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 i am aj murray at no blinky blinky this is our first recorded episode for 2022 and i am super excited to be joined by lexi special guest co-host with us today hi lexie how you doing at track and pacer she's at track and face here on twitter thank you yeah i'm doing great thanks for having me i'm excited to be here absolutely and of course tim burtino at timber tito on the twitters tim how you doing hey aj i still trying to figure out 2022 that might be timely for the topic we're going to talk about tonight but anyway yeah very excited to have lexi back the she led the women in tech episode and it was just excellent i mean you handled the flow of that great like you've been doing this for a long time so thank you it's great to great to have you back and and uh hopefully this can be a regular thing here and there so thank you how about you aj what's up you know i i just want to say since this episode we'll be following the the all ladies panel that we released last week that um be completely transparent with our audience that this will definitely be a regular thing going forward uh we want to definitely bring in as many different guests as possible and you know respectfully share the experience of everybody right like there's so many different people working in this industry we want to pull them in and have them all be part of the conversation so if you're a listener of the show and you can't appreciate that then you can find another podcast to listen to and that's all i really have to say about that mean you're eventually you're gonna eventually get tired of listening to me the entire time need a little variety there's only so much soap box to go around i mean we got to bring in some new perspectives i know andy's usually on the soapbox so we have to give fair fair time to everybody else that's that's a fact to echo what tim said lexi you you really did a fantastic job i i mean that like i i thought like you were like a regular podcast host you know like you were doing just such a great job handling the conversation and you could tell like if the conversation was starting to slow down you were right there with like the next question or ready to move on to the next thing and it's you're just absolutely natural it's fantastic thank you i want to add on to that too because lexi aj has been uh you know every now and again trying to i don't want to say push off i'm just making aj sound bad but he has been asking if some of the rest of us want to want to host the shows from time to time and we've always been kind of like nah man you're good keep going it's a tough job buckle up lexi you're up it's a tough job it was not tough for me it didn't feel tough you know i was a little nervous but you know yvonne and micheline were wonderful to chat with and they have just so much experience and there was so much humor and warmth in that episode even when talking about you know some not so pleasant things um they made it really easy to to have a conversation about it so thank you very much but they they also did a wonderful job i think they were actually it was an excellent dynamic it really was yeah i had a good time with them yeah but uh i got to tell you that there was such a great episode you guys got so authentic with us and you know as somebody that was watching in the audience i i just did this like internal like oh my god like have i done anything to a past or present like female co-worker you know i was just doing this like self-inventory and then not only that like looking ahead like okay what can i do differently to make sure that you know yeah that's that's wonderful to hear you know we didn't do it obviously to like scare everyone into like oh no no no of course no of course you you have you have sinned you know like we didn't but at the same time you know self-reflection is great it's but like not just when we're talking about diversity in text there's a lot of different topics you know that sure just in the world right where like self-reflection is a healthy thing to do in life in general you know every once in a while like am i doing okay how's my mental health um have i bullied anyone today you know like just think about you know whatever is relevant maybe in the moment but self-reflection is a great thing and while we were you know doing the recording during the live like you know stream of it um the chat was like alive and lots of people were talking it was such a great conversation we had a lot of a lot of men who were saying like i want to make sure you know a lot of fathers who like i want to make sure i raise my kids the right way and like what can i do we had a lot of people asking and still a lot of people are asking like in the discord server and on twitter um one of the things that we had recommended in that episode as like a thing you can do if you if you want to if you're up for it um to help is mentor a woman at work right oh we offer to mentor her or offer to teach her some technology or whatever you know um and so we're getting a lot of questions about that too like how how can i do that without like pushing you know too hard or like how or like coming off as creepy because you know we exactly don't make it weird does that take away from that number one rule right so um you know it's been a great conversation uh that we're having off off you know away from the the podcast but still very much having to do with what we talked about um and so i you know i very much appreciated that everybody's talking about self-reflection wanting to know you know what can i do i don't want to you know come off as weird how can i help without doing that and there's a lot of answers you can do a lot of things without being weird the key is like offer don't push and don't take things personally if you know somebody you offer mentorship to or whatever doesn't doesn't want it um just just keep going and do your best you know you don't have to always be in the trenches with it but yeah it's been it's been great to see the feedback from that episode yeah and one of the other things that kind of jumped out from from everything that's gone on lately uh on twitter is that i'm seeing a lot more women in tech and in network engineering specifically showing up in my twitter feed so i i don't know like if that's a bias that twitter has or something like that like clearly they're out there and i don't know why i wasn't exposed to them before but i am now and i'm thankful that i am now because i'm following a lot more women network engineers on twitter i'm i'm hearing the value that they have to add and um i've i've started following one recently that she's been creating harry potter network engineer themed memes and i absolutely love it it's awesome i think i've only seen one if there are more i'm gonna go search for it because oh there's another one this morning with the weasley twins it was great yes all right i'm gonna have to go take a look at it i love it anything funny anything to memify networking is uh fantastic absolutely absolutely and that sound means it's time for some wins winning in our discord channel this week is stubborn packets they accepted a new position as an it manager in their organization congratulations jared cl passed the aws ccp congratulations jared and joining us as new patreons this week is max horizon and stubborn packets thank you so much for your support of what we do here at the art of network engineering if you have some time we'd like you to take our 2022 listener survey this survey helps us learn just a little bit more about our listeners as well as what you're working on how you found us how often you listen to our podcast all that information really helps us work with potential future advertisers and it helps us you know pay the bills and support what we do here so any time that you can take to do that should just take a few minutes we really really appreciate that you can find links to the survey as well as all of our socials the patreon and of course to join the discord right at the bottom of every episode show notes so just go back to your podcatcher open up this episode and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the the show notes and you'll see all the links right there you can just tap and go right from there we really appreciate your support of everything we do here at the art of network engineering podcast now back to the show awesome well in the same