didn’t happen.  This is a very high-priced item, and I simply couldn’t afford the packages I wanted.  We’re talking $8k – $10k for everything.  Yikes!  I asked management at work to pay for it.  They said they would but that I would have to agree not to leave the company for some long length of time.  I didn’t want to put myself in a situation where finding a new job meant writing a check for $10k, so I decided to pass on it.  Without the financial backing, this ended with me just sighing pitifully on my couch.
• Take the CCIE R&S lab – Of course this didn’t happen without the first one.  I guess I could have bought the materials that I could and just got on a bus to Raleigh to see what happens.  This whole thing was complicated by the fact that the new job is 95% Juniper.  My waking hours at work and my study time at home were spent trying to figure out how Junos works; I tried my best, but it was just too difficult for me to study both at the same time.  For the trifecta of excuses, I also had an issue with my study area. I went from a 4-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom apartment when we moved for the new job.  There’s no quiet space at all to study at all – a huge problem I need to fix.
• Pass JNCIA-Junos exam – Wo!  I actually did this one.  I took this exam a few months back and passed it without any problems.  Good for me!  One out of three!

As for my goals, it really wasn’t a very good year.  Even for me, it was bad.  I’ll tell you, though, it’s very hard to study when you don’t have one subject or a place to do so.  Definitely things I need to work on in 2013.

Since the Mayan doom did not hit us, we move into 2013.  I hope you all have a prosperous and happy new year.  The best of luck to you all.