If there's no wind, row!

LOLs for the day

2007-06-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

click here

LA to NY in 25 minutes?

2007-06-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

Just imagine that.

Teh Web 2.0

2007-06-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

'Web 2.0' is a buzz-word given to all the latest sites that revolve around collaboration and social networking. Examples of which are facebook, myspace, youtube, etc.

That term really is just a label for what has been going on for over a couple decades now, just in different ways (forums, IM, IRC). But what these companies have done, is made it easier for avg. joe and avg. jane to be able to participate.

And seriously, who doesn't love it!?

This morning on MSN, there was an article about the Girls Gone Wild Guy getting sued again. The best part is reading the user comments:

"I have a 13 yr old son..what if he is flipping channels and comes across one of them? How am I supposed to teach him to respect women when it they are being degraded right in front of him? Sure, the most intricate parts are blurred out, but the sexual acts are still visible and the obvious fact that the girls are nude!! This disgusts me. You are going to say that it is my job to monitor what he watches; take his TV out of his room; is this practical? "

Seriously lady, are you kidding me? Yes its your job. And I gotta love the next post too:

"nobody gives a f*ck about your 13y/o kid...shut the f*ck up you stupid bitch....you uptight yuppies is what is wrong...this county is already being gay enough by blurring nudity....get a f*cking grip bitch...other countries wouldnt even blur what you are crying about seeing, so shut the f*ck up already!"

He then proceeds to call her a bible thumper and a religious flame-war follows.

God, I love the internet.

Computer nerd talk = lolz

2007-06-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

wbits> grep tacplus /etc/pam.conf | sed -e 's/.*$[0-9\.]+$.*/\\1/g'
wbits> why is this not pulling out ip addresses...
hep> because grep is asleep on my bed
hep> she says she will search later
wbits> thats okay i will just use egrep. if i had known grep was a she i wouldn't have bothered. lazy and useless.

If you find this funny, you are a geek. stop denying it.

It's a record!

2007-06-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Trevor Hoffman got his 500th career save on Wednesday. People are saying that this record will never be broken (time will tell). I got to see it in person, thanks to my lovely wife and her work providing the tickets. I took my friends from work, because Mary Anne had to stay home with Kailee.

Please keep your kids on a leash!

2007-06-05T19:55:00.000-07:00

WTFBBQSQL, and a long, slow & enjoyable weekend!

2007-05-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

Friday we didn't do anything -- just relaxed from a long week of work. Saturday we met up with Joe and Rachel to catch Pirates of the Caribbean. I enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than part 2; but of course nothing beats the original. ]

After the movie, we went to my cousin's house and hung out at his BBQ. We watched UFC 71 there -- boy did Liddell let me (and everyone) down big time. He'll be back... He needs to just let his hands fly... Make Rampage fear his punching power... My cousin's house in Vista is uber! Flatscreens everywhere! We didn't take any pics, unfortunately.

On Sunday we went to Joe's annual WTFBBQ, entitled WTFBBQSQL. It was at his parent's crib in Ramona. And I thought my cousin's house was nice... This house is literally on the tallest mountain/hill in the community so it has commanding 360 degree views. We BBQ'd and swam, and hung out with all the homies.

We brought the camera, so here are some of the pics.

Starcraft 2 announced!

2007-05-21T15:33:00.000-07:00

http://cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20070521

Lost in Expense Report hell

2007-05-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

I don't like being on work travel. I don't like being away from home. I don't like sleeping in hotel beds. I don't like being on an airplane. I really don't like having a flight delayed for 3 hours while having already boarded. I don't like driving in areas I don't know very well.

I HATE doing expense reports. It's mind numbing.

Failure.

2007-04-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

- Bobby Kennedy

Yup. I failed. I did Awesome in a couple sections, mediocre in 3 sections and pretty horrible in 2 other sections. Sad panda.

At least now I feel a bit renewed and eager to make my second attempt. Like anything difficult -- it requires persistence and determination.

I'm alive, barely.

2007-04-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

That was tough!

It was difficult.. As difficult as I imagined it to be -- but it was difficult in ways I did not expect. If that makes sense...

80 points are needed to pass; and I counted about 92. I do think that some of those will still be wrong, though. I guess I give myself a 50/50 chance of passing. I'm kind of dissappointed in myself though.

Typically you want to reach a checkpoint before lunch. I was actually far from it by the time we broke for lunch. I used the lunch break to work out the issues I was facing in my head. 2 tasks were not working for me when I left for lunch, but by the time we got back from lunch I knew exactly how to fix them.

I stumbled through other topics like IPv6, Multicast & QoS. I finished off very strong on the BGP section... I finished with about 2 hours to spare, so I went back and fixed some of the items that I knew were broken, or was at least unsure of.

Admittedly, I will be surprised if I do pass.... If I fail, I will be back in a month to do it again. Thanks everyone for the support!

The infamous Building C

2007-04-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

150 W. Tasman Drive, Building C

To make sure I didnt run into any logistical problems tomorrow, I scouted out the route to the infamous building C. This is where the CCIE labs on the west coast are held. On the east coast, you go to RTP. In Europe, Brussels. In the Middle-East, Dubai. If your in Asia, you can go to Beijing or Tokyo... I digress..

