2014 in Review... and 2015 in Preview

Well another year is in the books.  Last year I made a career move and went from being the solo network and voice guy to being part of a large team of network engineers.  The change has been good for me both professionally and personally.

Professionally I'm getting to work with a lot of new technologies due to scope and scale of my new company.  Technologies that I used to scratch my head about why anyone would need them (OTV comes to mind) are now things I use daily.

Personally I can finally take a vacation and not worry about getting called.  It's nice to get completely away from work and not have to worry.  My wife seems to like the change too.  

Twenty fifteen has started off with a bang too as I have finally passed SWITCH, ROUTE, and TSHOOT to earn the CCNP Routing and Switching.  I started this path over four years ago so I ended up having to retake SWITCH this month to get everything within the three year window.  It took two tries, but after missing on the first try this month by 20 points I solidly passed this past Friday.  One thing that I've learned from this is that I need firm deadlines.  Thank you Cisco for changing the CCNP Routing and Switching exams at the end of this month!  

As for the rest of the year, well I'm working on scheduling out the rest of my planned studying and tests so that I have firm dates.  I plan on paying the fee and scheduling the exam right as I start studying to give me motivation.  First on the list is ARCH to complete the CCDP.  After that my manager has me looking at CCNA Voice followed by CCNP Voice as we're planning a 5-6 year conversion from Avaya to Cisco although I may take a slight detour to CCNA Datacenter at some point since Nexus and UCS are fresh in my list of new skills.

So basically I plan to keep learning and growing.  Pretty good goals in my book.  If I ever stop learning, I best be in the ground.

2013 Goals and a Look Back at 2012

Well last year I had grand plans, unfortunately looking back I managed to not get any of them done.  Mainly this came from changing priorities at work that led me down new voice and wireless paths.  I do still plan on getting through the CCNP R&S this year as my CCNA will expire in September unless I renew in some manner.  I did take the ROUTE exam this year and had a well earned fail, but I learned a lot from taking the test.  I know my weaknesses and how to better prepare this time.

So to regurgitate my goals from last year that are being carried over to this year...

• Take and pass the ROUTE exam
• Take and pass the TSHOOT exam
• Take and pass the ARCH exam
• Earn the CCNP R&S and CCDP certifications
• Keep my office more organized (Yes this appears on my annual review annually.)
• Learn Italian (someday I will go back and this time I'll be able to talk to my relatives)
• Figure out how to grow and maintain grass in my back yard without making my dogs use hover boards (I do believe this is an impossible feat.)

Retrospective and Goals

The year 2011 is almost over.  It's been a very interesting year for me.  This year was my first foray into blogging about my professional life.  I have found the connections made through this blog to be very rewarding.  Thank you for the encouragement, especially @etherealmind and @ecbanks who have allowed me to broaden my audience through some posts on @packetpushers.  Hopefully some of you have even found something I have written this year useful.

I also made my first appearance behind the podium as a speaker at a technology conference.  After years being on the receiving end, it was good to give some knowledge back.  Thank you to Josh Hall and company at Tech Feast for giving me the opportunity.  One lesson I learned is that it's not as hard to fill up a 90 minute presentation slot as I thought it would be.  The other thing I learned is not to volunteer to do four 90 minute presentations back to back.  My wife laughed quite hard at me when I came home and complained about my voice being gone and my feet being tired (she's a teacher).

So now it's time for the goals for next year in no particular order:

• Take and pass the ROUTE exam
• Take and pass the TSHOOT exam
• Take and pass the ARCH exam
• Earn the CCNP R&S and CCDP certifications
• Keep my office more organized
• Learn Italian (someday I will go back and this time I'll be able to talk to my relatives)
• Take the time to learn more and understand this OpenFlow stuff that the PacketPushers keep jabbering about
• Figure out how to grow and maintain grass in my back yard without making my dogs use hover boards

As you can tell, there might be a few blog posts that will double as me organizing my study notes.  My current job is mostly L2 so the routing stuff is a bit rusty.