this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore keys technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information to 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 tonight we've got andy andy how you doing man hey aj i'm good man feel good life is good a lot of good stuff going on happy to be here no hot water heaters breaking this week no no no no chaos lately things are uh things are nice knock on water right right yeah yeah i'm good man how you doing i'm doing well doing well doing really well things are going well at work things are going well at home uh i will tell you that for the first time in a very long time uh my wife and i got a chance to escape this past weekend from the kids and like an actual date yeah yeah it was it was great it was really great it was nice to you know not be around the kids for a weekend just like be adults you got rid of them for a weekend yeah yeah my mom watched dude that's not a date that's like no wow that's a getaway like virtual reality but go for it did you guys go away you stayed somewhere right yeah yeah we stayed local um you know because i travel so much i have like a crap ton of hotel points and so we we booked a couple of hotels and it was a ton of fun uh a little bit of normal breweries bunch of restaurants did some shopping yep we were gonna do some hiking but the weather did not favor it's like winter snuck back in on us good for you man i can't wait to do that i'm gonna get out with my wife soon at the very least just go out to dinner yeah yeah there you go man excellent well enough about us uh before we introduce our guest tonight we have a bunch of wins to celebrate including some for the podcast which i will gladly get to here in a second uh starting us off steel network scored a new job as a cloud network engineer oh nice cloud uh andy not not mr laptop i have no wins i haven't had to win since this podcast started no one's yet this podcast is my win yes yes it is uh so so andy in the discord passed his ansari exam so that's the uh advanced enterprise routing uh or advanced routing services i forget exactly what all is right right that's like the the modern day t-shirt exam i think i'm taking design as my second exam because i don't want to take an rc one of them i'm uh chris our favorite butcher turned network engineer uh back on the board he got uh accepted as a permanent u.s resident first step in full citizenship and he also got the rookie of the year award from the cisco learning network wow yeah he's on fire yeah he is yes he's having a good year uh dan otherwise known as devnet dan passed his devnet core so the dev core so he went for the trifecta right he did uh he did encore and then he did an auto so he got his uh ccnp enterprise and then he went for the dev core so he's got two professional level certifications now he's got the devnet professional and the ccnp professional wow yeah that's awesome so congratulations dan network charles network charles uh scored a position as a wireless field engineer uh for a five month internship at a wireless isp very cool yeah netdev2 started a new position as a network devops engineer big big props to him and last but not least ology as they go by in the discord scored a new position as a network support engineer uh as a palo alto specialist oh security yeah yeah how about us getting big these days is that all the wins that is all the wins that's all the the member wins may i offer a collective goat scream i think you have to the goat has screened congratulations everybody congratulations everybody um so i i'm going to throw it out there we we hit 63 000 downloads maybe by the end of this podcast we will have hit 64 000 downloads so a big thank you to all of our listeners and fans out there for making that happen we're less than 10 months in tumbling crazy crazy um i will i will drop uh just a teaser we've scored our first sponsor crazy huh that is yes yeah yeah yeah that's that's really and it's exciting what they have in mind oh abs absolutely i think it's super exciting that you know they genuinely just want to help out the community you know it's it's not just about like dollars or getting a name out there in fact they've outrightly said like we don't really care that you mention our name you know they just want to help out the community so uh they they are gonna sponsor an episode and do an episode with us uh and then we get some other goodies in store from them so we'll we'll share that all in due time and and you're always so transparent aj so in full transparency just from my own perspective i would i had some trepidation you know as we've talked about like how are we going to align ourselves with a sponsor or accept a sponsorship and not um you know compromise what we've been able to do up to this point we don't want to pivot and say and here's an hour of talking about a vendor like you know it just wasn't something we wanted to do and when we started that call with them yeah when they let it off with like listen we see what you guys are doing in the community and how you're how much you're helping people and we just want to help you help people i like just breathe a big sigh of relief like oh good because right nervous yeah yeah that was a pleasant surprise i don't know what i expected but it's going to be good for the community so yeah nice teaser absolutely man excellent all right i am very excited for our guest this evening uh so without further ado we've got uh bo bo how you doing doing great man thanks for joining us yeah thanks for having me good to be here so uh i guess we'll just we'll kick it right off so so bo here uh has a connection with andy andy do you want to kind of elaborate on the story go back a little bit uh yes share with the folks how you met beau here absolutely so um i had a stack of um home gear you know uh cisco routers and switches um pissing my wife off in the garage and uh you know and i virtualize my lab and i do most of my stuff and eve on a server but i still have physical gear downstairs um so i i you know years ago i thought you know let me sell this stuff right hey i'll you know sell some gear and i'll do you know i'll get to buy something but then the more i thought of it the more we got involved in the community and the podcast and the discord and all i thought you know what you know i don't need a couple hundred bucks like really like it's not going to change my life and maybe uh we you know find somebody that you know it could it could help so um yeah you know i i whatever was a vid i think was youtube video and i put it out there and i advertise it all over the place um so bo uh i ask people to send me videos or or you know i said listen i don't want to do a random giveaway i don't want just just to go to some you know because i wanted it to fill a need for somebody not just oh this will be a fun hobby like no you know i want a true need and the random giveaways it's kind of hard to do that it's just you know you push a button to pick somebody and you have no idea what you're gonna get so um anyway got a lot of submissions in various social media uh beau found me i guess i'll let him tell the story but uh long and short of it beau submitted a video and out of the i don't know if it was dozens or you know close to 100 it was a lot to go through all the submissions but um beau submission just grabbed me uh right right from the you know right from the top um very sincere um he started off with like listen if i were in your shoes one of my concerns would be like oh somebody just gonna grab this and you know turn it around on ebay right like right um and he started explaining his position to me and what had happened to him recently as a result of you know what's been going on with covet and i just really i thought wow like this is exactly who i was hoping you know would would come out you know with this giveaway so um you know i can shut up from there and and give it to beau on the rest of the story but it's kind of how we found each other all right all right so so bo before we go way back how'd you find andy our home lab yeah oh okay oh our home lab on reddit yeah yeah gotcha okay all right yeah i think i had just like found that uh yeah very recently and then saw andy's post in there i followed like maybe four reddit pages or something and saw andy's post and went to the youtube and everything yep all right very cool very cool so um what were you doing on our home lab i was just starting to kind of dip my toes into uh learning it really at that point and uh okay yeah certainly didn't have anything that could be considered like a home lab or anything but uh you know learning trying to trying to figure out where everybody's at talking about that kind of stuff and that was one of the things i came across so maybe maybe we should go back in time and then circle back to this because i hate to spoil the that's true that's true i was just thinking maybe we should start out you know where are you approximately