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May 27, 2010
Anthropology
Lisa Catto presented today at the showcase.
Her presentation was well done. It was personal, thoughtful and had a point. I don't know that I've thought about Anthropology, dead people or bones much before - so I appreciated the diversity of critical thought. It is only natural to assume that people might object to their ancestors being dug up and studied, but again, those thought don't make it on the nerd-radar much ;)
Lisa, like myself, is completing a 2nd degree here at WOU and is doing it while working. That is a significant accomplishment, and I was happy to see her enjoying her success.
Posted by ellism at 4:53 PM | Comments (0)
Showcase
Today, Christina and Adam and I presented for the Academic Excellence Showcase.
Adam displayed his remote-access ham radio and functionality.
Christina and I showed off games we'd made with varied software/libraries.
I was pleased with the showcase. Students seemed reasonably engaged, and Faculty shut down classes so that all students could attend. As the day progressed, student attendance INCREASED - the opposite of my expectation.
Adam and Christina both did a great job. It's not easy presenting in front of so many people, but I was proud of both of them.
I, still struggling with the sense that I could have done more, am tired. I have reached the end of a significant season in my life. Faced with a new season (and turning 30) this summer, I look questioningly into the future.
Was it worth it?
What did I learn?
Where am I going?
Who am I?
What's for lunch?
These questions continue to drive me on. I continue to expect great things.
Posted by ellism at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2010
ICND2
Ah, and now for Round 2.
ICND1 & ICND2 are the core requirements to take the CCNA exam. Paul and I didn't take these classes for certification, but I believe with moderate study, we could pass them. In the end, the certification (cert) is nice to have so that people outside the department/university have a common understanding of your background.
ICND2 was focused almost completely on routing. We talked about RIP, IS-IS (not really), OSPF, IGRP, EIGRP, RIP v2 AND Frame relay, EGP (BGP), ...
As we do basically zero routing on-campus, we lacked a lot of practical application for this training immediately, but the information is still very valuable. We also dug into IPv6 briefly and set it up on two lab routers.
Overall I was quite pleased with the training. The first week was a bit slower than the second, but our familiarity with the material and smaller class size allowed us to move through the 2nd week material more quickly. We spent time asking the trainer site-specific questions allowing us to take the moderately theoretical information and help apply it to our customized environment.
I'll tell you what - design is a big deal. There is only about 12 different ways to setup any one network, so I'm glad we work closely with Cisco on our continued network design so that we are able to incorporate best practices while leveraging existing equipment.
I'm looking forward to additional training opportunities in the future. We'll have a few more before TOO long...
Posted by ellism at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
ICND1
Paul and I went to Lake Oswego two weeks ago for a training class: Cisco's ICND1.
For Paul and I this was really kind of a "networking fundamentals" class. We assumed that we knew about 80% of it, but were really going to make sure. We learned quite a bit. Members of OHSU were also in our class, as the current trend of telcom & networking merges continue.
We also got a ton of practice at subnetting (Class A, Class B, networks, ip addresses, broadcast, ...). AND I actually USED that training today to build some firewall rules. Amazing...
Additionally we covered VLANs and brushed over routing. All-in-all, it was very educational.
Unfortunately the venue was changed at the last minute to a windowless, highly AC'ed room with 20-minute chairs. Bleah.
We survived, and went back for another round...
Posted by ellism at 8:37 AM | Comments (0)