vein as doing the self-reflection i think in this episode we wanted to take some time to discuss what the future holds for us as far as our our goals and you know the kind of self-reflection that we all kind of take the time to do around the holidays and the new year and um you know i i know not a lot of people are are about like setting goals just because it's a new calendar year but i think it's that that time most of us i think get time off from work in between the holidays and so what better opportunity while you're not you know hustling to actually take a time take the time to to breathe and examine the goals right so uh tim if you could uh kick it off for us i know you're working on a couple of different things for for your goals this new year uh just in past discussions so what what have what do you have on on the mind so i i kind of want to start it off with it's it's two main different things so it's i see goals and then i see things that i want to do and and the reason i create the distinction there is i feel like a goal should be something that's measurable so that there has to be something finite at the end of it now i could be wrong that's just kind of how i think about it is that there has to be some end to it something that shows that yes i achieved this so from a goal perspective i want to finish up my ccmp this year this is something that i have wanted for for quite a while now um was able to finish up encore last year so i'm going for enterprise i'm doing the enterprise design the end salad i think everybody calls it so and i'm also i'm also usually not terribly strict with like timelines of you have to have this done by this date in the year like i for the enterprise core exam at the beginning of last year i just said i want to have it done by the end of the year um so i think that's what i'm saying like i really want it done by the end of the year but realistically i'd like to have it done in the first half of this year so working toward that um i also one of the things i'm gonna do as part of that is uh blog more about things that i'm covering so i'll kind of it's not on the same level of what lexi does with her live streams but as i go through stuff i want to write blogs to kind of help solidify knowledge of things and release those on my site more often and then to go to the second main goal of i want to at least become a finalist next year in the uh cisco i.t blog awards so i really want to work on my writing uh this year and so i'll tie the two together and get to get two birds stoned at once or however that goes um that's great so those are the those those are the main goals i think it'd be easy to just throw 100 things on there but i know myself and i'll just get you know discouraged and and down so i'm trying to get better at being realistic i mean i know how i operate i know how i spend my time not always the best but at least i'm aware of that um and then on the things that i want to do we had we have had multiple conversations and now aj and dan have been volunteering with itdrc the i.t based disaster recovery group i've started my process of becoming a volunteer i've got some more training that i want to do but i want to become training ready uh so that i can do deployments help out that kind of thing when when things come up so that's a that's a definite want to do if i get the ccmp done the first half of the year i kind of want to spend the second half and really start digging into python abstraction automation that is something that is i won't even call it weak it's much more than weak uh in my book so it's something that i i just kind of want to get exposure to and there's a lot of folks in our community i'll call out eric cho uh who has been really instrumental in offering time john capo bianco as well oh my gosh so i i think the resources there are endless um i just i call that a want to do because i i can't really i can't really measure success there um i don't know how to do that so but that is something that i want to get into in the second part of the year also meeting the rest of the team uh as of right now we're on track to have our meet up in asheville in the spring so hopefully get to see dan and andy for the first time and anybody else that can can make the trip we're getting really excited for that so that's that's my rapid fire what what i want to do in 2022 and also one last thing i want to say that i'm thinking it probably should have been the first thing that i said but i want to become more people conscious i had kind of started doing a halfway decent job at just randomly checking in with people seeing how they're doing what's going on just to make sure people are okay because i think that's important now more than ever it's but it's always important and also i mean i've got the family at home that i can always put more energy and time into uh that the kids are all at an age where they you know they need that time with with dad to do anything developmental whether it's just helping them with school you know we're trying to get more into the the stem stuff here at home so i just i always got to remember what's the most important thing and it starts it starts at home so that's that's always something i can improve on that's so lovely i love that be more people conscious that's a good one yeah there's a lot if you can tell me how to if you if you can give me tips on how to measure that then i can call it a goal i'll tell you how i did it's okay that you can't necessarily like quantitatively measure that i think it's it's still something that as long as you have it in your in the back of your mind as a goal i think it's still something that you can achieve you know as long as it's more than last year you know it's up to you to measure it really but yeah that's great so so tim i kind of want to go back through your goals a little bit because you you got a lot there and i you know i'm curious for for the end salad you know what resources or tools you're going to use to prepare for that um and then just how do you how do you pick goals right like there's there's so much available to us uh that that is being thrown at us all the time you know either telling us things we should learn stuff we've got going on at work stuff we have going on in our personal lives so how do you land on those things that that you set as goals or jobs yeah definitely so the the ccmp is something that i've wanted for a while and specifically enterprise i've always been in the enterprise space so and honestly and i always hate to describe it this way but it's the truth is that i've seen one of the big reasons that i want to get the ccmp not only because of the knowledge that i that i get along the way and the things that i kind of solidify in my head because that's a huge benefit i don't believe you should get certifications just to have the paper i think you need to get something more out of it than that that being said another main reason that i like going after certifications is i see them as for lack of a better term and insurance policy so i've got myself and my family that you know we all need to take care of each other if i happen to wake up one morning and i don't have the job anymore that i've had for the last x amount of years i need to have in my toolbox everything possible that i can to get that next job as soon as possible and i think certifications are a great great way to do that again i don't think that should be the main reason and the only reason that you do that but cisco being cisco i mean it's it's a huge industry certification it's just something that i think is great to have so once i have that i think i'm gonna start branching out um the one thing and i've reached out to her recently because she's the one that brought this up to me on her original episode but yvonne sharp said that you know if you want to keep uh growing in your career you're going to hit a point where you're probably either going to need to go deeper wide so you're either going to need to pick something fairly narrow and become that expert in it or you're going to want to go wide and start learning things that are adjacent to you maybe things that aren't even adjacent to you become more business conscious that kind of thing and with where i'm at in my career and the things that that i'm excited about i'm kind of trending toward the going wide so i kind of like the the enterprise scope and the design focus of the ccmp track that i'm on