this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore tools technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information that will expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers welcome to the art of network engineering live we are in asheville north carolina at the high wire brewing uh event space facility and uh we are here with a bunch of our friends in real time this is crazy this is that like it's one thing to record on uh uh riverside and see you guys like chatting with us it's a whole nother thing to be here with you like actually staring at us i'm a little nervous right now i know we can't ignore him i better drink a beer i i see every one of them in their underwear right now good thing there's a table clock walking us and dan am i in my underwear in your mind less i'm already so embarrassed i'm highlighting all of you all right i am aj murray at no blinky blinky and i am so proud to be flanked by my podcast crew at tim burtino tim how you doing hi everybody tim's lit in two ways i don't know what you're talking about i i'm just happy to be here it's uh it almost didn't happen right for you yeah um i was supposed to get here at 7 00 p.m on a thursday and i got here at about 1am on saturday yep so um i had a little extra time on my hands at the airport so but everybody here including my wife at home they they rallied to get me on the right flight to uh to get here i'm excited it's i can't believe everybody that's that's come i just don't have words which it's awesome which is not usual for you you usually have words not not the right ones but i usually have some we weren't going to give up on you no way no way no you're not a quitter i'm fine after andy called you a quitter oh yeah should we unpack let's unpack that so andy's really good at this thing called tough love and uh i'm not a traveler most dads are so i well he's not my dad i don't think are you how how old are you oh no for once that wasn't asking you so wow you too nice sorry dude i've been drinking um so i i'm stressed out they canceled the flight right as i walked to the board to look at so i tell everybody what's going on everybody's frantic trying to to help me get on another flight and i'm like i just don't know if it's going to happen i might have to turn around and go home and everybody's being really super supportive oh we understand we'd love to see you here and then i get a message coming from andy one word quitter well that's because you were like i might just go home i'm just gonna go home i can't do this flying's hard so i saw that and i'm like i gotta go see this fucker i told you and punch him get right in his face and say i love you man so that's my story this week other than getting to i mean i i had been to vermont to see aj but i feel like i i know these people so well but never seen in the flesh and it's yeah and recording the episode this morning with open gear it was just it was just wild and this is yeah we're not going to be able to go back to doing it all oh no no no we're not all right we're only happy we're this is the last the show's over this is probably the last oh i'm sorry everybody you came to the first unless you should probably ask somebody else how they're doing now all right at andy laptop andy hey it's so nice i know right here with you i know to make fun of you like to your face and see the cringe no i'm just kidding you should have let dan intro andy i know no that wouldn't be there's there's a reason why i'm here between these two yes to separate them yes i just say this is like an intro to a ufc fighter you got you guys on the other side aj's doing his joe rogan yeah oh you didn't see the uh type of pudding hello no that's tomorrow night show oh oh okay andy's had some espresso today am i right yeah yeah i can see the air it was called the red eye right andy your hair looks beautiful thank you did you get a cut this morning he did it yeah that's why would that guy say yesterday you could you could set a clock that was hilarious are you asking me how i'm doing are we just going to break my stones the whole time right here all right cool hey everybody i am great this has been fantastic um meeting obviously everybody in person and uh chris denny's been like the mayor just bringing us around showing us so it's been it's just been really great the barbecue has been fantastic the people are great and uh just thank you for coming you know this this was a lift for you guys you you know you had to drive you had to fly and just it means so much that something that started as a study group that turned into a podcast that now we have a room full of people like it just i i can't find words but this just is one of the highlights of my career at the very least so thank you for being here i appreciate it thank you top that dan and on that note aj aj you're no blanky blinky how are you doing i'm doing very well feeling good i i i'm how much espresso have you had not that much today really yeah i feel like we're not talking about espresso what do we i don't know this is a professional podcast i'm sorry i'm sorry when you just become a professional podcast so how are you feeling you had like a four-hour round-trip drive last night yeah we went out and got tim um you know like i was a little tired on the way out there but like seeing tim like the adrenaline hit it's like with the all five of us are gonna be together soon yeah because you look at me and i just i uh yeah i scream adrenaline did anybody see the tweet of when tin got back to our airbnb oh my god he was drinking a beer outside my bedroom door i am the one who cut andy's hair got drunk outside of my bedroom thanks for not coming in creepy you should have like just opened the door and screamed this is fire get up andy i'm here no this has been incredible i'm having so much fun uh dan howdy packet howdy in the flesh yeah i'm doing good dan drove me home this morning yeah i did actually i got to drive the uh you drove okay yeah yeah how was the handling actually it was interesting the uh the the seat by the vibration in the seat though oh yeah when you're above something yeah yeah it happens when you're about to hit something i thought so all week long these guys have been complaining about my driving because he drives like a lunatic and i do that because when you're about to hit something the entire seat in this yukon vibrates and i enjoy it so i i drive like a shithead too much vibrates a lot did we ever figure out if that's supposed to happen does that just happen it happens no it's fun that's so i i felt like i didn't have a choice but to let dan drive last night because we talked to my wife briefly during the trip and um dan was just like aj won't let me drive the rental and i really want to drive the rental and my wife said to me very sternly aj let him drive the room yeah and i drove it i drove it and you finished that the only thing that sucked about that is i had