located and what are you doing now and you know what get going with it what did you do sure sure so currently sitting in atlanta i've lived here for a few years now um for the past decade plus i have made a career out of working in live entertainment as an audio engineer um i've had full-time jobs for companies and the bulk of that though i worked as an independent uh both for bands and for sound companies across the country and um that entire industry just got shut down overnight pretty much yeah um a little over a year ago and so when that happened it wasn't like okay you know my job's gone for at least another year or two years or something it was like nobody knew what to expect so just kind of uh hunkered down and um after a few months it was like okay this is you know certainly not what i'm used to and certainly not sustainable so it's time to start learning something else i think the first thing i went to is like python like okay i could just learn to code really quick and you know how'd that go for you quick burnout you know i'm glad i did it it's certainly you know been been good to know but it was it was definitely painful but so after like a month or two it was pretty clear like this isn't going to be like a couple week or a couple months thing like this you know i think it actually went longer than that i think the first couple months was like okay this will be over soon and then like a couple months more it's like okay i'll just you know get in shape you know until this comes back you know start doing home exercise and stuff and then it was like i think in like six months it was like oh man now as an audio engineer in like live entertainment i mean yeah i was going to joke earlier and say what were you spending records at like the you know the strip club or something but like let's let's get based on like you know how big of a what industry were you in were you working with big x little x local international i mean how big of a deal are you in the audio world oh come on well certainly not a big deal but uh but yeah it started my first job was like sweeping a florida warehouse in new orleans you know and that was when i think i was 19 years old and that quickly got into like mixing shows local shows in new orleans um i found out about audio engineering for the corporate world you know these big like corporate events that are held in convention centers and hotel ballrooms and stuff sure yeah and i think i did that kind of scene in new orleans for about five years and then um from like 2015 to you know 2020 uh was touring so that was all um you know at least club level touring uh with artists and then you know after a couple years of that it was moved into like arena level touring and uh yeah so you know 16 000 person venues in different cities um still doing big corporate events sometimes for some of these sound companies but um yeah you know went from i think some of the recognizable names i'd have on my resume the avril lavigne was the last tour that was uh the tour that never happened you know i finished some rehearsals with her last year and that's when everything stopped uh before that tom morello rage against the machine for those unfamiliar and then uh j cole i don't know if you guys follow any of the hip hop rap stuff but he did pretty well and uh troye zavon is an australian pop singer i worked for for a while did you get to travel the world like did you get did you get around oh yeah yeah i think in 2018 and 2019 that's something close to like 30 countries wow which is pretty cool yeah yeah what a yeah that's really cool what a gig how how do you go from like local clubs to the arenas is that based on skill level like the more experience you get you get kind of moved up the ranks uh the skill is definitely a requirement i think most of the time but beyond that just luck and connections you know do a good job don't don't piss people off and you know hopefully somebody you've worked with will call you yeah are you a musician i mean how does one find a passion for audio engineering certainly not anymore but yeah as like a young teenager like 13 14 i started playing bass i think that's when the the gear interest and sort of addiction kicked in you know buying amps and pedals and stuff from the local music store that's when you start to learn it and took off from there yeah i met a few audio engineers in my life and they all seemed to be musicians who had a need to figure out you know how to record and yeah totally very cool so so what does an audio engineer do if you could just give you know us me in particular but i'm sure some people in our audience have some questions about what does an audio engineer do sure so there's uh you know as with most things a lot of roles encompassed in that title uh what i did mostly as an audio engineer especially in the touring realm was monitor engineering which so basically if you go to any sizeable concert there's one engineer who will mix the show for the audience which is everything that you'd hear wherever you're sitting out there and then there's another engineer on stage who mixes all of the live inputs and tracks and everything for the artist on stage and uh basically you know if they having a request where they need to hear something louder or quieter you know that's that's what you're there for and obviously we don't want to get super deep into like an art of audio engineering podcasts but when you say when you say mix so you're just talking about levels like how loud the drums are as opposed to the guitar and the vocals and all that right exactly okay yeah yeah so that that way when like the the main lead singer whatever isn't like drowning out with just like drums or whatever in there right yeah just to sort of sum that position up it's basically like the band's happiness on stage is your responsibility ah yeah that's kind of a big role yeah i mean and for the most part like the audience just wants it like loud right like just crank it up yeah and i never knew that there were two different boards or like sound engineers audio engineers like one for the band for what they hear in their ears and then one for the i just figured it was everybody was hearing the same thing like they're different mixes right it's not the audience isn't here in the same thing that like the guitarist does right no definitely not and even within that it's different mixes for each artist on stage oh wow yeah okay geez you got a lot going on yeah at times uh yeah was there any networking involved there absolutely was yeah oh really oh okay all right all right yeah i know so uh yeah on stage it was a little bit less but when i do the occasional like systems tech roll which is that's the person who's responsible for usually designing and deploying really the speakers into whatever venue you're in um that's more networking heavy um and it seems to be getting more and more so um at monitors it's more just like all of your devices like you have uh wireless transmitters that transmit uh to the wireless receivers that the artists use at their position and sometimes you can have a lot of those and a lot of wireless microphones and with all the different settings uh the easiest way to sort manage that is to have it all networked together and control it all from a laptop or something um and so that was sort of like you know an introduction into networking at that point it's like you know i came here to do sound but you know now i'm plugging in ethernet cables and i don't really know you know how this works so i got to figure it out so to all those wireless transmitters so like back in the day right like the guitarist had a chord to witness guitar and the microphones had chords and like all that so i guess it's the trend has gone toward wireless right the guitars can dance around doesn't have a wire there's a transmitter sure sure it's certainly gotten more popular is there a receiver on the other end that or like a controller that takes in all those wireless signals and then i mean that's the network part i guess right is it kind of concentrates all those different wireless devices well actually this would fall more under like just the wireless or radio frequency management uh the networking part would actually be like that receiver that you're talking about it could have a lot of different settings as far as eq volume uh adjusting the frequency on it and that unit will actually have an ethernet port and require an ip address to access it from whatever software you know so that when you're at the board and you have to control stuff you're talking to it via ip okay yeah and uh in like systems tech roles in front of house roles it goes well beyond that to where all of the individual amplifiers for all the speakers uh similarly require like network control oh and uh it's even gotten to the point now where they're using audio over ip for like you know 64 to 128 channel flows from like computers to consoles console to console so it used to be so this is all the