this_CCNA_Thing#sh version | i ^Uptime|^System|^Reload

A quick glance at this post, in the form of some show version output…

“this CCNA Thing”#sh version | i ^Uptime|^System|^Reload
Uptime for this control processor is 17 years, 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes
System returned to ROM by initial upgrade CCNA at 15:00:00 EST Wed Dec 16 2005
System restarted at 15:00:00 EST Wed Dec 16 2005
System image file is "flash:gramps.conf"
System Serial Number : CSCOXXXXXXXX
Reload scheduled for 00:00:00 EST Thu Jan 04 2024 (in 1 year, 19 days) by Recert Command
Reload reason: Exam Failure {4th ICND Attempt} at 15:00:00 EST Fri Sep 09 2005

An extended explanation for the above output and the actual post:

Some-time-ago, seemingly out of nowhere, I asked Pops if he knew when my Grandfather Pietro (aka “Gramps”) arrived in the United States from Italy. Pops racked his brain a bit and then ended up reaching out my two aunts, who were able to nail the date down for us. He left Italy in 1930, at the riveting age of 15, to come to the US and take part in the famous “American Dream”. I like to think, he planned on creating a better life for his future family and in turn, for himself. Within his 91 years of blessing this earth with his presence, he accomplished many of things. Just to name a few, he served in the US military, got married [well… technically a stand in got married for him, since he was in military training or on a deployment for WWII], he successfully started his own landscaping business, and also made a name for himself within the Knights of Columbus. He also had three children, eight grand children and met the first two of his great-grand children. Of course I have a tad of a bias here, seeing as I am one of his eight grandchildren…

So why the history lesson? Well, other than the fact that I am a strong candidate for Dos Equis’ “most interesting man in the world”, many of my family members, co-workers, peers, and acquaintances [of both past and present] have asked me “So, when are you going to be done with ‘Studying?’ ” Or “How many more Certs are you going to push yourself to get?” Or “What’s your motivation?” (Keep on reading, I get to these questions... Eventually.)

Here is something you may or may not know. I actually got into Networking, as my profession, because I wanted to get out of College early. Literally, that was my entire motivation. Nothing more, nothing less. Granted, having been surrounded with technology for quite some time due to Pops being an engineer at IBM, there is a strong chance that I would have ended up in some part of IT as profession, but networking wasn’t really on my roadmap at all, until it was… Because of a requirement to graduate college.

In my case, it went sort of like this… I think had a year or so of courses left (2 or 3 of them in Data-Communications) to close out my bachelors transcript and graduate. I could take these remaining courses over next 2 or 3 semesters time as they became available. My “issue” was essentially college (after my first year) was mostly a night-school endeavor, since I was already working full time for my Uncle during the day, so there were much slimmer pickings between 5pm and 9am (aka the “Nightshift”) for course availability than between the regular 9am and 5pm course slots. I believe one of my Classmates told me, during a super non-nutritious “tech-guy” lunch, that I could bypass the Data-Comm courses completely by obtaining this networking certification that Cisco [whoever the heck they were] was offering. Apparently this Cisco company, administered tech exams and if you passed, they ended up giving you some sort of certificate stating that you passed. After doing some research on both Cisco and the certification (on super fast ISDN internet), I derived a super technical name for it, that I used when referring to it by for quite some time. The name I conjured up was “this CCNA Thing.” Oddly enough, my college was offering an all inclusive course for “this CCNA Thing”, which starting the semester that was approaching; Go figure… I enrolled in the course, and a few nights later I took the train down to iPark Yonkers to attend the first day of class. Unfortunately, shortly after the first class was held, the course was cancelled due to lack of enrollment. This was more than likely compounded by the fact that there was an additional cost for materials/labs/practice tests/etc, on top of regular college credit prices. So that was a bust… I followed up with my Guidance Counselor (Srta. Santiago) on alternate options to get this certification, and she ended up telling me, “as long as you provide us an official [unopened/sealed] copy of your CCNA before [whatever the date was], you will have satisfied your Data-Comm pending credits, and you apply for graduation.” So, like most things… I started seeking out other ways to try and achieve this goal after Plan-A got off track.

I headed home with the news for Mom and Pops that both the class was cancelled and I would have to seek another route (see what I did there, don’t worry, I’ll be here all week), if I in fact wanted to continue down this path to get this certification instead of taking the classes. We sat and talked together for a bit about it. After our chat, I took some time and I ended up finding an Accelerated Boot-Camp, on the internet, that was held in Pennsylvania that was offering Cisco Certification Preparation. This Boot-Camp in particular apparently prepared the attendees both for the CCNA and the CCDA Certifications. Two is better than one right?

