May update…

I haven’t been posting because I have been slacking. Not with the studying though… I have completed 2 additional IE Vol2 Level 7 labs and have moved on to the Level 8s.

On May 14th & 15th, we had major threats of serious thunderstorms and had tornado alerts. I shut off the routers both evenings to avoid lightining damage (I paid too much for these things to have them go up in smoke in a half second). This is one of the few times that I felt we needed to take shelter in our storm closet. Needless to say, I didn’t get much studying done those nights.

I am doing better and grasping the concepts. I now can read a good majority of the tasks and know what the solution is. Implementing the configuration can be another story. Like most candidates, noticing and not forgetting the details can be the challenge.

I did my first IE Mock Lab (#2) yesterday. I had two goals; I knew I reached one of the for sure. I wanted to get end-to-end connectivity before lunch (4 hr) and I did it. This includes switching, FR, PPP and IGP. I think people include BGP, but I didn’t. It all I needed was reachability for BGP as well, it would have only been 15-20 more minutes. My second goal was to get at least 60 points. After going through the solution guide, I’m pretty sure I didn’t get that many, but I did get probably 30-40. I’ll know when I get my score report tommorrow. Overall, I felt pretty good about the attempt and I know I have a lot of work to do.

I have July 4th through 28th off from work (3/4 of all my vacation) to work on this full time for two weeks. My 2nd Mock Lab is set for June 28th and the remaning two are set for July 12th & 19th. I am pulling out all the stops this time. I not only want to pass on this attempt, but I need to pass it for many, many reasons.