stuff that used to be those big snakes of cables right from the stage to the board now it's fiverr really okay yeah wow yeah so you got thrown into that a bit in that one exactly with some networking yeah and that's you know that's where the interest was peaked huh i had no idea i didn't realize all that stuff was ip based yep i mean it makes sense it absolutely makes sense now but so a role that i had uh about 10 years ago i used to do help desk for a high school and it was like dual you know part help desk but then i would also do the av stuff for um the entire school district so we would like set up sound and lights for various shows whether it's elementary school high school whatever and so what we dabbled in a little bit of like you know the av stuff but of course it's a school district everything was slr nothing was iop based or or you know whatever the connectors were for the lighting stuff but i i mean you know it's it's kind of surprising to hear but at the same time not so surprising that everything's ip based these days right especially on a higher end show yeah that's that's so cool i didn't realize that what who calls you to tell you like hey the world shutting down in our industry has is like disintegrated oh man uh so when when that you know moment came i think that we had we had like a two week or one week rehearsal in l.a for an international tour uh this was with avril and it would have would have put us in europe like in april and then all over asia for a couple months after that or something and uh so rehearsals finished and the world was still fine the tour was still planned and i think two days after getting home i got the email like tours canceled and uh you know haven't gotten a call from that industry for work since wow just like that and you were working in the industry for how long 10 15 uh over 10 years yeah okay so a decade in the industry and then one day it just that's it it's gone yeah yeah that's crazy yeah yeah did you did you see it coming at all like i kind of feel like before all heck broke loose in all of our worlds like there was kind of this like i don't know three or four weeks so like something going on did you see that thing in the news like at least here it seemed like something was coming but you know we had no idea what we were in for like did you did you have any indication that this could happen to your industry or you just got that call and you're like what the hell just happened no it was definitely uh you know i think even as far back as january i was on a job in miami and i was like checking the news and it's like this doesn't seem seem like it's gonna go well you know and then uh while we were in rehearsals i think like milan or some city uh you know put the kibosh on uh on live shows and so one show from the tour got cancelled why were in rehearsals and uh so sort of like you know the harping or whatever it's like okay this is yeah so was there like a period of like wtf am i gonna do like how because i know there's been a lot of industries i i used to be in food service like in college i waited tables for five years yes i was in college for five years and you know i i've thought of those people just as an example when this all hit like they can't work anymore restaurants are shut down like so you know when i met you i was like oh wow like there's just there's an industry i didn't even think of and going to live shows used to be my favorite thing in the world to do and just never occurred to me like oh yeah there's a whole industry of people i wasn't so worried about the billionaire you know performers like oh they'll be fine they'll sit on their yacht you know until this blows over but so many people like yourself i guess who there's a lot of supporting personnel for all those live shows right like a lot of people lost their jobs oh yeah yeah yeah um stagehands catering bus drivers warehouse workers i mean there's even you know the companies themselves the sound companies and light companies that you know may or may not have all their gear paid off and that are operating on like pretty high levels of cash flow that all of a sudden it just is gone you know um yeah a lot of people and that's kind of i have to remind myself that sometimes because it's you know so humbling to go from like working all the time at a job that you feel is like going really well to all of a sudden like just you know basically being unemployable and unable to find a job so it's like when i remember that there's like thousands and thousands of people in the country and around the world in the same position as me it's like yeah so did you sit for a while just like panicked anxious depressed or do you know how long did it take for you to like be like all right i think i need to develop a different skill set here and you know and try to pivot yeah i mean uh at first i would say actually the anger and depression kind of came later at first it was like you know no big deal i got savings for this it's gonna be fine and you didn't know how long it was gonna last too right like it might not be exactly yeah yeah still don't you know right right like oh this could be a vacation right maybe it'll blow over and all yeah and then you know as you go months without working and the savings account starts to take a hit it's like okay and like yeah i think it was months into it when i decided like so it was kind of like a switch there too i was like okay i'm gonna learn to code and get a job you know just whatever it takes gonna do it how long did you mess with coding i think i did like a month i did some college course online that was like a semester course and i just squished it down and just kind of did it all at home and uh how did that go did you get it did it make sense i did it made sense i think a lot of the like assignments and stuff were just really painful like they really made you just like think harder than you feel like thinking sometimes i guess i don't know how else to put it it's just was it python you said yeah can you teach me python unlikely well that's a corner of my mind now that's going to be a very useful skill for you someday um when you when you get a networking gig so when did you decide on networking i mean did it have anything to do with like oh like did you like networking when you had those jobs in audio absolutely and as a matter of fact while i was still working those jobs is when i first found a like found out about udemy and found the first uh like comptia course or something about networking i watched a couple videos on like long flights but didn't really prioritize it and didn't really have a lot of time for it honestly but um after you know the month of python was when i started trying to apply for jobs online you find all the like job job boards and all that stuff and uh that's when i realized that like certifications were a thing you know it's funny listening to you guys podcast and hearing all these guys was just like these long lists of certifications like last year i just found out they existed you know but uh so yeah it was uh at that point um so i'm sorry you were applying for jobs and did you see that they had certifications you didn't have is that kind of when it came top of mind oh what are these letters what do they mean exactly yeah yeah right exactly amongst you know all the different skill sets that require that i just it was like i have no idea what this means yeah so yeah applying for jobs just hitting the job market super hard and like not getting responses and it's like okay we'll take some time and get you know so so were you like trying to apply to like software developer jobs did you were you trying to do networking jobs back then or you know i think i didn't realize help desk was a thing at the time so i think i was just applying to anything that had like it in the title yeah you know i i knew to stay away from the ones that had the salary of like 100k plus waste anybody's time here but yeah yeah yeah and uh so yeah it's kind of been like that since then i guess that was maybe in august or so that i started uh really kind of getting into all this it was like i got the comptia a plus certification and then you know started applying again still no job so it's like okay maybe one more cert and then you know i'll hear back and so so when you realize certifications were a thing how how did you land on like which one to go first well that um something andy and i talked about when we first met actually um so i think the ccna was like the common one that i saw all over the place but being so new and so illiterate to everything i t and like that whole job world i went to the ccna website and it was just like i couldn't make sense of you know the whole structure or the requirements and uh and it also looked expensive you know there's a lot of the different stuff that they wanted you to buy or anything else you know a lot of that training is expensive like when you go on cisco's site and look like hey here's a 3 000 video