Another reason for me to find the building was because I was starting to get psyched out. You see, I payed my registration (1250$) on the day of the deadline. Until last night I never really bothered checking up on it. It started to psych me out because I didn't recieve an email confirmation for my lab. Along with the confirmation would probably be an address, maybe some directions and even a time to show up! I had none of those.

However, immersing yourself in these studies you pick up all sorts of inane details. Details which I may need to recall tomorrow! Amongst these details the legend of Building C remains. This is where the men and women are seperated from the boys and girls. Where hearts are broken, confidence is shattered, and the wise made foolish.

I entered Building C, and was able to confirm my lab spot tomorrow. This put me at ease a bit. The ball is rolling, and all I have to do now is execute.

Hello, my name is Darth, Darth Sidious.

2007-04-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

Which star wars character are you?

Chillin' on a sunday afternoon

2007-04-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

Mary Anne: BUUUUUUURP!

Leo: See? That's how I know you're an Izbicki.

The Lab

2007-04-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

My lab date is quickly approaching. I fly out thursday afternoon and fly back friday late night. Here's a picture of my lab:

9 - 2811 routers with Serial WICs
2 - 2600 (backbone routers)
1 - 4000 series frame relay switch
4 - 3750 switches
1 - 2511 terminal server
1 - tftp server (laptop hidden at the top)

I woke up at 9:30 am and promptly began a practice lab. I actually finished it in 6 hours... It was difficult in some areas so I am glad I am getting the practice in. I'm going to try to finish 4 more labs by wednesday.

Back to studying!

2 weeks to gametime

2007-04-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

So here's my studying stats thus far:

161 hours studied.
23 of which were theory based (reading, class-on-demands).
60 of which were technology specific labs.
78 of which have been practice labs.

All that, plus the 8 years of experience doing the work that I do... In some cases the experience aligns with the exam blue-print; in many it does not.

Am I ready?

Nope, not yet.

The black donnellys

2007-03-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

<3.

My Desk

2007-03-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Now all i need is a flight simulator.

When it rains, it pours, part deux!

2007-03-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

So in February I posted about how my Jeep broke down (transmission). It was going to cost around 2k to fix it, so we ended up buying a new(er) honda accord.

The next weekend, our washer/dryer broke so we had to get a new one. The funny thing is we (I) left the towels in the dryer, so they got tossed out with the appliance.

Today, Mary Anne's accord tore up its timing belt so we had to get that fixed.

Knock on wood, but seriously what the hell else could go wrong?

Costco <3

2007-03-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

Whenever I go to Costco, I always have to pay a membership fee.

I think the fee has gotten pretty expensive; I believe it used to be about 30 bucks. Now it's 50.

Today we went to Costco. Knowing that I never go and my membership is most likely expired, we used Mary Anne's card. Sure enough, hers was expired too!

We renewed it, and also joined our memberships.. She also got her name changed to her new last name =D.

Damnit Costco, I paid 50 bux to save 3 bux on the few items that I purchased today.

At least I got to eat a Costco hot dog.

what the heck is black irish?

2007-02-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Irish

I think I might have to add "the black donnellys" to my list of fav shows. I watched the season premier and it was very good. I'm a bit partial to mob themes, and this one was very creative on how it set the stage for the rest of the series.

Friday night lights and American Idol are recording right now. I'm waiting for Mary Anne to get home from Yoga so we can watch one or both. Last week, friday night lights was recording on both HD and regular channels, so it jacked the first hour of american idol. At 8:04 I remembered this, and quickly fixed the DVR so it only records the HD version of the shows.

I had assumed the PVR only had one HD tuner, but alas, i was proven wrong. That's a good thing!

Back to eating, sleeping, and breathing networking (CCIE Lab is scheduled for april 20th).

What's on your Tivo?

2007-02-21T23:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I dont have a Tivo, I have TimeWarner's DVR... But here's my list anyways:

Heroes
Friday Night Lights
American Idol
Trading Spaces
The Office
The Apprentice (but I haven't been watching it).

My favorite show is probably either Heroes or Friday Night Lights.. What's yours?

When it rains, it pours!

2007-02-20T21:55:00.000-08:00

The jeep was having transmission issues... 2k to fix it, so I went and got a 2004 accord ex sedan..

The next weekend, our washer and dryer broke. I got it half working again, but in the end I had to go get a new one...

What's next?

words are a motha***** they can be great

2007-02-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

Or they can degrade, they can teach hate...

Who in their right mind teaches a 5 year old to hate? Why would you waste time teaching all sorts of negativity to a 5 year old? Why not help her in her math, or her penmanship; direct her energies in to something that is useful and constructive?

I guess if I was still living with my parents, not having a real career or education or any great prospect in life... Nor having the love of a beautiful woman, the respect of family and friends, co-workers, students and teachers... I guess if I were all those things... I would have nothing better to do than to teach a 5 year old to hate.

Happy Valentines Day!

2007-02-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

To my one and only, Mrs. Mary Anne Izbicki. 143