and then once i'm done with that i i feel better about jumping into python or jumping into something else because i'm not focusing narrow on one thing so that's kind of why i picked ccmp and especially the the enterprise track um as far as materials i've kind of narrowed it down to three so i'm doing the official cert guide for the exam um we have through my employer cbt nuggets subscription so i'm going to be going through that and then aj and others now have recommended the there's a pluralsight course for the enterprise design track so i'm going to i'm going to be using that as well and kind of i'm going to take the same or a similar path that i did with the enterprise core exam is i'm going to do basically a high-level topic at a time and i'm going to hit it in each one of those uh formats and then i'll move to the next one and do the anki cards all along so is there a pluralsight chorus for an rc do you know i believe i more resources okay cool sorry so i i get a free sub to pluralsight through the vmware v expert program uh pluralsight will give out um free subscriptions free personal subscriptions to like microsoft uh vps i think they call them and then there's a couple of other vendor related programs like that out there that you can score um a free license with and i've carried this for a number of years i used pluralsight to prepare for my ccda when i took that back in early 2019 and the same two instructors that taught that course also teach this and salad course on pluralsight and they do a fantastic job and one of the things that i love about that is that they take a fictitious company and they you know it's a manufacturing company it's got a campus it's got you know a seven-story building and here's how we're gonna build you know the the network uh using the three three layer design or three tier design uh and so it just you know they teach you something and then they they implement it and it's it just really connects the dots yeah absolutely awesome they do a great job with it i can't speak to the cbt nuggets content i haven't watched it i think at the time that i was studying for the n salad um cbt hadn't released their copy their version yet um but the plus size stuff and the book the book's great that that book is one of the most well-written ocgs that i've i've read from i'm really enjoying that yeah um and on the cbt side there's three instructors i can't remember off top my head to who the third one is but jeff kish and knox are totally and jeff is constantly in our discord helping people out so i'm i'm really excited to and and i really liked his all of his stuff for the enterprise core exam too so looking forward to that yeah um and just to highlight both manny and adil said that uh and we all should have known this but nick russo obviously has tons of content for advanced routing and all that so awesome yeah i think he's got devnet content on there too which is great if you're doing the devnet track he has so much so much out there i don't know he's ridiculous besides john he might be the person that i feel like i personally see like putting out content the most all the time just content it's great what's great about nick russo right is not only does he do this stuff for pluralsight like you know so it is a subscription you do have to pay to see it it's great content definitely worth it but nick also posts a ton of stuff just out there he's got tons of white papers and other things that he does that he posted on a post on his blog and it's great stuff it's really great stuff yeah i i like reading through it i have not come close to being able to like look through everything that he's posted because it's just yeah oh yeah yeah but it is impressive how much like how many white papers he puts out yeah it's great so i need to dig through some of his stuff a little bit more i think excellent well thank you tim hey a1 fans aj here for net ally you ever heard of net ally sure you have they came from the same group of engineers that brought us network tools from fluke networks netscout and now their net ally they know networking i'm a network engineer for a partner and when i go to customers and see they use netaly i know it's going to be so much easier to troubleshoot issues we might run into the name may have changed in an ally but the way they build tools hasn't changed a bit they ask what would a network engineer want to help make their job faster and easier and then they go build it just like this etherscope nxg net ally is here to help netally simplicity visibility collaboration visit netaly.com today now back to the show lexi was uh was scoring a new job a goal for you this past year nope but it happened anyway i love it i love it yeah shoot um a couple things happened last year that i did not plan on at all but they were really wonderful wonderful things and uh scoring a new job um working on rockets was one of them for sure that's awesome so my goal one of my goals for this year will be like to not embarrass myself too much at this job with a lot of really amazing smart passionate people yeah um just just trying to learn i i have a lot fewer quantitative goals this year um i'm the opposite tim like i i don't but this is just this is just me this this is probably not the best way to go about it but for me if i have quantitative goals and i like have like a number or a date or something i never get there i i'll get to a place but i always um i won't quite get there usually because i get really over ambitious and then you know like you mentioned it's kind of some disappointment there so this year i'm like accepting that and being okay with that and my goals are more like um don't uh don't embarrass yourself but also ask a lot of questions um i you know in my live streams i will just ask questions that may or may not be stupid questions and i know there's like no stupid questions but i can ask i can challenge that um and but but my goal is to like be okay with that and um not be too embarrassed to learn because um you know over over the last couple years as i've like grown a bit more in my technical knowledge um and skills you know i've trained a few people at work and i've noticed like the biggest inhibitor to learning is being embarrassed um and that's not just in tech that's in literally everything right like being embarrassed to ask questions being embarrassed to say i don't know um i feel like i'm actually fairly good at that but in certain company i'm very scared to say like i don't know what that is can you please tell me what that acronym mean you know like that that kind of thing and i'm um you know i still feel very green in a lot of ways and and i've just transitioned you know i just sort of got familiar with more advanced routing principles and concepts and now i'm moving into a field where it's like you know uh so what what do solar flares do to stuff and like you know advance you know what what what does radiation do to a switch i don't know it does some stuff but hey we're gonna find out yeah i'm gonna learn it uh so it's uh it's you know it's i'm i'm back to being pretty green again and that's like not a super comfortable place to be so i want to work on like being okay not knowing and like being okay asking questions and just learning because the more i learn this year that's a lot more than i will have known than i knew last year right so any learning for me this year is gonna be um a huge like achievement and i think that's a really interesting way to look at it because you could come at that from could potentially from another view where you could say hey i don't know these things but i'm gonna ask and i'm gonna try to find out with help on my own that kind of thing or you could be comfortable with i don't know and i don't really care that i don't know and i'm just going to kind of sit back and hope nobody notices that i don't know those are two very different things and i i think you want to be the former rather than the latter you know yeah although although i will say along those lines like realizing that you don't know something and it's okay because you don't actually need to know it like right away in that moment that is also okay right like what part of like going into new industry for me has been like all right i need to figure out what is immediately relevant to me start there learn that and then branch out but it's really difficult to do that sometimes when like you know i'm learning about like