training series you can use like yeah yeah whoa i was pretty off put by you know that but i had remembered the uh the comptia stuff from when i had downloaded like a udemy course a couple years ago and uh i looked at that and they make it all pretty simple you know start start here at eight plus and follow the tree yeah and that's that's common right you kind of hear that like you start with hardware right is that a plus like hardware and then networking yeah yeah it's kind of a good i was talking about earlier and said like i i almost wish i had done what what you did that path instead of just jumping you know feet first into ccna not really with any networking background at all and just failing the hell out of that test i think some a plus and net plus would have would have done me well you know to at least build a foundation because like it's a good foundation yeah because everybody has a different starting point you know like the person who's 10 years as a network engineer going for the ccna is going to be in a lot better position than you know the cable guy climbing the ladder or the audio engineer who needs to pivot like what is always you know i haven't looked at a at an a plus syllabus in a long time but you know back when i did look at it when i was in college um it was like hardware and i think they went over stuff like this is a trouble ticket and here's some troubleshooting skills and you know here's some customer service skills even it's good like help desk cert i guess right yeah yeah so you saw the job postings people kept blowing you off you started to get certs you got your a plus first interviewed some more still nothing yep and he said okay let me work my way up the stack here and look at net plus yep okay yep how is that how is that plus is it is it a lot of material i i think the easiest way to sum it up is just tell you how long it took me which was like three weeks okay um which really gave me a false impression on uh what this whole certification game was all about ccna not so much you haven't knocked the ccna out yet no man working on it working on it but now so so to put some perspective on that that that was three weeks of you studying like 40 hours a week 20 hours a week 30 hours a week no it might have been a little more a couple more weeks than that but it was definitely less than two months but it was maybe three hours a day or something oh wow okay a couple days off here and there you know any labbing did you have at that point anything to practice on do they come with like simulators so at that point uh i wasn't doing any sim simulators uh the whole like network virtualization thing i didn't have a clue about but i had bought like a couple small the little raspberry pi things just to have another computer to like try to make a connection with and learn like basic file share stuff you know and that was about the extent of it really that's really smart i don't have a raspberry pi but i've heard so like people are doing so many things with them and they're oh they're fun yeah and they're so affordable right like yeah yeah it's what are they like 20 30 i don't i don't even know they're super inexpensive right i mean you can get them that are like 60 70 bucks but like that for for even for a tiny computer that's that's pretty power packed right yeah you can do quite a bit with it that's amazing so you got a couple of those to try to get them to talk to each other you learn some stuff file shares right yeah and those have been really helpful with learning linux too which i didn't know anything about but oh my god you know linux too now you got to teach me that come on get a pie man those are uh yeah baby stuffs so so you got the a plus you got the n plus uh at what point did you meet andy and and uh get the home lab right so i think i was probably halfway through or maybe just finishing up the net plus studying and it was like getting close to christmas break or something and you know time to go see family or whatever but that was when i saw andy's post and uh i just reached out to him i think that day i just recorded a quick video showed him showed him my little setup with the computers and uh told them what was going on with me i had lost my job and was working on you know pursuing networking jobs and uh i think he got back to me a couple weeks after that and at that point i don't even think i realized what it was that he was offering i think it was just like here's somebody who knows some stuff and like he's got some stuff that's gonna help me learn you know so i was like yeah sure sign me up and uh so he called me one day we got on a google meet or something and he was like hey man i'm gonna give this to you i was like all right what is this i've got these routers and switches i was like all right great and uh they showed up and uh sure enough routers and switches that uh i think at the time when i received that stuff like i had no clue what a router did other than like even having to study the net plus a very basic idea of it and the switches you know layer three switch i had no idea what that was so i didn't realize it was what he had sent me but uh since then they get a lot of use they're plugged in i've got everything on a power strip and i'd say i'm probably like 50 50 50 between the hardware and packet tracer and stuff when i'm studying during the day nice yes yeah correct me if i'm wrong aj my memory is awful you helped me correct i needed some switches and you did some switches i wanted to give you credit where it's due yeah you thought you had three switches and you only had one or whatever and and yeah i i checked and i called yeah aj aj kicked in a couple switches which is really appreciative of i was i was just gonna grab some off ebay and ship them out and uh aj was like dude i i gotcha yeah yeah nice thanks everybody i got gear nice yeah thank you guys both very much oh man i meant to say that absolutely absolutely man this is this is what we're here for so you were studying for net plus and i mean why did you go did you know that cisco was a thing and like the cc did you did you have a plan did you know that ccna was in your future that you'd have to get your ccna to get a job or did that just seem like a natural progression like oh a plus netplus cisco's a thing maybe i'll do that next yeah and i i still don't have like a super great grasp on like the cs uh cisco certification like progression but i believe there was something before the ccna used to i think before talking to you i was like okay after i do net plus i'll try to start at the bottom with cisco um but then talking to you and you actually um for anybody that doesn't know andy actually also hooked me up with the official cirque guide which has been majorly helpful for a lot of reasons uh so once that came in and i dove into it i was like okay this is like the perfect follow-up to the netplus they're reviewing a lot of stuff that i was kind of only introduced to in depth and it's uh yeah it's the next move so that's like two books right is it like yeah yep don't you love cisco press books they're weapons you could take somebody out with that thing super intimidating yeah so what you were referring to was the csent so that was the enterprise network technician i think it was and that was when they broke the ccna into two different parts there was like the 200 125 and the 200 225 or something like that um that that's i actually i did my ccna in 2018 and i had taken the full ccna a few times didn't pass it and then i had the full cna scheduled i was going to cisco live uh there's a free shot exam when you go to cisco live uh so i was gonna take the ccna again you're like no you can't do that you already got it scheduled i'm like all right whatever i'll i'll take the c sent so i took the c set and i passed it um nice apparently you can still do the csent if you're associated with a cisco network academy but i believe they're going to like fully expire that here in the next year but if you're not tied to a cisco network academy then um the entry level is the new 200 01. full ccna so interesting so beau is your goal to get your ccna and then start applying again uh right like that's that's the pattern so far right let me get assert see if i can get a job yeah okay yeah exactly how are you finding the personally i find those cert guides you know they're a little dry right there's a lot of technical data it's not like a novel that pulls you along with an interesting plot like you know there's a spanning tree and here's ospf and it's so how you get along through the book i mean do you i don't say do you struggle with motivation like me personally i haven't studied in a month i was i was in a really good clip and then i got a cold and then i just stopped and now i'm trying to get back in like do you have a good kind of what's your study habit like i guess is what i'm trying to ask you how do you study well it could be better but at the same time i'm trying not to rush this one i've