to wait like two and a half hours to give you a hug yeah that was weird drive so uh tim was in the back and so we're having a conversation but i i can't look at him because i you know i gotta focus on the seat would have vibrated like crazy stop you didn't stop like when you're at the airport get out it was like uh it was almost like we kidnapped him like just like a drive-by like jumped in and jumped no i it was under i was it was under my own will right but then and then we like i didn't even put it in the park i don't think you know we then we took off so uh yeah and then when we tried to get back to the house you know was it a rolling stop did you not stop for me you know i might not have i don't know at this point y'all wanted to get home this is a two year drive i think we should stop crying about how hard tim's commute was i think i think we've driven that point no no i mean i'm a quarter after all we don't yeah as you sit here with us but did it work but what you know this this whole thing is just crazy like i can see manny's guns from here like what you know when we used to get in the the uh happy hour it's like you know a lot of these faces around here i i've seen these faces through cameras and then here it is it's like i see y'all right here it's just it blows my mind especially after like you know the last two two and a half years or whatever i've covered and not being able to get out and see people or be with your friends like we came together at just a crazy time you know it was it was a support you know in in the discord channel on twitter all that stuff like i just um it's just crazy right like it we couldn't we couldn't be with you with each other right and and now here we are we're having this uh we're having this get together and uh i'm just i'm blown away honestly yeah you all had the whole study group and everything for yeah yeah and you just never saw each other during that time nope the first time i saw youtube was last year and then tim sawyer jay but no wait none of us have seen each other anything this community got me through some dark times in 2020 i'll tell you that yeah yeah that's what started the mental health episode was like oh my god so you know for me like big shout out to everyone here like you guys rock like y'all are answering people's questions in the discord like people coming in for ccna help and whatnot like y'all are answering this golly it's just i wish i had that yeah when i first started down this whole same path me too it's just it's awesome so big shout out to everyone here let's hear it thank you all right yeah all right we got one more best deal with one more save the best for last that's right lexi at track and pacer lexi how are you hey what's up shitbirds you know i had to do it i had to do it holding it in yeah no i'm doing good you know i've survived in a house with four men so far that's fair been good it's a win yeah we put you in the basement so they did they put them out i gave her the option if she wanted the master suite she said no big daddy walked in the house threw his shit in the master suite i wasn't gonna take that over i appreciate it though but just giving uh just to you know clear the air here the basement has a full suite it does oh it's a nice basement yeah it's i just got a room upstairs that's it and i gotta share a bathroom with those two guys well you poop every other hour so that's why we put lexie downstairs i'm marking my territory okay i've never seen a human poop as much as dan i can't pack it i got nervous i can shut that that basement door and it's just me in the spice yeah it's really peaceful it's peaceful down there me and the seller spiders yeah that's nice sounds like a start to a marvel movie or something yeah nice just saying getting bit by you been bit yet no they're my friends we just hang out they eat the bugs down there that's nice she's already trained them she's been here for two days and she's already training to do her bidding it's a testament how introverted i am yeah whatever anyway i'm doing great it's great to meet y'all and all the all the joking and the the growing outs really you're still here it's adorable yeah i've made it was it too much yeah i don't call it many things but adorable has never been well maybe this is the first and last time no it's been great it's been so weird to meet you guys in person but awesome they're all much taller than i was like ready for just because they're usually like right in front of me on a screen um but you know other than that no no crazy surprises you know you're nobody's a catfish i was kind of expecting some kind of differences but nope they're pretty much the same as they look it's funny you know dan and tim when they came to see me they were really relieved that i wasn't a catfish yeah dude i flew across the country yeah i mean i drove across the country oh so cute i know who i say what can i say all right aj what are we doing all right this episode is about community and well we are so happy that you guys are here so we want to definitely focus on on the community aspect we want to do a winning section so we invite you to come up and share your wins uh and we're going to record them as part of the show so if you have any wins let's get ready to line up and run on the microphone maybe you got the goat there so you can't you can't do that because nobody's going to volunteer do you want to say it yeah you just have to look andy directly in the eye when you say i'll go first first here i'll start off right hold on all right so uh-oh hello hello okay so i don't know i don't know if everybody knows this but i've i've been going through a problem at my house where i can't get hummingbirds to come to my house so i've been really upset about it and the other day i bought like a new hummingbird formula and i put it out and i saw one hummingbird hovering around my window and that's my win giving up all right let's go we got a room full of people there's got to be some windows the bar that i have set all right it's very low i have another non-technology win wait wait wait who are you oh hi my name is jordan villarreal hi hi hi jordan system mtu1 yes and my win is i made it here yeah that's it very simple no no no so it was was it tuesday was it tuesday when your boss was like why aren't you going yeah so i i initially wasn't going to come and it just wasn't financially going to work for me and i brought it up well part of what you need to be doing is interacting with communities so go interact with the community yeah so they put it the bill and everything yeah dude awesome thanks jordan jordan oh we got another one hey i know this guy i know him yeah he just took your finger guns damn it that was my thing dan can't use it now oh man okay so i'm michael kudka mike v2 on the discord hi mike when is this airing tomorrow no no it's actually airing now on twitch yeah a couple weeks out that's fine all right so um yeah