00:00
This is the art of network engineering,  where technology meets the human side of IT.  Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems, or shaping your career, we've got the insights, stories, and tips to keep you ahead in the ever-evolving world of networking.  Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. My name is Andy Lapteff, and we are joined in this episode by one of my very good friends. I feel very fortunate that you're my friend, Lexie Cooper. How you doing, Lexie?

00:27
I feel very fortunate that you're my friend too, Andy. Yay. Everything went really well that time. Yeah, and full transparency with the audience, this is like our fourth time trying to start the show. The first time I couldn't pronounce my own name. So that's that's where we're at in this episode. That's our starting point.  I'm doing great though.  Thank you. Thank you. I can say my name now.

00:50
We just had you on, so this is a great treat. We just had you on, we talked about New Glenn's launch, it was amazing. Got a ton of  attention, so thank you. A bunch of people probably discovered our show, because we're like, holy crap, this is amazing. So thanks for coming on, it was amazing.  Is there any like post like, is there like a let down? Like, wow, the thing happened now, it's like, huh. Gosh, the thing happened, it was amazing, and now we're doing it again, and then we're gonna do it again, and again, and again, and again. So,  you know, look out this fall at some point. um

01:20
I think we, can say this.  I can say this.  Just recently we rolled out part of  our second um vehicle, our NG2 vehicle to the pad and we're doing some testing. So if you keep your eyes on LC36 down in Florida, you might see some cool stuff ignite and hopefully not explode.  What does second vehicle mean? Are there two new glens?  Yeah, so.

01:44
There's a bunch of new Glens actually. We are continually building multiple ones so that we can eventually get up to this cadence that we want. That's like, it takes some time to refurbish a booster after you've landed it after a launch. And so the idea is that we'd launch, we'd catch the booster, bring it back for refurb and then like launch another one a couple of weeks later. So we have enough time to refurb the first one without being like super rushed, right? So we'll have a bunch of new Glens doing their thing. Wow, I there was one.

02:13
Isn't that silly? I guess it's obvious now. was one originally, right? We only have one in January when we launched it. That makes sense, having a couple, so you can kind of keep the launch schedule up. Yeah, for sure. It's similar to what SpaceX does. They have a bunch of them in rotation at a given point. So can I get on a sign-up thing? I remember at one point I signed up for the Kennedy Space something or another, where I get emails of launches in Florida. That's really good question. have to look it up.

02:42
My dream as a young child was to see one of the shuttle launches and I missed out. never got there before they  shut down the STS or whatever it was called. So um I can't wait to see a launch. Now, the launch I'd like to see is when we send humans to Mars. Now, I don't know  when and if that's gonna happen in my lifetime. And then there's the weather and they get scrubbed and all that. So  it's a probably one in a million shot that I'll get to see that. So I should probably just come.

03:08
see like a new Glenn launch at some point when I can. See new Glenn. if we're not sending people to Mars, right, like it'd be cool. If I got to get on a list, I think. Yeah. And you know, I wish I wish I could say I knew we had an email list. I don't think we do. But I will look at that for you in case you do. But yeah, KSC, Kennedy Space Center and like places around there that sort of like are touristy places that are like, oh, come see the space shuttle launch or whatever.  They will have like.

03:34
lists and notifications and stuff. So do they pull your launches in? Because I know like I can see SpaceX launches. Yeah, so like, yeah, right. they've got it. can buy a ticket, you can go, it's like lunch, whatever, right? Like, it depends on like what venue you want to go to. think like places sell tickets to like go sit on the beach and like eat stuff. I want to go as close as I can. I know you're not super close, but that's for safety. I mean, depending on if you want to get arrested on space, I don't want to get arrested by the police. you don't want to get arrested, I mean, then.

04:04
There's a lot of beaches that like face uh the pads and I'm trying to remember, because I wasn't there for, I wasn't out in Florida for the first launch. I was here in Washington. I would also like to go. I'll let you know when I find a really good spot. I guess eventually you'll be like.

04:19
At a launch, are you allowed to say that? You would think. You would think. I'm not in the engineering front room or anything, MCC, when they're doing it. But I'm backup of backup of backup or something. So maybe one day. But you're allowed to go on your own, maybe. Oh, yeah. They wouldn't be like, go do that. It's just, like you said, things get scrubbed if weather's bad or something.

