Feeling : Brain Dead

I'm back at home now after last weeks training course. I actually made it home on Friday afternoon but I've felt so tired I haven't really had any motivation to do anything, including writing anything here...

I think I've also been hit with a cold bug or something similar. I felt pretty bad on Friday night and have had a sore throat ever since. I slept most of yesterday and didn't drag my arse out of bed until just after midday today. I still have the sore throat but feel a bit better. could be I just smoked too much last week...

All in all the course was pretty amazing. I lerned a lot of stuff, most of it to a more technical level than I'd done before and as usual I now want to go off and learn more about it. Its also left me with a lot of stuff I want to put in place at the office to help the monitoring and maintenance of the existing Cisco stuff I'm working with.

On the baseball front, I didn't get chance to see many games last week due to the total lack of internet connectivity (one reason to be glad to be back at home). I've seen both Mets games since I've been back and overall, not really impressed. Unless Sosa gets his arse in gear and starts making some contact I think the cubs are seriously going to struggle to make the NLCS playoffs. There are only 8 games left now, time is running out...

Well, I'm gonna try and work up some motivation and put some new stuff in place on this site, but don't hold your breath...still not feeling up to much.

Well, its pretty much as I figured it would be here in the hotel. No broadband access of any form so I'm stuck on a GRPS connection which seems slower than I remember dialup being. Oh well, least its net access of some form.

The hotel is ok, nothing out of the ordinary. Pretty much like any other mid-range business hotel, functional and just about comfortable. At least there is a bar and restaurant here, unfortunately there is also a group of heavy drinking aussies here that I happened to fall in with during the football match last night. A hangover is definitely something you can do without when you're trying to learn the stuff that I am this week. I'm going to try and stay out of the bar tonight...but don't hold your breath...

The course is going well, and I'm actually learning a lot of cool stuff. I did feel a bit out of my depth first thing yesterday. We were discussing TCP/IP to a deeper level that I'd had gone into before but the instructor really knows his stuff and is able to put the information across in a way that makes it understandable. Things are starting to come together now and I'm feeling quite comfortable with the material. At this point I think I'd be happy taking the exam on Friday, but hey, there are stll two and a half days to go and Thursday will be a tough day when we cover IPSec.

Time for me to go get something to eat I guess and maybe just a couple of beers in the bar....yeah right!

I'm getting ready to get out of here for a week, just a shame its not a vacation, I must be about due for one though.

My week away is going to be spent in the classroom and I'm betting that the rest of the people there look like they got lost on their way to a StarTrek convention. No, I'm not going to a linux class, this one is for Cisco stuff. I'm going to try and get my advanced firewall training. I'm a little worried about the course in all honesty. Its been about 5 years since I did my CCNA and that is one of the pre-requisites for this course, I'm just hoping I've not forgotten anything essential and that this course isn't a bit over my head. I should be ok, I'm a fast learner when it comes to this stuff, as long as the person teaching explains things clearly enough.

The other thing worrying me about next week, the important thing, is net access! I'm hoping the hotel they've stuck me in has wireless access of some form. The hotel over in Spain had a nice wireless deal, if a bit pricey. Given the take up of wireless over here, I'm guessing that I'm going to be back to 56k dialup over GPRS. Damn, that's going to kill me for a week. Not to mention missing the live baseball games that are on next week. Least I'll be home in time to see the Cubs face the Mets.

Regular visitors here (yes I know I do have a few) might have noticed that the website is running a bit quicker. If you noticed the update on the front page, I've spent the last couple of weeks moving it from the older server to a new one. Not as easy as I thought it would be, but probably not unexpected as I decided to upgrade the webserver software at the same time. That's also the reason for the long gap with nothing appearing here. Well, that coupled with me studying hard to make sure I'll be capable of keeping up with the rest of the class next week.

Enough rambling, time for me to go get something to eat and finish the rest of my laundry for next week. If I get time I might post something here before I leave, or if I'm lucky and get some wireless access next week you might even see some posts from me then....if not, I'm probably stuck in the hotel bar :)