so my win is a personal win as well um myself and my wife are expecting congratulations it's brother big one all right i'd like to see you top that one yeah i'm sorry this is the first time i mean this is the first time i haven't heard anyone do a win that has to do with like a cert we usually have like 500 people earning a cert in one week well i don't have anything yeah yeah art i just passed the aws certified specialty who are you oh yeah oh yeah my name is cloud bart thanks for this uh i live here in nashville so i really appreciate y'all coming to join me here we appreciate you coming and joining us yes thank you bart and congratulations on that i gotta admit it was a re-certified but it's still a learning experience it is always awesome mark thanks buddy all right here we go oh yeah i know this guy robin has a this guy who has like 10 wins every other day the winningest name yeah hey guys who is this i usually don't post all right my name is robin cannella last name is cinnamon so they call me cinnamon cinnamon hot cinnamon my recent accomplishment is i graduated with my bachelor's in cyber security whoa in like in like seven months yeah it's like 10 months yeah you got a four-year degree in seven months congrats yeah congrats man awesome that's fantastic thank you for being here yes thank you start interviewing yet all right anyone else anyone else thank you so much we we probably have some new patreons this week but i don't know who they are right i've been in patreon out for quite a while i added that broadcast base nicely okay very good all right we are so thankful for our community um it's it's truly amazing what that discord has turned into um it started out as a study group it somehow became the uh support channel for for the podcast and uh we've got over 2 000 members in there now and it is an internet place and i am shocked every day that there isn't some troll hanging out in there pissing people off uh but i think it's it's a testament to the to the kind of people that we have in that community that help regulate it right like i think there have been a couple of things here and there but everybody in there is so supportive and quickly shuts that shit down and it just makes it such a welcoming place just great stuff in there yeah yeah yeah looking out yeah we have a staff channel actually there's a few of them here i'm looking at that table over there yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they keep the roof out yeah you guys stay away from them yeah um and i i just want to say a few words like you know like andy said like this whole thing has been going on like throughout the pandemic and that there's been so much camaraderie and and uh you know just being able to go to people in the community and talk about stuff that's going on in your life when you don't have anybody else to reach out to like it this has been so much more than network engineering studying for certifications like there's real friendships going on here and it's just been so amazing to finally meet a lot of these people like in person and unless you haven't had a community to rely on like i've told the story a thousand times but sitting in my cable truck as a cable guy studying for the ccna and all my colleagues telling me you're wasting your time the certification isn't going to do anything you're wasting your money and they're all still there and i've had some really cool networking jobs but this is the community i wish i had and and we've just had so many people reach out and thank us and you know resume reviews and critiques and interview prep and it's it's just it's so nice to see it grow and what it means to people what it means to us it feels so nice to help right you know and it's so much more than just nice words back and forth and just saying hey you'll get the next one good job that kind of thing there's there's real world tangible uh experiences that are going on and i'm gonna go on an example of two people at that table over there mike v2 and manny so oh my god both part of the discord channel mike v2 got a promotion became a manager was able to backfill his position and worked with manny to get a job yeah to help manny you got it on your own i'm not taking any of that away from you but the connections made the tangible real-life things that are coming out of this community i mean that's incredible yeah yeah yeah so what you're saying is if you join our discord you can get jobs yeah trust me all right mike how many more positions you gotta open seriously though manny congratulations um and i do want to highlight manny some more too because he and i have have had a lot of heart-to-heart discussions over discord so this is really surreal to get to meet manny and everybody else today but i i got the breakdown of his uh of the interviews that he went on and and how he handled himself and you would have got that job no matter what so congratulations so one thing i also want to talk about too is like being able to like you know i i consider myself just kind of like an everyday engineer right i or my technical title is a network administrator right um but being able to be on that discord channel and like i'm gonna point out tim over there uh you know you know i've yes i've reached out to you multiple times and you've like answered my questions and i consider you like a cream of the crop in our community tim mack everybody and like you you took time out of your day to just help me with stuff right you know just answer some of my questions like how is this done you know like how does this work because remember i asked you about some aws stuff yeah and you totally just like took your time to kind of explain some of that to me and i really appreciate that and i think that has happened to multiple people in this community with this with this discord channel so yeah can i embarrass chris hart too because he has been super helpful not just me with like weird niche things but also a bunch of people in the community so thank you chris who has been in tact in the past and like use that experience to better the community thank you so much crazy bug chris yeah writing the tweets about crazy things and explaining like the reasons behind it it's so fascinating i love it yeah yeah and like to your point though like i mean we we have tack engineers in our in our discord that's wild how odd is that like yeah i don't know that's just crazy tech engineers tmes yes managers essays recruiters yeah you got everything you got people from just getting into i mean we have av guys yeah in the sound engineers lighting engineers yeah and then and then yeah i just it's crazy can i talk about my favorite channel on the discord yes please it's failure plex because not because i like people failing but i like to watch the world burn it makes me feel better and i think a lot of us see that sort of like instagram reality type of thing where you know online regardless of the