you know networking concepts but then uh it's like you know what do solar flares do to a switch or like you know radiation what you know what's happening when like how much does a rocket vibe it vibrates a lot when it goes up into space right so it's like you know i want to learn all of that like physics stuff but i have no physics background and also right now in the moment like i'm learning networking concepts and and certain things and like i cannot get too distracted i need to focus on like what's immediately relevant to me so accepting that i don't know stuff um and being okay with that and letting it be for a bit is is also a skill i need to work on okay okay so i'm gonna go back on what i just said because i don't know and will probably never know any of the things that you're gonna have to learn in the next year and you know what i am okay with that yeah there you go there you go yeah i mean you got it you gotta focus on it sort of reminds me of what you said yvonne said like you know are you going deep are you going wide um you do have to kind of pick one i mean not kind of you do have to pick one because we're only human and we can only learn so much and personally my brain can only hold so much information and so you know whatever is relevant to you in the moment is is probably the most important priority but i'm coming at that i'm coming at that from way not an expert level i'm coming at that from still like a very beginner learning mindset so for people more experienced in the industry people like y'all with a ton a ton more like experience than me it might be a different like you might have a different need there like you do need to broaden all of that knowledge that you already have and that's cool um for me though i'm just you know i'm just trucking along so i hope that answered any gold questions you had it was very nebulous and vague your solar flare talk has the the astro nerd in me going so uh from a very young age i got my amateur radio license and uh solar flares have a significant impact on radio waves and so i spent a very long time learning about all of that stuff and the national weather service actually has a space weather web page called swpc the space weather prediction center so you can go to swpc.noaa.gov and it will show you the space weather forecast uh they have a constellation of satellites called stereo that watch the sun from either side and then another one that watches it straight on like you know basically in front of earth and they take all sorts of cool pictures and videos of what the sun is up to when solar flares erupt and everything else oh yeah this is cool really really cool stuff i just pulled it up it looks pretty awesome i'll put a link in the show notes to anybody else yeah you know a lot along the solar yeah yeah along with the solar flare like topic i when i worked at my last place of employment you know it was just like a you know working on the cloud and customers and stuff like that your normal thing and people would occasionally like make jokes about like why is the switch behaving the way it is well it's solar flares you know like it was just like it was just like a big joke to us so so that being my first job in you know with anything to do with networking um i just assumed that like solar flares don't actually do anything and like it's just it's just a joke and like kind of saying like you know people will make up any kind of bs to like explain this this product not doing what it's supposed to do um and then i you know and then i went to blue origin and they were like yeah solar flares do stuff what are you talking about i have a lot to learn so to go to go forward with that lexi on the on the learning front in 2020 you were really heavy into cisco enterprise core 2021 uh you were doing the advanced routing now that you have this new position um that's you know a bit different than what you've been used to and maybe different than traditional network engineering how are you approaching learning and what what are kind of the next things that you want to want to go after out you know either with work or outside of that to kind of go with it my first priority is to like be competent at my job so that is that has taken like yeah and um yeah that has taken the front seat um last year i really wanted to uh pass the nrc test but um because of timing and all sorts of things but mostly like timing getting a new job doing a bunch of things in the meantime you know i had a chance to take it once i failed it and um i just could not find the time to like take it immediately after um and i still haven't been on that time yet i'm still turning it over in my head if i want to continue on with it i i know that probably sounds bad um i you know i've had a lot of people say like just just get it done just do it take it again um but what was on the test you know without saying anything specific it was just so so i feel like i'm gonna have to go deeper into several topics that i just i i'm gonna have to find the time to and they're not immediately relevant to my job and so um you know i'm way more interested in in being competent where i work at the moment um so i i would like to say that like getting you know getting my ccmp this year is gonna happen and that's a goal but i'm not actually sure right now to be honest um i feel like i learned a ton studying for the nrc test i really do feel like my depth of knowledge and advanced routing concepts really what like it was beneficial it was not a waste of time i'm very happy that i i studied as much as i did um but i'm trying not to get burnt out on studying it's really really hard oh yeah so um it's a slippery slope i mean it's easy to do yeah um yeah i get really easily overwhelmed uh when i'm lacking direction there and and i i have a direction but it's just not something that i don't know maybe i'm just burnt out it was a terrible testing experience to be honest with an rc it was my first like really really bad testing experience um both like in the tech like test question wise but also like just weird environmental things with the testing like environment um so i don't i don't know i don't know is the short answer like i don't know what my goals are there i would like to come back to it and i know it's better to come back to it soon i hate to say like i'm giving up i'm not giving up it just might take me a little longer to get the ccmp than i originally thought and i've made my peace with that yeah and i think you hit it on the head i mean your your career relevancy in terms of the ccmp has changed yeah so i yeah i don't think there's anything to to be ashamed about there at all yeah and now that's not to say that like the ccmp is not relevant you know to my job now um it's it's just different sure yeah um it's it's all ccmp i don't know that those topics i learned way more it felt like i don't know studying studying for encore and rc together like it felt like i was back in the ccna days like learning so many things for the first time that i had no um could not imagine were out there um i don't know it it it helped me structure my learning uh process if anything so we'll see i i think that's a great like self-evaluation that you're doing there right like as much as you want to do the the ccmp like it's just not in the cards right now like you're you're tackling another huge topic you know learning all these new things for your new job and that that absolutely takes priority right like i think work might be upset if you if you put other things in front of it well yeah i'm sure i'm 100 sure they would they are very supportive of learning there and so sure if i were like i'm gonna get the ccmp they'd be like hell yeah but um uh i i yeah i'm just more interested in learning the job and the hardware and everything yeah um first so yeah very cool we'll see how exciting i can't wait to hear more if you're allowed to share more at some point yeah yeah i can i can share how awesome it yeah i can share a lot of stuff uh specifics about the network i can't ever talk about um and there's like a few you know there's there's specific projects i can't talk about but i can definitely talk a little bit in general and um share some awesome things about blue with you but cool yeah i'm just excited that we're about to have our very own resident space internet expert here very soon don't give me too much credit yet okay like i said i got to learn a lot of a lot of stuff but i