What's new - babies, business and WLANs...

So, it's been a looooong time since I last posted here. A lot of things have changed since then.

I now work 5 over 4 in my main job, I am in the process of setting up a new IT business helping out local homeusers and small businesses... oh, and I became a proud Granddad to a beautiful baby girl.

Added to this, I decided to change direction with my studies and go down the path offered by the CWNP. I picked up an excellent resource off of Amazon, called the Certified Wireless Technology Specialist Official Study Guide, bought the Online Practice Test off the CWNP site, and took the exam at a Pearson Vue test centre.

All this is less than a couple of weeks.

I cannot stress enough how good this book is. The chapters are very well written with great examples and explanations. Just the thing to whet your appetite for WLANs.

Anyway... onwards and upwards... I have purchased the Certified Wireless Network Administrator Official Study Guide, and I am already onto Chapter 4.

I am thoroughly enjoying the whole experience, such a breath of fresh air after everything MS or CompTIA.

I found a new forum too... www.techexams.net which is a gold mine. Really nice people from what I can see, no big egos that I am aware of, and people willing to help. Time will tell obviously, but things look as if they are on the up.

Back to normal... almost

Well... where to begin?

I suppose it's easy to type this as opposed to trying to talk to people about why I disappeared. Bottom line is that things happen that serve to knock you sideways. Some you can deal with, or you think you can deal with, and some you can't.

There have been things going on in both my work and private life that, when added together, became just too much for me to take. I do not intend to dredge those up now, save to say that it was not just one or the other; however the sum of the parts really did become pretty much the last straw.

So, I took the only option open to me... I withdrew from everything except the basic life essential things.

Now, I am back, but not with a vengeance. My intention is to be more pragmatic, to learn what I can change and to live in the knowledge that some things I cannot change.

And so... life goes on... here's to the next chapter!

Hi... I'm new here... well, I haven't posted for over a week!

Well, my new blogworthy future didn't last long, did it?

Too little time, too much work, study and family... but work pays the bills (plus I enjoy it in a masochistic way), I enjoy study (seriously enjoy it) and I thoroughly enjoy quality time with family.

Last week was meant to be study, study, study... yet, even with a full week, I still got nowhere near enough done. I ended up revisiting a lot of the stuff I did ealrier in the week towards the end of the week because it just wasn't sinking in. Ouch! I have told others the best way to study is a couple of hours max per day, and I should stick to that myself. So I am going to.

I am currently wading through the MS Training Kit for 70-640. I have already worked my way through it, but I am now studying for 70-642 and wanted to rebuild/install my lab bit by bit so I was happy from a 70-640 perspective before starting on the 70-642 Training Kit. I'd forgotten how many errors there are in the 70-640 book, and even the errata on the MS site doesn't pick them all up. That said, it is an excellent resource and the 70-642 looks to be just as good.

Right... gonna go do some real work... then lunch for me and the litle fella.

TTFN

On leave... well sort of...

First day of leave today. Still working...

Just need to tidy up some loose ends, and then I can put up the roller blind, and face plates for the sockets bought yesterday.

And then... then... I can relax.

Actually, provided the blind goes up OK, it should be fun; however, I put one up in the main bedroom a while ago now and, when I came to put the screws in there was nothing behind the plaster! Some wally had basically cut the plasterboard too short, and merely butted to the window frame with actual plaster and webbing. I pushed into the plaster and whoosh... the flipping screw disappeared! Cowboy builders strike again - one of the big ones that shall remain nameless.

Just waiting now to see what other jobs are found for me for the rest of the week...

It's flipping cold!

Well, the temperature has dropped a few degrees up Lincoln way, and I whacked the heating up a couple of notches to compensate. Brrrr… mind you, it’s not as bad as the southern US with its ice storms, or western France with its major storms in the last week or so. My Dad (and Mum) who lives in France was saying that he had to go up onto his shed roof to stop the corrugated roof blowing right off. It was so bad, he had to kneel on the roof so he didn’t get blown off. He ended up carrying rocks up to put on the roof to stop it disappearing into the distance.

Anyway, it looks like the weather people were right for a change. Reading posts on a couple of the forums I’m on, a few of the guys and girls are saying that they’re getting smatterings of white stuff, but nothing heavy as yet.

We had flurries up here earlier; indeed, the wind was making it blow horizontally up the road at one point! I went out to deposit some rubbish in one of the bins, and decided there and then that I would not, under any circumstances go out again today.

Ooh… and as I type, the flakes have started falling again. OMG! And some chap has just run past my house, in tracksuit and running shoes with bobble hat on. He has to be mad!

Right, I’m off to make a hot cup of coffee and challenge my youngest to a game of Raving Rabbids.

 

There is hope for humanity...

Sometimes, just sometimes, in all the rubbish we hear and read about there comes a story to gladden the heart and moisten the eyes.

There is a little fella by the name of Fintan Morley-Smith who has a rare eye condition called retinoblastoma.

His dad, James, is running the London Marathon to raise funds for the Childhood Eye Cancer Trust.

I heard about this through Twitter, in particular Stephen Fry. As a result of a message from Fintan's dad to Stephen, and Stephen's subsequent Tweet, many people have donated to help Fintan and other childfren like him.

If you're feeling really brassed off, that life stinks and maybe someone owes you a favour, just take a minute, read about Fintan here and consider donating using the link to the right on my Blog.

OK, life may be **** but Fintan and many like him will have been helped by your generosity. Hold your head up (feel proud, it really isn't a sin) and realise how lucky you really are.

Thanks for reading.

Thank God it's the weekend

Had a naff week in work, which ended with me being told that someone else was moving into a role I'd been hoping to fill. But hey, at least my boss had the decency to tell me before anyone else found out.

Thing is, I've been working my diddlysquits off, doing even extra to put myself in the frame for the role.

I am ab.so.lute.ly gutted.

Still, no one died.

Now got to get myself into the right frame of mind for work... fortunately, I'm off next week so I can forget about all the rubbish for a week. All I need to do is just put my Out of Office on... :D