i definitely crammed those first two certifications and i was like you know when you're doing that like i'm probably not going to retain a ton of this right like i'm memorizing answers to questions to take a test yeah uh which i'm trying not to do on this one because i can tell that the material is really high quality it's bet it's building block knowledge uh which i believe to be important in any field like the foundations of whatever it is you're doing um but as far as my experience with the books go yeah they were super intimidating at first uh just you know big technical books but it's actually been pretty uh relieving to go through it and it's like oh okay the first like 45 pages are just explaining the book and every chapter has like three or four pages that are questions or review or something um but yeah as far as how i'm going through it i'd say i don't have like a set pace it's more just like how the material sits with me if it's something that i kind of already have a grasp on i can breeze through it but when i first got to like ospf it was like okay this i need to take some time with and it's like every time they you know mention a new command i don't know i either go to the hardware or packet tracer i'm like testing out the command you know and every time they're you know introducing some new idea i try to lab it so once if not more than once so you are labbing that was my follow-up question is because there's you know in the whatever year we've been doing this there seems to be a lot of different ways people study and yeah it seems like most of us we read the book maybe watch videos lab um the the some of the biggest nuggets i think we got um from peter brown you know from make it stick like uh like you had said you were just you know trying to memorize stuff to take the test and and for me i've done that too in the past and then it doesn't stick in long term and the problem is i have this job and then i'm working with ospf and i'm like i don't remember stuff so like do you do anything with like flash cards or did you i've i've tried to like pick up some tricks on how i can get this in the long term because the forgetting like what are you looking at like 900 pages between those two books right like whatever whatever it is it's big right it's it's more than that i think it's closer to probably like 1400 right wow so how like the challenge for me has always been studying this stuff is how do you remember you know pages 50 to 100 when you're at page 1300 at the end so that's the challenge yeah yeah so i'm just floating that out there for you as a little like i've heard from a lot of people that using flash cards there's free like um what's it called aj i forget the anki whatever yeah before you get so far down the path that you've forgotten 40 of what you've read um you might want to consider flashcards just because i wish somebody had told me you know early on that by using them it's based repetition and it it helps keep it top of mind yeah because by the time you're an old topic learning new topic review an old topic learning new topic no aj you do the flash cards as well yeah yeah that has been a game changer for me so i started the flash cards um was it during my ccmp or after my ccmp i actually i think it was when i was doing the juniper stuff i started doing um the flash cards and that that's been a game changer for me because that like doing the flash cards helped me really breeze through the juniper certs i did and the devnet associate like that that was really really really helpful did you see what just happened there he just kind of casually mentioned like not only does he have a ccnp not only did he get five juniper certs in five months but he also got his devnet associates so of course i love it i lovingly say this i'm not teasing him because what i try to do is stick with the winners like whatever he's doing you know if he's doing flash cards i'm doing flash cards because but there was all sorts of areas getting certifications was my job because right like when when covert first hit we had the opposite problem you know the the it industry did not get shut down we got a crap ton of work thrown our way um unexpectedly and so there was like a period of of like two or three months where i was working a ton of time i would say overtime but i wasn't compensated for more than four hours a week because i'm salary so it wasn't exactly overtime um but then like after june or july i spent i had some projects here and there i wouldn't say i wasn't working on any projects but it was nothing compared to the first half of the year and and so there was at least 20 sometimes 30 hours a week where i was studying so yes the flashcards helped but also like i had the time to commit to it where i would study for most of the day and then i would still spend time with my family and relax and hang out so it was a really good you know balance i didn't have to like try to find the time you know like i have not cracked a book since january you know and i have no intention of cracking a book because i'm working on a huge project right now that just that's not gonna let me do that and he's got all the certs so that's all right let's see where he cracks the books man another another good trick that just popped in my head not that we're trying to tell you how to study but because you're studying for the ccna aaron had always espoused this and then peter brown reinforced it but doing the do i know this already so you had mentioned like those questions doing those and the end of chapter tests i think basically taking those tests before you read the chapter it primes your brain to then recognize that material when you read it it's so counterintuitive a lot of the stuff like let me take the test before i read the material but i started to do that and then i would look at the question ahead of time not exactly know it and then when i saw it in that show ah that's what they're looking kind of like a lot of these little hacks to try to get it you know to to stick in your head all right that's in studies are you using any of the resources so you got books i know you mentioned udemy but maybe you're not doing that for ccna like what what are you using to help get you through this uh just i'm sorry could you repeat the question are you using any additional resources so you have a lab you're using packet tracer you've got the the book the andy sent you are using anything else right um i mean this as you guys probably know the cisco circuits they come with like the companion website that has uh you know all the questions that are in the book i go online for this i just do and they also have like all kinds of different videos and like even other websites with labs and stuff on it but i would say mostly what i've just sort of honed in on is uh the book actually even comes with on the website like flash cards there which uh i've heard about that before i looked at it it was just like so many i might come back to them you know a little closer to test time but maybe i should uh huge you guys warning and pick up on it now but no um what i really just kind of honed in on is like the questions at the end of the chapters and at the end of the sections and then just laughing the hell out of everything you know if i can think of three or four different scenarios to test a concept on and just like make it work on the hardware you know so are you going to feel comfortable about it are you going to watch videos and i i only ask because i think you might have the udemy chris bryant ccna boot camp so i do is that something that you think you'll use i'm only asking because i kind of have like a love hate relationship with videos when i watch when i watch a lot of video series it's easy yeah like when i'm passively watching it's like oh and then i get this again there's another term for it for make it stick but i get this like illusion of competence i think it was called oh yeah i know that well just because chris bryant the ccie guy did it i feel like i know it but then when i sit for the test i'm like oh crap i don't remember that lsa and ospf so it seems like trying to leverage video content i don't know if it's different for everybody it has its place but i'm i still haven't figured out that balance of like where do you do that do you do it along with the reading and the labbing do you do it at the end to i mean aj i don't know if you have any i'm not trying to put you on the spot but i i don't exactly know where video fits for like successful certification people like uh aj i mean where do you how do you utilize video training for for me i i do video almost like a dicka right like it's a primer like it's it's something that works like i do sit and watch it but it's even though i'm watching it and engaging it it's still kind of a passive way to learn something yeah early earlier like you might watch an ospf video thing right before you read the chapter exactly yeah okay yeah that's interesting i kind of had like