mean it's such an exciting journey to start i mean yeah you so what let's let's put time on it again because my memory is obviously terrible year-wise how long have you been in i.t now uh not quite three years and you you just landed this job i mean that's incredible i i don't exciting exciting i i don't i don't know why they wanted me but i'm really grateful that they did all right so um yeah i don't know i've i've been so incredibly lucky i i can't even uh i don't know why um and i i'm i'm very grateful this last year actually like even though i didn't get my ccmp like i wanted like i it still was a knocked it out of the freaking park for me um i i've actually you know at my previous um employer i i got a promotion i um started doing a lot more like leadership type things there i was really happy with what i was doing um and then you know space comes out of nowhere and is like hey we want you and that you know so that was awesome a great process to go through like talking to those guys yeah um uh learning from them just in the short amount of time i've been there and um yeah last year was was bonkers um i cannot believe in three years you know if you told me in 20 in may 2018 when i like quit my job doing some crap for you know a non-profit and not making a whole lot like if you told me like hey in three years uh you'll be like standing in a rocket factory looking at a rocket and that's your place of employment like i would have laughed i would never have believed that in my wildest dreams is this a movie yeah i mean it yeah it feels like that like the tour you know i just just not that long ago i went to i'm not in the seattle area yet but i will be um and you know i did my onboarding week there uh at their hq and i got to see like the rocket factory and it was just i don't know that so i i it drove it i wanna i wanna add on to that because um i don't know if either of you have seen it yet but i want my wife and i watched the don't look up movie not too long ago yeah yeah i haven't seen it honestly yeah honestly lexi i it at multiple points in that movie i thought you might have been a supporting writer on that because some of the given given what you're you know the adventure you're starting and some of the jokes that they wrote into that i'm like hmm i wonder yeah i gotta that was on my list i i really need to watch it soon it looks like a great movie but i can imagine like i know what the topic's about like i can imagine what yeah what you're talking about yeah um shoot it's yeah it's it's just uh my i'm so incredibly privileged and lucky to like be in the position i'm at right now that um you know i can deal with not having my ccmp right at the moment that i want it right like this is honestly like this is way better for me um going into like aerospace and learning all this stuff and um you know i will i won't wax poetic for too long but like you'll hear me do that later but like i i i to to the the mission that they have um is like to create a future where millions of people are living and working in space for the betterment of humanity and that like um wow yeah like having having that mission like in the back of your mind while working on this stuff is just um it's so incredible it's hard to describe but it makes it makes such a difference and it makes me feel really good um about what i'm doing because i you know i care a lot about our future on earth and what's going on and being able to say like i i am actively working to make it better is um it means a lot to me so yeah yeah i think it says a lot to be to be personally in line you know with your employer's goals it's only going to help there you go you and in turn the company yeah absolutely yeah and and they have a very noble mission um you know it starts out in small steps you know but we'll we'll get there and uh i'm very very excited to um say that you know i'm working on a rocket that i hope one day i mean that one day will uh be you know up there in space multiple times in space doing stuff productive for humanity very very cool so that is cool that's that's enough you'll hear me talk about it more uh later but um yeah it's it's uh i'm i'm very happy with my goals from last year uh that i didn't know i had being fulfilled and then this year i'm excited to see what this year brings as well it could be surprising so when the rocket you're working on launches are we going to do like a live stream party oh yeah we could do that yeah celebrate watch the rocket launch that would be awesome well you know blue origin will like they will do a live you know things oh yeah and so you could watch it yeah like we could we could have a little viewing party absolutely i'm you know i'm supposed to be there for the lunch um like tentatively whenever that happens and so it'll be cool like hopefully i can be there in person and actually you know watch it i like where manny's head is at can you sneak an a1 banner onto the rocket for me i'll send you some stickers i was gonna say aj has a ridiculous amount before lunch i'll just take a sticker and just run up to the new glass i'll do my best y'all oh my gosh no promises that's awesome so so as a as a insider perk uh to to blue origin do you get discounts or free rocket rides you know in my interview i did ask my manager i was like what's the employee discount on space and he was like deadpan deadpan he looks at me and he goes 20 percent i would be serious but it's like you know what's 20 of like 100 million dollars yeah but yeah it was uh yeah i don't know well i we get we get discounts in the store on swag yeah there you go baby steps i know you know getting to look at rocket harbor every day i consider a pretty big pig so i i think i or i don't think i know that i i spoke ignorantly a few minutes ago can you kind of clear up the the high level mission so we know there's the the rocket side of it does blue origin have like a competing like satellite launching as well is there i are they part of the broadband game is what i'm trying to do i cannot talk about it i'm sorry that's not something i can address yeah i'm really sorry specific stuff about projects is not something i'm not understood talk about uh i can talk about uh the rocket i'm working on how cool it is and you i mean publicly disclosed stuff um i can talk about uh yeah i'm sorry to just have to like shut you down there final reason i'm sorry um yeah any i mean anything like publicly disclosed i can talk about but i can't talk about like future projects and things um but i'll say like they they they know what they're doing they have like the future of humanity definitely in mind and they're like they're ready to fucking go you know um and i'm very excited about the future hey a1 fans aj here to remind you about nordvpn.com nordvpn will help secure you wherever you go i use nordvpn on all my personal devices whenever i'm out about i just go into the nordvpn app hit quick connect and away i go nice and secure don't have to worry about prying eyes anybody looking at my connection if i choose to go work from a coffee shop locally or you know even while i'm traveling if i bring my personal device devices i will uh use the word vpn to help keep things safe and secure i'm using nordvpn right now and there's no degradation in my signal everything looks good when you guys watch us on the live streams so i i can't say enough good things about nordvpn they have some great additional services included with their vpn product they'll scour the dark web for your credentials and see if they've been involved in any sort of hacks or anything and then if they have they'll let you know and you can go change your passwords and do whatever you need to do to help keep yourself safe and secure they also have a mode that will block any websites or ads known to uh possess malware and they just have general ad blocking anyway because you know who wants ads uh as i record an ad anyway if you want nordvpn and you do go to nordvpn.com forward slash t-a-o-n-e for the art of network engineering and you can get a really great deal uh 73 off two years plus four months free so again that's 73 off two years plus four months free of nordvpn if you forget that url just go to nordvpn.com at checkout you can use the promo code t-a-o-n-e for the art of network engineering and we appreciate your support as well as nordvpn's support of the art of network engineering podcast now back to the show so lexi i don't think we can let