Story of 25143

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Oh where to begin…Lets see Ill start by when I passed my CCIE written back in November 2008. I took December off for obvious reasons and told myself on New Years that I wanted to CCIE by the middle of 2009.

Ok, That’s nice but where do I start? Well I initially looked at IPexert and work paid for the blended learning solution. I watched Scott Morris and listened to his audios for a good 2 weeks. Than I started the mini –labs really without a plan but to dive into to see where I was at..and did I need some work J but I quickly found that *** didn’t really have a guided approach with LAB1. So I went to Internetwork-expert and boy did I love the beta 5.0 vol. I signed up for the CCIE 2.0 program and was on my way (Still in Jan). At this time I had built my own rack at the house which helped a lot..Dyanamips was just a lot of work because I had to change the initial config every time (Im just to lazy).

For the next 3 months I really focused just on the LAB1ver5 labs…I watched every COD and open lecture series by far was the best. I really feel that Brian drives the technology into you….He just goes so fast sometimes that I have to re-wind the darn thing. When he would do each lab I would follow him on my own rack….this helped out a lot since I need to be in there doing/learning at the same time. So I have this plan layed out with each technology that I want to master week by week and than review every other week those technologies. Sometime I would skip around and sometimes not…For the last 4 months I hit the labs hard and than went back to learning the technology when I didn’t understand it. You HAVE to do this or you will not learn what it is your typing J enough of the story....

JOURNEY

I went to go take the lab in RTP on JULY 20^th 2009 . I woke up the day of the test and as you all know posted a blog, and than did some typing just so my hands wont be numb before the test. Went downstairs and waited for the bus, which took us to the location of the Lab. They took us into the lobby where we BS’d around with all the other guys and Howard telling us they hit their quota!! J Everyone had different reactions to that comment. I could care less because I was already focused on the LAB that nothing really bothered me. I was not nervous at all since I kept telling myself that you understand each technology and if a question throws me off than just move on to another…don’t think twice. We went into the lab area put our stuff away and than Howard talked for 5 min and said go. I sat at the computer and looked at my first question…and than did all four. I reviewed them reading every line 10 times just to make sure there was nothing fishy. I took about 15 min on these sections. Than moved to my lab.

LAB

When I was going through the lab I just kept hammering things out….I couldn’t believe how fast I was moving. I re-drew my diagram but not that great so used the ones they gave me since they would do. I skipped a couple questions but was done with Bridging/switching and IGP in 2 hours. I verified this section, than reloaded my lab. When it came back up I ran my TCL script and verified my routes. I did ask Howard about 2 questions during this time just to make sure they weren’t looking for something. You have to remember if the LAB doesn’t specify you don’t need to do it (or you don’t have to have full reach ability). You cannot think to deep into the questions they are pretty straightforward. So the next two hours I finished the rest of my lab jotting down which question I know I needed to go back and look at (only a couple)…I reloaded my rack and he called lunch. During lunch I ran out into the rain to smoke and came back all soaked with Howard laughing at me J I kind of smiled to because I was finished with my lab and everyone else was crapping their pants. Lunch sucked and everyone was thinking on edge…So I get back to my lab and do about 2 hours of verification and reloaded my rack about 4 more times. You need to have this verification time because I would have failed the whole multicast section because I skipped ONE word that made a difference of how to implement it. So I left about 2 hours early and called my sister who came with me and we went out to party!!! I did call Larry Hadrava (you should know him by know) who I was working with and told him I KNOW I passed this lab…so it was just a matter of waiting.

RESULTS

That’s when I got the results. FAILED…I was so shocked I couldn’t believe it. Looked a the lab report and it said 0% in CK…I called BS..The next day I posted to Cisco and requested a re-read. (I will post what I said at the bottom). That is when I was denied a re-read for no reason. I replied back and was denied again L….Pissed at this point because of no explanation I replied back and stated “I paid to much for this lab and the equipment to get denied without explanation” something like that. 2 Weeks later and I finally get a response back saying that they will review my questions. Not 2 hours later I was CCIE…