the reverse mentality of it where i didn't want to watch the video series and sort of get understanding and then go through the book and feel like i think i already know this and kind of used to it i went for the book first and tried to like really soaking it in and since videos are easier to watch than reading i figured i'd just like kind of use that to review at the end of the books right and there's i don't think there's a wrong way i mean you're you know you're consuming the content and i i treat the videos almost like a podcast right like it's something that i put on it's background noise i listen to it sometimes i'll like watch the video especially if somebody's like laughing something um but my my study time tends to be in the evening and so you know i'll listen to the video throughout the day and then study really study read do some labbing in the evening i i wanted to ask you about labbing though you mentioned that you use packet tracer and the gear right so i i've gotten beat up over over time about you know hey man nobody needs physical gear here we go yeah well no so well you're you're a perfect you're a perfect use case you're studying for the ccna you use emulated and and real environment so do you notice a difference does it not really seem to matter like as long as you're getting the keyboard you know time in and running through the commands do you notice any advantage in the real gear or it's really just another way to consume the another way to practice it you know to apply the knowledge yeah i mean i started out like i guess you call it laughing here but uh when i was learning sound i could read about some this piece of gear in a magazine and like know what it does but i would go into a warehouse that had that piece of gear and plug it in turn it on make sound pass through it and i would say every time i've done that with any piece of gear i learned something or have some issue during that experience that i have to figure out and i don't feel comfortable with that piece of gear like being hired on a show to go use that unless i've put hands on it and like you know what i mean yeah otherwise i'm going to be figuring stuff out on site um but here with the networking stuff you guys have the virtualization uh so for me it kind of goes back to that like i need to feel confident with the hardware i think is a big inspiration but also with this specific test that i'm studying for right now i feel like the gear forces me to use the command line where packet tracer you have the option of just like clicking on it and just like assigning an ip and the little fill-in gap and like all the things you need to do to get it kind of going you don't have to use the command for but i'm pretty sure that's like an important thing to know for the test so using the hardware forces me to do that you know and also i can like have stuff plugged in over on the other side of this room that i'm in here it's kind of like a hallway and so i can have it all plugged in far away and be forced to do things sort of in a more realistic fashion where if i like you know turn off the port that i'm connected to or something it's a problem whereas if you do it in packet tracer it's like you just you know reconnect it or whatever you know what i mean does that make sense yeah totally totally yeah i'm trying trying my best since i'm not getting any real world experience right now i'm trying my best to emulate um you know a real world environment and trying to look at it in that way i think that's one of the biggest advantages to the physical gear is when you're trying to get you know that certification and in hopes of getting that first job if you were interviewing with me and saying man i did all this stuff in packet tracer and then the next guy came in just like you has the same cert and said man i built a home lab and i have enterprise you know cisco routers and switches at home and this is what i can do in them to me it's just another you have worked on that gear you know you're going to come in here and work on similar gear you know maybe it's a couple years newer but it's doing the same stuff um so yeah i think that goes a long way it in your particular position where you you want to get that first you know gig do you have any idea when you might take the test i know that you have a lot of studying ahead of you and i'm not sure yeah i mean i definitely uh hope to have it done by the end of this year um but also like i'm at the point now where when i got to ospf i like never heard about it before it's like okay it's a new thing so there's still i think more concepts like that that are brand new to me that i'm not sure how long to expect to you know spend on them uh i want to spend enough time to like get it right you know so i'm not giving myself a hard deadline anytime soon but you know i think the end of the year is probably realistic i feel like there's a lot going on in ospf right aj i mean you saw the lsa types and yeah like yeah grp is a lot easier to me you get the ospf like oh man what what what is it they have their use cases for sure but yeah i know that that's good um what was i gonna ask you i had the the thought on the tip of my tongue well aj's thinking of it have you hit subnetting yet oh yeah yeah yeah and do you love it i think uh i think that was maybe one thing that netplus like kind of helped introduce me to they had some good like visual uh introductions to that kind of stuff and uh so it wasn't like just a full-on assault but um i almost ran away over subnetting so i'm glad that it's going well for you yeah no it's not it's not all bad so far yeah what what's been your favorite topic so far is there they're a topic that you're just like oh this is fun uh so fun no yeah i would say uh spanning tree has been cool to learn for me personally because having had to work with you know ip based networks in uh high pressure situations and not really understanding them well i've often had thoughts of like oh how could like this redundancy work or these different setups like how would you accomplish this and you know now actually reading things like spanning tree and ether channel and stuff like that it's like okay this is yeah this is really cool nice yeah i can't believe you like spanning tree i mean you know i like it as much as you can like this stuff right right deal with it in a production environment and you'll learn oh yeah yeah yeah and what's amazing what's amazing about it is it just works out of the box right like you don't really have to do anything too fancy if it's enabled it keeps you from destroying your layer two domain i mean that's kind of sweet i think that's the part of the problem though is like it just works out of the box and so a lot of engineers won't give it the attention it deserves because if you don't design it properly or think about it it can end up butting in the ass pretty hard right but you're right yeah it'll work out of the box it can it can totally stop you from completely food barring your network so you want to be an engineer right that's the end goal here you want to be a network engineer i'm going to go from audio engineer to network engineer ccna is going to get you there you're in a good area right there's a lot of technology jobs i believe in and around you right oh yeah there's so many yeah so that's that i mean that's helpful you know you're not out in the middle of nowhere with no jobs like right right i wonder how like so aj what would you tell somebody who's working on a ccna and wants to get a job like what can he do besides get the cert between now and then i mean would it be like a linkedin presence start connecting with recruiters you know talk to brittany like oh yeah yeah i mean it you know you're labbing that's that's huge right like get getting the experience even though you don't have a job yet like getting the experience where you can get it um you know put yourself in different situations and if you're looking for some real world scenarios like hey i'm learning spanning tree but you know how does a company actually you know do this you know andy and i would love to talk to you about that and really let you know how some of that stuff works but the more experience you can give yourself the better and it shows a lot of like initiative on your part that you know you really want to learn this stuff um definitely dress up your linkedin profile you know give it the attention it deserves definitely talk to brittany or somebody like britney you know there's there's many brittany's in the world she's she's our resident recruiter if you haven't heard her episode yet she's and she's a network engineer recruiter so she'll definitely help you know you she can help you take your resume and any relevant experience and kind of put that forward on your new resume as a network engineer right as a as a person seeking a network and engineering job awesome yeah you want to talk to the right people right because like not all recruiters are created