platform right where everyone's getting their shirts everyone's getting their dream job blah blah blah and sometimes it's like you know i failed a narcissi and that felt horrible for a while right and it's it's nice to see other people normalizing failure right i think that's how we've phrased it right like normalizing failure you fail an exam whatever get back on the horse you know take the exam again study more like just keep going right and i think that channel is like really important for mental health reasons and being just like a nice wholesome culture in that discord server i'm really proud of it aj talk about that because you kind of have a person yeah why why is it in there yeah go back to episode number one when you explain that yeah yeah seriously the failure plaques yes uh i think it was episode number two but i'm not gonna so failing exams is is part of this whole thing right like everybody fails exams but you know like lexi said when you go onto social media you don't normally see people posting about the failures right and that so that's something that's always stuck with me when i started doing the blogging and the social media thing i i just wanted to be very transparent about my experience because i knew that other people were failing and they just didn't want to share the failures maybe they weren't failing maybe i'm just a dumb ass i don't know i don't think that's the case um but there there was a period where i i failed my ccna a couple of times i passed the csent i passed uh the part two i passed my ccda and then i passed a switch exam but then there was a period where i failed like 10 exams in a row you know a combination of uh the the old np route the old npt shoot and then i failed encore a couple of times and i i just never gave up right like at some point it became more than get to cert it was like i know i can do this yeah like i know i know my stuff like i had mentors i had tutors and we went through all the routing protocols spanning tree and everything they're just like dude i don't understand why you're failing this like you got this like and so it's just a matter of slow down when i take the test don't you know read three quarters of the question and try to answer it right like just slow down a little bit and you'll pass it so i i always wanted to normalize failure to to make sure that like it's okay to fail it's part of the journey and and one of the times that i posted a failure kevin myers stub area 51 on twitter he said to me it's it's all about the journey and my mind just exploded i'm like you're right it is all about the journey like because i failed 10 exams in a row when i finally passed encore that was the biggest win of my life and it just felt so much better than had i just passed it the first time and so to have the failure plaques channel i don't we need a failure black sticker we do yeah yeah we need an actual plaque yeah that's a good idea an actual plaque yeah you pass the failure plaque back and forth it's like a stamp fail that'll make us feel good but aj before you shared that and before the failure plaque became a thing and before i had a community i didn't know that other people were failing exams right and really normalized it i failed the ccna three times before i passed it and that was my way off the ladders and into like a networking job and every exam that i failed i thought those people are right at work i'm wasting my time on that like i failed out of computer science in college oh well i don't get to be in it oh you know bummer so then years later it was the same kind of thing so just the the power of this community that like no we're all failing it's okay because i can remember thinking like all right i really don't belong right you know so it's just just one of a thousand things i love about this community absolutely i i love watching that channel like i love seeing the winning channel like it's really great to see all the wins but i love it when people are brave enough to throw out they're like yep i failed this one and i'm gonna do it again or when they fail it and they're just like god damn and then like within seconds other people are jumping into the channel like so what like go study like let's figure out what your weak areas are and you're going to get this like the just the the way that people rally behind somebody and get them to be like you know what you're right like i can do this like it's it's a beautiful thing to watch the sheer amount of support is overwhelming yeah it's awesome well and to add to that too it's not even just the like technical know-how like i'll put tim on the spotlight again he's like damn it quit saying my name but you you've helped people with their resumes and whatnot in technical interviews and and that kind of stuff so and to kind of pivot off that a little bit um you know we have uh um what's your name brittany brittany yeah career bits with brit that's it yeah uh you know we have a technical recruiter who she specializes in network engineers right and so and she's in our discord so we have resources in our discord that is part of the community right you know i we have we have people we have trainers from cbt now gets in there you know it's just it's crazy like the the the help that we have in this community like whatever you're looking for we've got it right i've never experienced anything like it like i was joking earlier with the open gear folks like i used to sell used cars there was no community there was no help if you took a day off somebody stole your deals you know like i've just never had a job or a community where like people are just selflessly helping tim has helped me with my resume britney has helped me with some career stuff yeah i'm i'm meeting nicole for the first time who i work with at juniper because of this community and this show and that we all came together like just it's endless and you andy have helped people with salary negotiation how i tried it yeah right and the home labs and like i mean it's just it's just endless what but it's people like here giving of themselves and their and their time and their and their knowledge and i just i've never experienced a group of people who just give of themselves freely because they just want to help yeah i've never experienced that and i'm an old bastard right like i've been around a while i've said it yeah i saw it coming from dave but now like i've lived a lot of life and i've just never experienced something like this it's very unique i think and thank you for creating this it's been pretty awesome yeah and then and then you lexi uh your current job yeah came through social media right yeah yeah it's weird to say that but yeah twitter twitter or live streaming or both i'm not sure um somebody found me someone from blue origin found me that way and messaged me on twitter and was like hey we got a job opening you want to apply and i was like yeah yeah like yeah space okay you know