aj off the hook here yeah aj you gotta tell me it's almost an hour and we can't let it that's fine we don't have to talk what do you think aj what is i i will say that you've had um a very high speed last few years as well career-wise and and socially i mean look at the people you've got to meet you know um it's it's been very good very very very good for you aj what uh what does 2022 look like for you i i hope a whole lot more of the same uh honestly um because it's it's been a wild ride and i enjoy it quite a bit and i i hope more stuff like this keeps coming my way i am super excited about the potential gathering um you know everything i can possibly cross i will cross that uh we can meet in person again here in april so um we can share some of the details with our listeners so tentatively speaking as of right now we are looking at april 9th in asheville north carolina at a wonderful place called high wire brewing hopefully we will be getting together in person we hope to meet a whole bunch of listeners um and we are going to invite every single person that's ever been a guest on this show if they can make it and hang with us and um we hope to record a show and and just do a whole bunch of stuff you know and i really hope that that happens i don't it's one of those goals that i really want to do but it's not really anything that i have any control over whatsoever so it's hard to put that off you mean as far as like people people attending getting there i mean you haven't eaten people attending i mean you know what what whatever happens with the world right like we're saying that the omnicron stuff pop up that could that could really stop a whole bunch of stuff for us yeah that's true yeah i think one of the things that we're trying to be conscious of is other events that are going on so if we see an uptick in in-person events across the industry that start getting canceled and that kind of thing then we're going to have to take a really hard look in the mirror and say does this make sense it's just the the uncertainty that's that's just nuts i mean we've got this this carrot dangling right out in front of us saying hey we have a date now we have a sponsor we've got the ability to uh get people together uh can we please we'll see and it's you know as much as we have to make the call it the call may be out of our control too right like the the venue thing the sponsor might say something like it just again it's it's one of those things that's completely out of our hands um but you know we're gonna try like y'all you've done what you can now yeah and so just gotta hope hope and pray yeah that's right uh yeah i would love to go and meet everybody there so i'm planning on it just watching the the weather that's what i do yep could always like meet outside or something you know on a nice sunny april day well sorry what was the um location you said i know it was high wire brewery but they have so asheville north carolina asheville okay cool nice all right should be nice in april we'll see cool so uh outside of that i'm looking forward to a whole lot more fun stuff we have planned for the podcast and the youtube channel um we just want to get some really good content out there dan and i have started recording a series of youtube videos we're going to put out where we're just going to show you and teach you how to do stuff and we're going to kind of make them sequential so hopefully you can watch them in order and get something out of it or they will be bite-sized and can stand on their own as well so this past week we recorded uh installing linux server for your lab so you can do who knows what and you can do a million things with linux in your in your lab and help you learn stuff so um we're gonna start there and see where it goes so that's fun that's an awesome awesome one i need to watch that actually i haven't haven't gotten around to going out of town but that's something i'm very interested in so i'll absolutely be watching that a number of times um as far as personal goals and stuff like that so i cannot believe how quickly time has passed since i passed my ccnp in 2020. so i'm now at the halfway point right like it's been 18 months and i have 18 months to figure my shit out and so i can renew this thing so it doesn't expire on me oh yeah oh yeah that's where i'm at i know it feels like i just got it isn't that crazy about renewing it so so there's a couple of different ways that i can do that and i can do that by taking two additional specialties within the same enterprise track i can watch a number of training hours and get continuing education credits or i can pass another core exam and in a different track and that will recertify the ccnp so as of right now i would like to get a dual np and get my ccnp data center and that's exciting i'm going to start that this was the original plan for last year but last year work got really crazy um and so last year i wanted to do dc auto and dc core and then eventually do devcore and get two professional level certs out of it um i've kind of taken a step back and look at my my goals all together and one of my long term goals is to get my ccd that's always been a goal of mine i always love network design and so keeping with that design kind of mindset i decided to change my track for data center to data center design and then the data center core so i would like to accomplish both of those sometime in the next 18 months in order to renew my ccnp keep it correct badass love so i know certifications are not always a focus but in my line of work working for a partner they certainly are they're basically required uh and and so i got to keep them current and keep them coming um so in addition to ccmp they there's also a big emphasis on cloud and so i will be continuing my aws journey and looking forward to doing the solutions architect associate exam at some point this this coming year they've my boss has already talked to me and said hey this is something we'd like you to pursue because one of the things that we do with our customers are cloud engagements where we you know teach them about the cloud what the cloud can do for them and at a high level try to start to architect what moving to the cloud could look like for them and help them go in that direction aws is something i know literally nothing about um and had been like just thinking maybe i should take a look at it um if i ever have the time it sounds very interesting i can highly recommend the this was it the ccp the cloud practitioner exam certified cloud partition is that like the the n a level version of that cert i kind of get the aws certifications mixed up yeah their tracks are kind of sprawling they have like a devops track dev admin but yeah like that's kind of like the foundational uh one and that goes over like their entire offering for like all the different things that they offer that you can do in the aws cloud so it's it's very comprehensive and it's a very nice introduction to to cloud in general but you know specifically aws okay cool well good luck you have some really awesome ambitious goals i mean that's exciting i i i can't imagine like you know maybe maybe there's like a rhyme and reason to my like not getting my ccmp right away because then i don't have to try and renew it like immediately that's terrifying that you only have that much time that's maybe the most frustrating thing to me is uh it's not like that you that getting certs is like a part of you know the profession but it's it's the very little time it feels like in between that you have to renew everything yeah good lord i i do i do applaud how they changed it when they changed it in 2020 to add in the continuing education thing yeah so you you don't feel like you just have to constantly be taking their certifications if you want to slow down a little bit and pay now granted you you do have to pay for the courses for the most part some of them jordan has brought up multiple times they do have a number of uh free continuing education credits now they're obviously not as many credits but they're free so if you're already close you took one extra specialty exam or something and you just need x amount more you can get those for free but i just i do like that there's more options now because i was in the same boat i feel like you know you do this and you just feel like you get done and you want to start studying for the next one so you don't wait too long and then it's you