equal i mean there could be somebody who looks at your profile and says hey you know i i have this perfect i saw your profile you know you have nothing but networking on your thing and then they'll email you and say hey i think you're this perfect opportunity perfect candidate for you know working in an amazon warehouse packing boxes you're like dude i got like three guys well right but like like britney's not like that she's very personable and detail-oriented she wants to help you she contributes to the community like connecting with the right people i think is is really helpful and i i personally just based on my experience i wouldn't wait until you have your ccna to make to maybe make a couple you know relationships with people in the field like britney as a network engineering recruiter you know that could be somebody to just start to have a conversation with like hey this is my plan end of year you know what can i do between now and then she's she's been really great and even though like we're not doing a ton of stuff in person yet you know i would still look i have to imagine there's like some sort of it meetup groups i mean atlanta is a huge area so even if you can get associated with them somehow you know i i'm a big fan of vmug i happen to be a vmug leader in the area that i live in and we do virtual events a couple times a year even now through the pandemic so i gotta imagine there's like something like that and if you can you know we're talking about it networking but now we're talking about social networking and so if you can start to work yourself into those crowds and you know talk to people like yeah hey you know i was an audio engineer i lost my job i'm studying to be a network engineer working on my ccna i got my netplus got my a plus the next time someone thinks like you know oh i got an entry level job coming up maybe i should give bo a call you know because that that'll go a long way too yeah that's a really good point i didn't even think about uh like meetups industry meetups oh yeah but uh i'm definitely at the point where it's like i there were people that i would see all the time trying to break into touring which is one thing or just the live entertainment industry alone people ask me all the time you know uber drivers how do you get into that how do you get in it's like kind of got to know somebody you know you got to have at least one person vouch for you and i feel like i'm at that point with it or it's like i can send a million resumes a day online and i'm just gonna keep getting these little reminders every day like no resume it was declined you know it's like having somebody in the corner of my room every so often just being like hey man you suck all these emails i was like i could only take so many declined resume responses you know but uh that's a great idea to meet up i'll definitely need to give this some consideration you know what's harder than passing that ccna is getting that person to give you that first job that that first shot and if if you can i i don't want to like you know circle back to the personal branding episode but if there's any way that you can make a name for yourself before you hit the market you know you could write a blog you could you know youtube videos whatever that is but um even just your ccna journey you know all of a sudden let's say you start a blog and you know you one day a week you write about you know what you're studying that week and you post it and maybe you put it on linkedin and put it on twitter and start connecting with recruiters and companies and well now if it takes you eight months to get your ccna well you've spent part of that eight months making connections in the industry and then people can see oh he can write and look what he's doing oh and he has a lab and wow ospf we use that and so by the time you hit the market with that ccna people know who you are at least a handful of recruiters like oh yeah that dude oh yeah the music guy right as opposed to waiting until you get your ccna and then starting like okay guys i'm here give me a job right you know higher mountain to climb than getting your name out there ahead of time yeah totally good advice yeah so so i got a question um it it seems like hopefully there's a light at the end of this tunnel um i have seen some artists start to announce some tours later this year maybe after everything that you've been through do you think live entertainment is something you'll go back to or or have you kind of made a decision about that and you won't hurt our feelings you won't hurt our feelings if you're like i'm bailing on i.t is the second i can't no no no that's a that's a good question that i don't have a simple answer to um i would say if i got a call today for work um financially i wouldn't really have an option yeah yeah sure got to work and you loved what you did right so like that it did yeah but at the same time at the same time it's easy to look at that job and like form an idea about it and it's easy to like tell people oh it's a great job but i gotta tell you man there's times at like 3 a.m when you're in the arena and you've been up for like nearly 24 hours you know coiling cable covered in like nacho cheese and just crud you know spilled beer that you're like man an office gig you know could work out especially looking down the road you know i'm 30 years old now it's like i could do this for a little bit longer and enjoy it but at some point man you want to be home you don't want to you know be pulling those long hours doing hard physical work and stuff and so to answer your question um aj i don't i don't really have the option to pigeonhole myself right now sure um i think the mid-term is a little more hazy yeah long-term i need to get a gig in i.t and have something settled and and because of that long-term uh sort of need and desire i think the midterm is going to require that i you know focus more and more in getting experience in it it's not like i can just tour until i'm 40 and then switch over you know it's going to require some of that some of that leg work in there in the beginning so right that's kind of where i'm at with that yeah you know that that's understandable i mean you know finances obviously play a big part in any decision so you know if you got a call today you know answer answer the call go go work some shows get some money but it sounds like you would take that money and put it back into your studies and you know pay for the exam and get that certification and keep going out that direction totally yeah yeah are there like networking internships out there like could he do like a day or two a week while he's studying like working at a place that lets him do stuff like is that even a thing or not i mean we hired an intern but i think when most companies think about interns they turn first to college graduates i don't think yeah okay they think about people that aren't affiliated with a college right they want like a graduate in there yeah yeah hey you just spent a hundred thousand dollars on a degree come work for free i had a question for you guys too and thinking about um the question that you just asked me aj um i was independent uh so i could decline jobs or take jobs as i saw fit uh where does that sort of um fit in in the i.t world is there a lot of like contract jobs or is it pretty much like you sign up with a company and my first job there's tons of 10.99 stuff out there for sure yeah um you know definitely talk to you know a recruiter because and especially brittany she says there's a ton of contract work out there um you know some of them might require clearances or specific you know experience or certifications but there's definitely stuff out there um you know the company that i work for where we're an integrator a value-added reseller a partner tons of different names for it but basically you know you need gear or you want a solution you can come to us and we'll help build a custom solution and sell you the appropriate gear that we then go and implement and i'm the guy that goes and implements well we have you know definitely like i'm i'm a staff engineer i get paid for by the company but we have a a very good handful of of engineers that are 1099. um and it's either because that's how they prefer to work as 1099 or maybe they're transferring from another company so they're 10.99 for like five six eight months whatever the case is and then they they become a full-time employee you know that it's like a temp gig to a full-time gig so there's there's definitely options out there for you know either permanent contract short-term contract or contract to hire options i feel like that's the way the industry hires too it's contract to perm right yeah like they want to try you out and see how it is and then from you know from your side of the table bo you might want to work at a place you know for a little bit before you make a big commitment on like okay let's you know it's it's not a nice way to kind of try each