yeah um yeah it's really a life-changing thing yeah i don't even know how else to say it it's life-changing and that's the net engineering community yeah even on twitter not yeah discord you know when i joined when i joined twitter i wanted to like meet other network engineers that were not just at the company i was at back then and i didn't think there would be that many of us out there but there are a lot of us out there i knew there was a lot of like cyber security stuff going on with that um community but i did not know there were so many network engineers it's wild the net ends twitter community is so cool so like i got my job through twitter like man yeah i i you know like you kind of know people right like we're here like oh yeah no you're like you know so i knew people and i reached out and there was a tme and like what's that like and then that led to other conversations and then somebody that i guess has been following me on twitter and and the podcast reached out and like now i'm i have this like dream job of juniper like it happened from the community you know like the netenge community on twitter is how they found me i wasn't on twitter it wouldn't have happened yeah it's like twitter's the new linkedin that's a better one not as not as many guardrails as linkedin right yeah it's a little bit better with communicating with people too linkedin is a little bit stodgy i don't know yeah but it's another way to have a voice right it's another communications channel it's a way to you know get your brand out there right i don't know i don't feel like i can just like post like you know shit posts on linkedin i could curse up the story about bgp on twitter though so you know different platforms you could start a new trend on shit posting on linkedin i'm a little too scared for that at least on twitter i have like a pseudo i'm just a little bit my full name is not there technically oh true true so wait hold on a second so do the people you work with now know about your shit post a couple of them well no the ship was specifically no because i haven't done one in a while so i'm really just visible as like on twitter but some people did find out i have a presence that's a good word for it you know the first thing somebody found out at work and they were like oh you're on twitter i found you and i was like no and then and then he's like oh no you have 9 000 followers who are you dear lord what did we get in what have i done i should have created a decoy one that's cool let's see underscore blue origin lexi underscore professional rocket person yes like an astronaut picture no i need to stop i'm not trying to be conceited i'm not even close to i'm like a junior junior engineer there i'm nowhere close to what everybody else at blue origin is it's just nice to be there and like soak in the rocket knowledge i'm just lucky to have gotten the opportunity like that's that's all that's what it's all about right opportunity yeah within the community but you had to put yourself out there yeah well and in so many people in the discord like you know we also was it i think you started the content creator tab channel or whatever ready i'll take credit for it okay oh age i'm looking forward to oh you are yeah am i cross side you were staring me right in the eye bro yeah i did not feel like you were looking at me oh okay sorry uh yeah no it uh you started the content creator channel maybe i don't know yeah but it was really funny because in the beginning you know people started they're like i'm gonna start i'm going to start my own website you know my own blog i'm going to start talking about my journey you know not not me but them um and i think that like like sparked something right there you know like what you're saying with the opportunity people are reading other people's blogs yeah you know some people let's see i'm not seeing some people have uh youtube channels and whatnot but uh who is youtube channel where's your hand go anyone so dan you talked about a second ago where you said your journey but you weren't talking about your journey i want to talk about your journey oh boy on the spot so i really think that this podcast in this community has has really helped you find your voice because i've gone you know i i had listened from episode one up to i don't remember what episode i started 31 it are you shitting me right now no you're episode 31. i did the math yesterday yeah yeah you'll talk about we got rain man well you know i'm pretty involved in the podcast he is he only started it but dan where you've come from because and i've heard from the guys when they started this that you would you know you get through an episode you'd get your bits in here and there and then you'd get to the end and you just really open up and aj would yell at you saying why didn't you say that yeah i'll never forget it it was like one of the first episodes we recorded and we got through the whole recording and we literally stopped recording and dan was just like you know what there was this experience i had with these firewalls and he just like went into this tangent we're like dude why didn't you talk about that while we were recording and and i can't wait for you to listen to especially the last five minutes of this show you're leading this thing oh no i mean look at this oh no i mean i'm just i'm just trying to say that with the show and the community yeah i think it's helping even the five of us here oh yeah it's definitely helped me to be um i talk more i i'm definitely more of an introvert this is not my thing i mean you tweet about pocket knives all the time yeah i know but you know uh well you know normally we're talking behind a camera right that's that's what i'm looking at on my side right it's a camera that in a screen with y'all's faces on it and and so this is the biggest one gotta see that for some reason the screen is a big crack in it no um but yeah this has helped me in getting better about talking about things right like one one part that i've struggled about or struggled with in uh just my day-to-day job is like you know sometimes we have to present to the higher-ups and you got to present a technology that you're you know some kind of solution to whatever the business is is struggling with and um it's sometimes hard to turn off the nerd knob and talk business right like and and so being able to talk in front of people this kind of thing has helped me with that with my job so yeah not only does like seeing what's going on in the community uh like motivate us but even within in the team here like there was a period where it just seemed like one after the other was like getting a win like like tim got his promotion andy got his new job dan's gotten promotions lexi got a new job i got a new job and just like talking about amongst each other in the close team and just be like holy shit like everybody just gets like fired up off each other and the energy is amazing