04:47
gets too cold or too hot or something, know, like little things happen. And so it's unfortunately, I know, I'm pretty sure my manager like went down for the first launch and he was there for like a week with like a beach house and we did not launch.  You got to hang at the beach for the week. That's right. Just like a cross from the Cape, like waiting for it anyway. So that can happen. But I would expect that as we get into a cadence, it'll be a lot more predictable to.

05:11
to get to launch. Well, I apologize because I told you I wasn't going to ask you rocket stuff because we just talked about rocket stuff. It's fine. love talking about this. How can I not talk rocket stuff for Paisley Cooper? talking about it. You know what mean? I really do. love talking about it. I'll have to go to a launch. I'll have to check that out and see it for sure. We were joking right before we started it. this is going to be, I think, just like a random stream of consciousness episode. We had a guest scheduled. They didn't feel well.

05:39
Lexi was kind enough to hang in there and I said, you know, let's do something. That'd be a lot of fun. I think this is kind of like, I don't know what we're gonna do. Andy, promised me I could say literally anything that I wanted. So get ready. Okay.  This is gonna be, we're gonna gossip. No, I don't know. Yes. Let's do it. Come on. can gossip very generally and broadly. So no one knows what we're talking about. That's always fun. What tech podcasts out there are launching like emotional gossip bombs at other people. And you know what I mean? Like, come on.

06:08
If you're trying to differentiate yourself in an over saturated market like podcasts. You know what?  That's not a bad idea. Let's gossip about stuff.  right. Before we gossip about wonderful people,  I  was telling you right before we started.  you're just telling me what's been going on with you, right? So like for me, the Andy update is  I'm not a young guy and I've tried to stream a couple of times lately and I got to tell you, man, like

06:37
You inspired me because of your study stream. I'm like, oh.  So I'm on this whole, you  haven't followed it, I'm on this whole like, I'm going to learn automation. And it comes from a good place. It's not like I work at a company that's paying me for automation and now I'm myself. admire you so much for this. Well, thank you. only reason I'm doing it. Well, right.  So I have to. And the reason is, and I'm going to talk about this at Autocon, but.

07:06
when I lost my job and got laid off and I tried to get another job in networking, every job everywhere was like automation in the job requirements. And I'm like, oh no.  And then I'm like interviewing in places and talking to people and they're like, well, you know, what do you know about, I don't know, whatever, like, you know, do you know some basic Python? I'm like, and these weren't even just like engineering jobs,  like even like vendor roles. like, so it just seemed, my experience was like, oh crap,  ROT-RO like,

07:35
Because I was the guy who was like, oh, I'm never doing this and I'm never doing it. So anyway, through my experience, blah, blah, blah, I'm like, huh, I better learn this stuff. And there's a lot happening. Now with the LLM stuff and the AI,  which was going to say, why don't you just stretch GPT? Well, right. So like, Phil Gervasi gave me a book at a NUG. um Because he's been talking a lot about the  machine learning,  AI stuff. And he's very educated on it. And he's able to explain it. And I'm like, huh, how did you learn this? Because it's super.

08:05
confusing to me when I try to study it and he gave me this book and of course the book starts and there's a lot of like it's not coding but I feel like there's a  There was that book about like software eats the world I feel like if you don't understand basic like programmatic concepts  it it cuts you off from a lot of other things and conversations and so I don't think I can understand this book that he said is an intro to machine learning which will Put me down the path of trying to learn how the AI stuff works

08:34
because when I tried to read it, I'm like,  it feels like programming to me, like that type of thinking. So anyway,  for a couple of different reasons, I'm like, I'm gonna learn it. But the point of this rant is, I'm like, well, Lexi used to study  ethernet and this Cisco stuff and all that. She would study in public and it was so great. I'm gonna do that. And I get on and I'm like, oh my God, I'm reading a textbook  live  on the internet. I think this might suck. That  is how it feels.

09:04
Reading a text on the internet on a stream. But I'm not Lexi. I think I'm charming. I think I'm funny. But then I look back and I'm like, oh, no, I was reading a Python textbook on the internet and I'm going to try to make this into an episode. What have I done, Lex? So I got totally normal. Well, I've got the feeling of like, oh, no, I wouldn't watch myself read a textbook, dude. Like you, you watch it back and you just like don't like it. But that's OK. But so the good news is the good news is so what I'm having up to.