other out right like a little you know a little dating period how is this place you know i would say if if you're at a point in your life where you're open to contract work i think you're going to have a lot more doors open to you than somebody who's not you know like oh wow i'm really really uh reassuring and yeah yeah yeah i i mean i've come across a lot of opportunities but it's like oh this is a it's a contract and you know for me i have a house a family lots of bills so like there's there's a lot of like uneasiness in a contract that's not like guaranteed kind of employment but the nicest the upside is that the rate is often higher than sure so you know it might be temp quote unquote temporary work but it generally pays you know decent right i mean that that was my experience at least do you feel like uh contract work on your resume like has any different sort of weight as a full-time job it's experience yeah in my opinion yeah yeah you're getting experience on production networks that's what you got to do to right because once you get that in my opinion you're set now you have production experience and the next place that wants to you're gonna you're you're gonna hit a market without any you know production experience i mean you're gonna leverage your lab experience and that's going to help a lot right but that's a much bigger you know hill to climb then oh well you know i work six month contract at this place through him contracted that like okay this guy's done the job he's sure you know he knows what he's doing so yeah contract is a good it's a good step and i mean there's there's a website i think it's like upwork or something like that and companies will often post you know short-term contract positions like hey we have a branch office we're opening up somewhere and we need somebody to go set up you know some routers and switches for this new branch office you know in a location where they don't have employees you know i t employees that work uh what was it chris relay um he had a short-term contract with the company setting up voting stations you know back when and around the presidential election and it was the you know ip based uh you know very i.t related stuff but it was a short-term contract kind of thing nice and i guess you got to think outside of the box too like i've always heard people say like you know your local library schools like they you know volunteer work i'm even thinking like if if the four of aj dan myself if we all lived in the same place and like had an office and like had a network you know for like this podcast if we got big enough like dude we could like hire you on as like a contractor like hey man this is what we need done like you just never know where an opportunity could be you know sure i'd love to hire you and get you some real order experience if we had that infrastructure in place you know in an office we don't but there's places out there that you know may need your skill set that you may not think of you know it might not be facebook and google or you know red river right off the right off the get-go but you know different ways to get experience i guess we need an office aj we all need to move to san diego and have an office with the network so we can hire people i'm sold on that man uh yeah you know what um i've done volunteer work for the american red cross uh in an i.t capacity um and then there's also an organization called itdrc uh and you can sign up with them and you know if a disaster happens in your area or if you're open to traveling um they will take your skill set and match you to a place that needs it and they these guys get donated tons of gear and they will ship gear to a disaster location and then you gotta set up you know the switches the routers you know get temporary internet connections temporary wireless setup and it's it's sometimes it serves the local community you know so they can get connected with family and let them know they're okay sometimes it serves the disaster response personnel so people working in the area that need to assess the damage report back you know whatever the case may be so it's it's a really cool organization and if you're you're open to it you can definitely sign up there i know with itdrc there's there's a bit of training that you got to do before you're eligible for deployments but it's it's not incredibly you know difficult training right right it's kind of cool yeah those are definitely some really good opportunities um i i had a great time doing the uh the american red cross stuff i was like the local the local head of it so we we set up a bunch of networks for like red cross facilities in the state of vermont it was all really good experience too was that early on or were you like started up and had proud experience already like um it wasn't like super early on but i wasn't started up yet it was definitely like five or six years ago now and i guess volunteer like they're not going to expect you to be all you know hardcore or like super knowledgeable right like you're you're volunteering right you're gonna get experience but that right that might be a really good foray and you know into something yeah for sure ah we're gonna get you there bo i know man i know it's just like that first job is the hardest one to get and once that's done i know i'll be good but uh yeah but i think you're making a lot of the right moves and but you know definitely doing some social networking getting your name out there you know honestly if if a person person's not going to give you the opportunity you probably don't want to work for them anyway you know as cool as the job might sound like you'll find the right person that's going to like stick their neck out for you and give you a chance to to prove your worth and and you'll take full advantage of that you're a hard worker i can tell that nice nice thanks i do have uh i won't call him out by name i have one potential lead maybe from the discord channel in atlanta so i think i gotta follow up on that this week and uh you know if it doesn't work out that's fine too but and that's a perfect place too but we have a jobs channel there and like we said there's there's people who interview and hire in there we've i don't know if like 13 or 1400 members now give or take but the more places you can get plugged into you know whether it's linkedin or a blog or youtube or twitter you know the discord server has just been i i love it you know i see people like hook up in there and get interviews and and get jobs just been like you know really amazing yeah it's it's it's it's really nice yeah awesome bo uh thank you so much for spending some time with us do you have any last minute words advice that you would give anybody you know in your position oh uh yeah we at the end already you want to go another hour bo i mean um yeah no words of advice i don't know we have to study hard yeah yeah hang out with aj and uh the other guy andy andy oh how did that just happen i love it oh yeah that guy that gave you the free stuff right right that guy all right guys well uh yeah cool thank you so much for having me on and uh certainly we'll be in touch hey bro where where can people find you yeah all right uh any socials username and discord i mean anybody dan if every recruiter that we know who places people for a living all day every day anybody that might listen to the podcast that's uh looking to hire somebody yeah there's thousands of people listening right now yeah yeah i'm at beautiful b-e-a-u-t-o-o-p on twitter and uh beautiful that's my name on linkedin yep and i will drop both of those in the show notes nice that way people can easily find you and connect with you especially if they're looking to hire you right on thanks for coming on bo it's been it's been uh enjoyable for my seat you know watching your journey and what you've been through and you know adversity builds character we've all been through stuff and you know you just you well the only way out is through right you're in there you're in the mud you're working hard you're going to get the cert you're labbing and you know you're going to get you're going to get rewarded for it you know you're doing what you got to do everybody who does what you do they just you hang in there you get there you get a break and then you know you get in there and you'll be a network engineer or something i still can't believe i'm a network engineer sometimes so you know it's awesome man you're going to get there it's been fun following you thank thanks for coming on keep us uh you know when you get your ccna and you get your job i i want an update i want to hear what's going on oh yeah oh absolutely you'll be the first to know we'll do a bow two part two right on all right well thanks again guys i really appreciate it and uh talk to you soon all right thanks a lot bro have a good night all right later 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 artofnetworkengineering.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