know you're you're running out of time so i i do applaud that there's more options for recertification now yeah that's great do you know how that works do you take an exam after you take these courses how does the continuing education actually apply no you just you just needed like no you just have to so you go through uh the courses and it's the the cisco on-demand learning so you have to do it through them and then after each section there's like a quiz you have to take and get a specific score and then once you get through the entire um entire course then you would be eligible for the however many continuing education credits that course is worth awesome awesome okay and that's really good to know the process isn't automatic right just for anybody listening so if you earn a number of continuing ed credits to meet the renewal it doesn't it's not a process that just happens right like it's not like once you hit it it automatically renews your cert it's it is a path that you can choose to renew your cert and if that's how you want to renew it then there's a process you have to kind of engage in order to cash in those continuing education credits in order to renew your cert because you can use those continuing ed credits for a number of different things so choosing to use them to renew your serve is totally valid option and it's just something that you have to basically go to cisco learning and say okay i've i've completed the you know required number of hours i'd like to use those to renew my certifications i think it's 40 for an associate level um yeah maybe 80 i think it's 80 for the professional level yeah so i i'm starting to wonder if i accidentally cheated so don't let me let me i'm hanging on i'm recording now tim hang on so i had um my n a was set to expire in august of 2021 as i was preparing for encore i had gotten um the enterprise core on-demand learning course i had gone all the way through it um so i had gotten you know the certificate of completion all that yadda yadda and i had hit a point with encore where i wasn't gonna i wasn't gonna make it by august so my n a was gonna lapse i didn't do anything i didn't even know i could do anything with the continuing ed i did not know at the time that going through that course would um allow me to get continuing ed so i never did anything with it and then i happened to go and look online for my certification tracker and my n a had um had re-upped and i didn't do anything but the weird thing the weird thing was it didn't re-up like x amount of years so it was going to expire in august of 21. i went through that course and i went later on to look at my certification tracker and it had pushed it out to like february of 2022. so it was just a really weird timing thing i know it happened i know it happened um this was so when they were going to change the entire certification program over it was around the time that this whole pandemic thing started and all the test centers shut down because cisco like testing at home has always been a thing but it was up to the oem to decide that that was an option that they wanted to allow and so for cisco doing the at-home exams that wasn't an offering that they were choosing to do with pearson view at the time and so when the pandemic hit and nobody could go take a test and people were complaining rightly so that their certifications were about to expire and they needed to renew them cisco extended everybody's certification regardless of status another six months so cool everybody everybody got an automatic six-month bump on all their stuff okay yeah i didn't know where that came from okay yep i'm pretty sure i you know it sounds like given the august to february kind of timeline it sounds like that's that would make sense okay cool so my n a is still legit awesome yeah can you now get an np without an n a i wanted to say yeah right just like okay just like the ie without the mp technically as well yeah i mean if you wanted to you could go take the you could go take the encore exam and then schedule a lab for ccie without getting the np maybe that's what i'll do fuck it yeah send it yeah they're doing that i failed the np just let's just move up one okay they're they're doing the uh the mobile lab the mobile ccie lab and i think for a short time you can because they wanna they wanna test it so when the mobile lab is coming through your area you can sign up and get like a free shot at the ccie lab i'm gonna do it i'm gonna look it up right now i'm gonna do it and then and then because you know i've this is just a joke okay just prefacing this but uh i've definitely heard people like brag about like in in professional situations i've definitely heard people be like well i sat the ie lab you know and and stuff like that like like they didn't get the certification but they just sat for it is like i've heard people use that as like a bragging point yeah i don't know if that's like a i don't know what i i'm interested in your opinions on that because you know like i said i've only worked like one place and then now blue origin so i you know it's just i'm not sure about it but um yeah so then i can just be like yeah i sat there cc i got the 1500 lunch as it's uh commonly oh referred to as yeah i i love that only 1500 right um i a lot of people i i shouldn't say a lot of people i have ever seen people before the certifications you know changed back in in february 2020 um the ccie written was its own exam you know if you you did the ccnp the three exams to get your np and then there was the ccie written i saw people like on linkedin and stuff like that that would claim themselves to be ccie written because they they had their np and then they took their ccie written exam and they passed it but they just hadn't yet taken the lab so they were ccie written it's like do you have your numbers yet i mean i don't think that counts i will say aj that's that's one thing that i'm really glad also that they why how they changed the curriculum so i i hadn't um thought about starting my ccmp journey before they changed the curriculum so at least now you pass the enterprise core or you pass one of the specialties at least you get a specialist designation i couldn't imagine going through the previous ccmp route switch and getting one or two into it and you know how much work that was and you technically don't have anything on paper to show for it that would drive me nuts it happened it happened yeah i passed my switch exam i tried like hell to pass route and t shoot before the changeover and then the changeover happened it's like well this counts for nothing man it's never nothing i think that's exactly why they changed the program right because you know to prevent that stuff from happening i mean it's discouraging in in in my opinion yeah yeah those exams were a beast man oh my gosh the t-shirt exam was fun it's like a choose your own adventure like you you're given a scenario it's the same scenario every time right like you have a host here and you've got like a web server in the network and then something in between those two breaks right and you got to figure it out and it you can go look through the console you can do almost whatever you can't make any changes but you can go look at stuff and then they start out with where do you think the problem lies and then you start clicking on like node names and then it goes to the next question okay what layer is the problem what technology is the issue and then like it'll get down to like one of the last two questions and it will actually show you like command stanzas like which one of these will fix the problem and so there's there's options it's like a whole tree for every single option so there's no way that you could sit there and just click through every single possibility and look at like which command stands that would fix the issue all right having taken an rc recently i'm so angry that i i would want to take t-shoot that sounds really fun yeah yeah it was definitely definitely the nrc test did not live up to that see i i had heard time and time again that that was when it came time for people to recertify their np route switch that that was like everybody i talked to that that was their go-to exam to research was that t-shirt exam at the same time i think i think it was one of the tougher ones because you know instead of being 65 questions it was only like 20 or 24. so getting one wrong there was a lot more points off than