yeah i think another thing i'll say is don't be not that you should listen to anything i say don't be shy about sharing any of your experiences if if you think it'll be remotely helpful and i'll bring andy into it i i don't get very many linkedin messages from people saying that i am really helping and changing people's lives andy shares all the ones that he gets and the andy you you've talked about you know your career your jump from pre-it to cable guy to uh production engineer to where you are now and as a product manager and you've also you did a a blog a while back that really kind of broke apart how you got into the podcast and and how it helped you get through some dark times and you were just you were being vulnerable you were sharing that experience and you didn't know what was going to come from that and i'll tell you what it was tons of positive feedback you're helping people so i mean i'm just saying even if if you're not sure that something's going to be helped you never know who you're going to help by what you say i think of all of us andy definitely gets the most messages that are like oh yeah hands down you're amazing yeah it's cool man yeah it's the hair one thing it's the hair the hair makes me approach your haircut changed my life i just i thought it looked like shit and then i saw you but in most of the but in most of these messages they reference us like the show and the discord i don't know why they're you know they're reaching out to me i don't know if my client like computer science computer like i don't know i i feel like because i was like this blue collar ladder climbing guy who somehow laddered climbing guy i was on a ladder every day like running cables to houses and stuff like i just i just feel like that demographic really like whoa what i always tried to say is like if i can do it you can do it too like i'm not the smartest guy in any room i'm in and i just work really hard and i try my best and i try to be a good person and help the next person and it just seems to to keep paying off and they're all the people that reach out to me like thank you so much i can't you know this or that like whatever somebody just hit us up like yo sour negotiation i just got a 25 bump doing the trick thing and like yeah because of the episode yeah and all of us too like somebody just reached out i forget where it was somebody was in a really dark spot and they just like found a therapist and they like thought they were at the brink and then somehow they came across our mental health episode and we're like oh my god like this is you know they got like yo yo the universe just put this show right like they heard what they needed right at that time how crazy is that just you know yeah it's beautiful right i i have ladder climbing guys first album by the way they're great in concert so and one thing i also want to hit on is you know we we interview um a lot of different types of people right we interview people who in my eyes have made it to the top of or at least to the end of uh or where we want to be i guess i'm trying to say and then we've also interviewed people who like were av people that were trying to get into help desk or our we're in help desk and now they want to try to get into the networking team and i think that resonates with a lot of people that are on this journey uh because if i'm looking around and i think we've had about like 10 people in here on the show already thank you and what i'm just thanking them for coming oh sure we needed their help thank you yeah and and it all different kinds of backgrounds right you know we we are you in tech not anymore you're intact though yeah and so but hearing some tax stories hearing some robin you started with voice right is that right but then you went void but at some point yeah yeah and your your specialist in voice right yeah and and he'll uh have his phd in about three and a half months yeah but it's just crazy like uh hearing the different backgrounds makes me feel so much better about my my current path right because like i've always felt that you know i i've been at the same place for 10 years and i'm like am i am i losing like do i need to drop pump or hump job hey dan's beer is empty but you know in hearing other people's stories though like like you tim because how many years have you been at your place now is it about 10 are you looking at me looking at me yeah how long have you been how long it'll be uh it'll be 12 next month 12. okay and so hearing that it's like okay maybe maybe this isn't bad right like maybe maybe i'm not actually or that i am on a good path yeah this has really helped me too dan because i i feel like i've been able to draw a lot of parallels with you yeah throughout this and we've been able to bounce a lot of stuff off each other and and it's yeah it's been just being able to communicate with with other people yeah and then like with uh chris denney over there um you know we kind of yeah i'm looking what's andy say what did what did andy say that one time fuck chris denny but you know i resonated with your story because that's kind of what i've gone through right you know i'm not a specialist in anything i'm i'm more of a i touch everything back to job pumping i guess all right now and and so it's good to hear that from other people because sometimes it's like man it would be nice if i just focused on firewalls or if i just focused on aci or something like that you know it but then i hear other people's stories i'm like okay well maybe i'm maybe i don't have it so bad right yeah well you can before your own path yeah exactly and so hashtag it's all about the germs you say a circle yeah full circle circle of life that was beautiful my point that i was laying the plane here um is that you hear all these different stories and how they got to where they're at now and it's like th this is cool i i can because you know not everybody i i resonate with but there's definitely been some key people that i've i've resonated with on like my path and i hope that for everyone else right i've always assumed that successful people were born successful and they've always been on top of them exactly because i don't know why but social media it just seems that way like oh look at them they must have always been you know amazing at their job and super smart and right and that's been one of the most wonderful things we've peeled back not intentionally but on the show interviewing people is like there's just everybody started like you know keith barker working at cash register like you know and saw the it come in with a briefcase and he's like i want a briefcase you know but like the origin stories of these brilliant people we know that just they were just like anybody else and yeah it helped me because i just assumed people are you know oh you were born successful and brilliant yeah i used to feel really insecure about having started my career over at like 28 yeah and