Sidenote: Although I sat through the course content, I didn't end up sitting for the CCDA exam for another 9 years <-- True Story

Both Mom and Pops seemed on board with the Boot-Camp I found, as this would more than likely alleviate another semester of me yelling at the bursars office explaining how simple arithmetic works. Hold on, let me check the weather real quick on Prodigy internet…

So one of the following weekends, Pops and I went to visit Gramps. After dropping Pops at Gramps’ apartment, I picked up Gramps and drove him to pickup his buddy Carlo Rossi and then we went back to his apartment. Pops was armed with a pipe-wrench, fixing the kitchen sink (not really news-worthy, just thought I’d mention it). Once Pops wrapped up the repair, the three of us hung out in the living room listening to Jazz music and chatted about whatever was on our minds at the time. Gramps had told me all about how he was able to keep so many plants alive in such small pots by “just talking to them”, “making sure that they were OK”, “figuring out just what they needed”, and then eventually he would “give them a better environment to grow in, when they were ready.”

“Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty when you have to Charlie. Be proud of everything you do. Sometimes you have to do the jobs that no one else is willing to” he said to me. Boy, was he right… After attempting to soak up all the knowledge and jokes I could remember from our conversation, I mentioned to Gramps about hopefully wrapping up college in 2005. I laid out that part of my plan was wanting to take “this CCNA Thing” but my college was “being weak” and had canceled the course. Gramps laughed and said to me “Charlie, you always have some interesting words and stories to share. Don’t forget, that’s a gift. Keep your mind sharp and your spirits up. One day, you may be telling these stories to everyone.” *cough* this post *cough* Pops and I hung out with him for another little bit, just passing time, telling stores and jokes, while laughing together.

As Pops and I got ready to leave, I told Gramps that I would see him later and then I went out to the parking lot to start the car. Pops got to the car about 5 mins later, got in and said “Well bud, it looks like you may get your wish after-all.” After giving Pops an odd glance for a bit, he then went on to explain to me that Gramps had offered to pay for the Boot-Camp course I had found for “this CCNA thing” since my college was “being weak“. I was floored, nervous, and excited, all at the same time.

So, I guess the long answer to our original short questions above becomes, I push myself so hard because Gramps started me on this path. Somehow I feel closer to him since he facilitated my beginning in this profession. Some nights (or Monday mornings) [when I am wondering why something just won't work, wondering why VTP exists at all, wondering where the root bridge is or why no one apparently trims trunks, wondering how that 'no' command got into my config and destroyed the routing instance, forgetting to 'clear bgp soft' while waiting for a routing update, or if a VPN that "had been working for months and no changes were made" and yet, I'm staring at a matrix like screen of debugs clearly showing an encryption mismatch], I get some solace in the fact that Gramps literally launched my professional career and in effect, was an integral part my success, whether he was fully aware of it at the time or not.

Thankfully, Gramps was able to see my long hours of study, practice and frustration, pay off over the year it took me to pass in 2005. After each of the six* exam failures that I encountered, which led to my eventual pass of both the INTRO [on attempt 2] and ICND [on attempt 5] exams, Gramps would ask “What do you remember?” Followed by “Keep your mind sharp and your spirits up.” I remember vividly, calling him on December 16, 2005 [Celebrating my 17th Anniversary of this guy today], after arriving home from my from my second go-around at the Boot-Camp in Pennsylvania, to tell him that I actually had gotten “this CCNA Thing” and of course to thank him. He also attended my college graduation ceremony the following semester that I obtained “this CCNA Thing.” After the ceremony, he put his hand on my shoulder and said “I see good things ahead for you Charlie. Also, Keep your mind sharp and your spirits up.” Since then, I’ve taken quite a liking to Networking and Infrastructure in general. I’ve read books and RFCs, viewed I don’t even know how many hours of videos, labbed until literally my body gave up and gained more certifications to further my understanding of the technologies that connect us all [check out the “Certification List aka The Vault” post]. I’ve also started mentoring a few people, started this blog [in all 4 versions it’s gone thorough] and have continued to learn; year after year… All of which has “kept my spirits up”, while “keeping my mind sharp.”

Thanks for stopping by.

Stark out.

*for all the math geeks wondering where about my 6th failure before obtaining "this CCNA thing"... I had attempted the combined CCNA test in Jan of 2005 and got the crap beat out of me on it. lol.