the regular you know 65 question exam but it took into account like the time it would take right to sure you know think about things and and analyze the data you have yeah cool i'm pretty hopefully they'll bring back sims to future exams we'll see we'll see yeah sounds like an exciting 2022 aj i'm glad uh i'm glad we get to be a part of it i'm glad we're part of some of your goals of course i don't know if i can live up to that but hey it's your goal not mine well when it doesn't come through at the end of the year i'm going to blame you tim not just there you go no one to blame but myself yeah i mean there's there's lots of other little things personal goals layered in between there i've found that with like uh the holiday season and the time off i'm like picking up my phone playing stupid games and not doing other things and there's part of me that's just like you know what i need to unwind and then i think it's gotten to a point it's like okay i really need to stop doing this and go through something more productive like so yeah there's there's stuff like that happy medium with unwinding i guess yeah versus being productive i i'm finding that for unwinding i enjoy like recording content and i i mean that like i this this here is so much more unwinding for me than you know anything else that i do online so and it's nice because it's productive too i was gonna say you get a sense of accomplishment out of it too yeah that's what streaming studying does for me it gives me a little bit of unwinding but i'm productive at the same time absolutely it makes a lot of sense speaking of streaming when are you going to be back streaming again i know you were traveling last night this week actually yeah thanks for asking yeah so to today yeah so it'll be monday this week the i don't know when this is going to be released but monday the 10th this week very soon okay yeah excellent yeah yeah we're going to launch this one wednesday the 12th i think okay monday so i'll have already streamed by the time people listen to this but that's cool because the day after this is released i will also be streaming the next thursday night so and i know that uh you take all of your twitch streams after they have viewed and you upload them to your youtube channel i do and you are a featured youtube channel on our youtube channel so if you go to our youtube channel you can subscribe to us and then you can look at the featured channels list and you will see track it pacer in there as well and then you click so much watch her her recorded live streams and subscribe to her channel as well i very much appreciate that thank you of course of course all connected it's all connected now i gotta go run to my run on my youtube channel get my shit together you can add that to your goals for 2022. yeah there you go actually actually yeah i can i'll want to maybe upload a few more videos and do do more regular live streaming i think that was a goal that i had like in the back of my head which is why i'm doing this now with ethernet learning about that we'll see if i get sued by somebody for like reading their book out loud on on twitch stream i'll figure it out i wonder i wonder so does blue origin know that you you do all the live streaming and stuff like that is that bad i mean my team duh my my man actually i don't know explicitly that um some people on my team do and that was i think i think that is how they originally found me um is from my study live stream okay so so it's not a secret they're aware um and yeah i mean i think it's just it's it's fine because you know first of all i don't really talk about blue origin like in detail or anything there but also um you know it's just me learning right there's nothing wrong with learning a little bit of cussing you know and interspersed getting angry at things but yeah well i i think it would be to their benefit if they worked with you and did like a blue origin live stream of you like doing a factory tour or something like that right yeah oh man i i need to get so the factory tour is so cool um but i i have to get familiar with all the things because you know there's things that like people can't see yet you know oh sure sure yeah so so it's very interesting because the rocket factory you can do you can bring your friends and family in for a tour but you have to i think you have to stay in like a certain path and stuff um so yeah that you know that would be really neat um but they have very strict requirements with like filming yeah i'm not sure about the filming thing you know but no no they are aware of like my participation in in this podcast as well and uh and my live stream so we'll we'll we'll ratchet it up slowly first i got to be good at my job right well a big thank you to all the folks yeah thanks lexi i've been doing what i do for over 10 years now i i don't know that i've hit good yet so good luck to you okay that's what humble people who are really good at their jobs say so whatever tim i'm not taking your word i'll uh i'll i'll let you text my boss and you can tell them that if that's all right i'll vet it i'll vet it yeah i know i uh i i really would like to you know talk talk a lot about how wonderful the job is i mean it it has been an amazing experience so far and like i said like their mission is just so so good and pure and it resonates with me so much that um i am excited to to grow in that role and and you know talk about my experience with them more so yeah exciting well we can't wait to hear more about it as you can share of course we won't we won't want you to share anything you you shouldn't share right of course yeah just like the ndas we all sign for the for the certification exams can't talk about certain things yeah yeah exactly but you know i have a lot of facts that i can give you about certain rockets that you know have launched or will launch i have i have some approved talking points and uh you know i can tell you generally what my like role is but we can get into that later this is you know yes we spend a whole podcast episode astro nerding out that would be fantastic i love doing that stuff yeah speaking of that aj you should probably get going on our uh a1 nda you know because we got a load of trade secrets here well we do have a boatload of amazing guests lined up for this first quarter of 2022 i'm very excited about uh we have some great content if you want to join us and listen on the live streams you can go to patreon.com forward slash art of neteng i want to big thank you to the patreons that joined us this afternoon this was a bit of an impromptu recording but we still got a great turnout and lots of great questions and interactions with our patreon family so thank you so much for joining us uh and if you're just looking to support us in general you can follow us on twitter anywhere you find the podcast you can like subscribe you know smash that bell icon make sure you get notified of all of our future episodes all that good stuff all that mojo really helps the content creators so uh and and we really appreciate everybody's support last year was an amazing year last year alone we got over 200 000 downloads of the podcast uh we are days away from hitting a quarter of a million downloads it's only 250 000 but it sounds a lot better when you say quarter of a million uh it's so it's really really amazing the growth that this thing has seen in a very short period of time and we are super appreciative of that and thank all of our listeners for supporting everything that we do here on the on the podcast and on the youtube channel and that's what keeps us motivated to continue this train going so thank you so much any last minute words of wisdom before we uh check out here nothing big for me uh lexi thanks for joining us uh absolutely not only last minute but just in general i mean you're the uh the perspective that you bring to the show is awesome and and we know everybody loves it so thank you yeah of course thank you for having me it's always a blast hanging out with you guys so anytime yeah careful careful keep calling me yep then i'll counter you with be careful what you wish for it i love it excellent well thank you so much lexi thank you so much tim and everybody listening we'll catch you next week on another episode of the art of network engineering podcast bye hope your 2022 doesn't suck 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.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