then i like you know listen to all the guests and you know learn about all these different people who had also done that around the same age and it's like this isn't that uncommon and you can still be very successful at what you do even if you start late late so you know i love the vulnerability right like no matter what you can start over and like just you know our guests and just it it disarms that like well everybody's born perfect and wonderful like no there's struggles and people you know it's hard and yeah like you started over in your 20s i started over in my 30s yeah that way so so big shout out to the guests that have been on our show who have shared their journeys because it's not always easy you're welcome but but seriously it's not always easy talking about your past and your you know struggles with like where you came from you know because like i started at a grocery store like that was my first job i took a pay cut to come into i.t you know and wow and so it's like but you hear other people like that and it's like damn it it's nice to hear that yep i don't know they can do it i can do it yeah that's it yeah so in the community it has helped that so i do appreciate everyone who's come on and given their back their backstory how they got into where they're at uh that that's just awesome aj it's really good that you knew exactly that this was gonna happen when you started this yeah i i will tell you that like you know i i had been a content creator for a couple of years i was doing the blogging thing and i always thought that like i want to take the content creation to the next level and i didn't want to get into a youtube channel because i didn't want to make the investment in the camera gear and it just seemed like nauseating right like i went to an event in like 2019 and network truck was there and a few other youtubers and they were like hauling around entire luggage bags full of like video gear and i was just like fuck that i do not want to do that you know that's not something i'm interested in so i'm like all right so maybe a podcast is like the next thing that i want because it's been super easy right you weren't hauling around any gear this whole time and so when i thought about like okay what's the next thing we want to do do a podcast okay great and there was a number of different podcasts that i was listening to that i thought i could pull like little bits of information from and create the art of network engineering and no joke like that title and and what this has become has been something that i sat on for two years at least so you had the art of network engineering ready for like two years yeah wow yeah but it wasn't until we started doing the study group and we had such great conversations that i was just like whoa this sounds like a show this could this could be a thing and so i pitched the idea to you know andy dan and then at that time aaron and a couple of other people and and those guys bit on to it and now like here we are holy shit this is the thing yeah um and there there's been so much that has happened like i i never thought we would be at a live show in front of an audience you know because of stuff that we started two years ago in a study group um i never saw or thought that people would come to us and be like your podcast changed my life like i was not ready for that as a content creator and i will tell you that that is like i don't i don't do drugs but i gotta imagine that that's like way better than any drug out there right like when somebody tells you like what you did changed my life that's that's a very addicting feeling like you just want to get out there and change as many lives as you possibly can and so now now it's been this like okay i gotta reel it in i'm not gonna change everybody's life let's come back down to reality here everybody just clapped because you said you didn't do drugs just say no very happy for you yeah so so that this has been you know absolutely incredible i still can't believe that we're all sitting here i can look you all in the eye i can touch you and feel you do nothing he just messed up my hair that's really sticky i don't understand but you know my what i'm waiting for is after this like we get to actually hang out with everybody so like you know we're kind of setting up and i didn't get to talk to everybody and i just can't wait to actually go talk to everybody i think dan's saying let's wrap it up yeah yeah man that's probably not a bad idea we got 10 minutes left to go i i do want to open it up to the audience um does anybody have any questions yeah come on all right come on up it's a hot mic though so we can't sit back there we can record the questions gotta have mike hot mike for mike v too hello yeah hello so like when you guys started the podcast or we're at the study group were you guys all studying for the same thing were you studying different topics yeah so great question absolutely great question so i had been failing the ccnp exams and i saw a bunch of other people failing ccmp exams and so i all reached into their twitter dms and like hey i want to start this study group i don't know why but it never dawned on me to ask somebody that had their ccnp to come to us can you help us a bunch of people who can't pass people who can't pass exams are all going to get together and try to study you guys figure it out so yeah right it all worked out it all worked out awesome thanks jack anything else oh all right margaret where's the flu so i'm curious like uh i'm a really big supporter of community and that's one of the reasons why i was drawn to art of network engineering um have you seen others reach out to ask you to like help them leverage efforts or cisco i'm just curious that stories about like that yeah yeah but tons of people have reached out and said like we want to donate gear we you know we want to donate uh books and all sorts of stuff and we love that and it's just it's so hard to manage all that stuff right like we're already trying to do everything with a podcast and then people come to us and be like oh we want to donate a bunch of books it's like well shit how are we going to do that time to organize a giveaway yeah yeah like i have a data center full of vendor life gear do you want to give it away uh like we're not sure if we can you need like a warehouse for all the donations yeah that's what we need you can manage the warehouse no but managing giveaways let me just say is stressful a little bit yeah yeah you wouldn't think so but it is i know him yes here comes this guy so um can you talk into the microphone so i've seen a little bit of behind the scenes what you guys do but how much time do you spend communicating with each other setting things up coming up with how you're going to do what you're going to do next if i don't talk to these guys daily i miss them okay there have been jordan there have been times where somebody who just hit something in the group chat saying hey everybody okay is my phone is my phone still working yeah we have a group chat yeah in discord it's pretty active and this has been like a family and families have ups and downs and we have had the same and it's just uh the support though that's what's that's what's awesome awesome so it's your your own support network as well oh yeah oh yeah sure yeah yeah when we have wins it's just like all capitalized f words and the way to go ever since lexi showed up she's a bad influence it's not f words anymore it's fuck words i'm learning i'm adapting i'm growing but jordan even beyond the show like aj and i have been in more touch probably in the past six months tim's start i hope this is okay to share he started reaching out a few months back just like hey man i'm just checking in how you doing and yeah he didn't know i needed that check-in yeah and i don't even know if i ever told him but like people checking in has been yeah it comes right at the right time right like life is hard sometimes and so just even beyond the show right like i have made friends um which just is you know the best we are friends yeah but also to step even even out of our circle the the community right like wheezy weezy reaches out to me all the time yeah so how are you doing yeah you know and and it's just like it's awesome to have uh people just reach out to you that you know three years ago we didn't have that yeah just something that simple can you change the course of your day but yeah they understand like what we're going through right you know like from you know just i t work and and whatnot not just like you're because you know we got we got friends and they're not into it and they don't understand like what we go through and stuff it's just so nice to be like able to just shoot the shit about you know talk shop about like what we do what we struggle with like tickets oh my god you know so yeah it's not just this group right here it's even into the community again and let me just say um for the women network engineers out there woo there's maybe one in our audience right now we we also have kind of a kinship as well and i've had a number of like female network engineers reach out to me at times and do the same thing like check in like hey how are you doing not always because something has happened although occasionally it is for that reason but like you know it's just really really nice to have that like you said and like you know women in netangz women in tech it's also a tribe of its own right so yeah that's very important you know community place to have as well yeah anybody other questions enjoying the pizza beer good yeah how's the beer yeah yeah shout out to high wire yeah yes very very good beer awesome event space yes i'm a sucker for string lights this is amazing well they got you covered and they got our like colors and the lights over here and everything heck yeah and then open gears and once again yeah i want to highlight open gear they they really helped pull us pulled this all together they were our first ever sponsor um and and more than sponsored they've really become a partner for us oh yeah it's a friendship yeah it's been incredible thank you this event did not happen without opening gear thank you they are forever our only out of band sponsor we will never accept that from another out of band company they have plugged that spot right absolutely do you hear that dave and so i actually want to go into open gear just a little bit right so they they let us in to one of their sales meeting just not you know a couple hours ago right and one of the things they hit on is being in a trusted advisor right and to me you know i when i or who i consider a good vendor is when an se or anyone that is you know their representative on the technical side uh in sales side two right uh they if if i can just like text my se or something like that and be like hey how are other customers doing this because i'm trying to come up with this in my head and i don't think it's right and like so like give me some tips it's a relationship investment exactly right and and then they text back or respond back uh you know and and help you with that and you know we had our interview this morning and we were talking about you know you were writing uh uh ansible uh uh uh playbooks and and stuff like that for for you know your your your customers in in in working with them and and then you were also talking about how the tftp right and and don't give away the whole episode right it hasn't aired yet did you sign an nda i did not i did not i didn't sign it so they haven't told the world yet about the tft sorry dan baxter but but after shortly after they they they tested something like that they they put it as an actual feature on their box yeah and and so what i'm getting to is they're they're they are preaching this at their sales meetings right and and so i i value that personally so big shout out to uh opengear on that absolutely yeah yeah thank you thanks guys and girls now i will say it just happened to be the second that we walked in that they started saying that but no no it was already on the slide so i i just want to say how cool it was to meet dan baxter today yes we've been talking to dan for a long time we interviewed him last year and to see him pull up in the driveway at our house i had to give the man a hug in the woods up in the mountains i mean we made him work for it i can't quit you dad yeah i get that a lot i get that a lot yeah yeah he's a grizzly bear i am i am six foot two 200 something pounds i don't know exactly there's a lot of man here what just happened yeah i don't know it's not all in the right places but there's a lot of answers and it's time to wrap up the show but seriously you know thank you for being our first sponsor and helping us with this yeah this event right here would not have happened without you guys so we really appreciate that awesome uh this is incredible thank you so much for coming out uh and i think we're gonna spend the rest of the show chatting with you all that made the trek uh down or up or over uh however you got here thank you so much for coming out thank you so much to opengear uh and my god this has been such a pleasure doing this with you guys live in the in the flash because i i don't think we're going to record another one before we leave tomorrow no so no that's enough yeah all right who's ready for the outro no no they don't they don't know we'll see you next year at another a1 live event thanks for coming hey everyone this is aj if you like what you heard today then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes also follow us on twitter and instagram we are at art of net edge that's art of n-e-t-e-n-g you can also find us on the web at art of network engineering dot com where we post all of our show notes you can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world thanks for listening you