09:33
I'm learning Python in public. um It's hard. I kind of hate it. It's terrifying.  The good news is I'm getting positive feedback. Like people are like, oh my God, this is great. Keep doing it. It's great. Now don't know if they're just trying to be nice, but  again, when I'm looking back at this and so I'm trying to create like episodes out of this and I'm like, oh no, what have I done? you have to then back at it and edit Well, I'm editing and I'm trying to take stuff out. And like the one was literally like me for 40 minutes fighting.

10:02
Something and i'm like, well can't like this is crazy. Yeah, you just you just fast forward through that Yeah, so i'm trying to make a little more interesting but i so i did too so the first one i did by myself the second one jeff came home with me  and  It was fine but so as you know good  Andy's about to shit talk jeff right now. No, no, no, so okay, so a good team

10:27
There's, how can I say this? Cause Jeff is gonna listen to this and I don't know what say. Uh you are about to- No, no, There's a certain amount, I think if people are different, it makes the content better. There's a certain amount of tension. If everybody agrees and says the same thing and it's like, I'm listening to an echo chamber, this is dumb. like-

10:49
God bless him like Aaron when we first started Amazon and like Aaron and I did not see eye to eye and we argued on camera a lot but it made for good shows because we were in two different places two different vibes and like so anyway I say that to say that when Jeff got on Jeff's just like why are you reading this book just chat GBT it just go code that's what I do like just go  bad so now Jeff and I are getting into it in the second episode I'm like just go code it's become a rules and ethics show

11:19
Like Jeff, I don't understand the difference between a variable, a string, and a frickin' whatever. And you're saying just code? I don't even know what any this means. So the good news is when Jeff came in,  I think we kind of got into it because  he comes at it from a very different angle than I do. And I'm trying to read the book, and Jeff's like, I would never read, halfway into it, he's like, I would never read the book. I'm like, Jeff, we're doing an episode, I'm reading the book, and you're telling me I have to the book. What are you doing to me right now? know what I mean? So  anyway, that's what I've been up to. I'm trying to learn in public.

11:48
I will say, think yours were more entertaining and I think you're just better at talking shit on the books than I am. I mean, okay, okay, I'll give you that. I might be really good at talking shit, but I don't think it was more interesting. No, I'm of you, that's awesome. I think I was tuning into your streams because I loved your shit talking. You you were. Well, who doesn't love shit talking? I didn't talk enough shit, I don't think. I even tune in now. I'll be doing scrolling way too late.

12:14
because I should be asleep and then I'll see like you live streaming on TikTok. And I'm like, oh, what the hell is she doing? And I hop in and I'm like, oh, this is cool. What were you doing last? I love you, Andy. You're so kind. What were you doing? You were doing something cool. had like, were laughing something. When was it? Because if it was later at night, man, when was Oh, it was late here.

12:31
You had a lab. You had like a virtual lab op. I don't know if it was Packet Tracer. were trying to get something working. Packet Tracer. Was that pretty recently? Yeah, was twitching. I was twitching at Packet Tracer. It was really embarrassing, though, because, OK, I got my CCNA in 2019. ah And I had done a lot of Packet Tracer at that point  and haven't done any since. And so I forgot all about how to use Packet Tracer. So I had like I had like folks.

12:59
Way more experience than me in the chat. Like here's how you do it. You have to generate the RSA key in order to get SSH to work. And I'm like, wait, what? RSA modulus 1024, whatever bullshit. Right. Pgen, whatever. Yeah. But isn't that crazy? It's probably changed a lot since then, right? Like even just Packet Tracer. Packet Tracer does not, and I don't mean to talk actual shit, but Packet Tracer does not seem to changed that much. It was pretty old hardware. But also I'm

13:25
dumb and forgot about how to use Packet Tracer. And maybe like there's something you are supposed to do with the free version that makes it  more updated. Maybe the free version is just like older. But I'm a fan of this live streaming, labbing, learning stuff. And you introduce me to this and I really enjoy it. Yeah. And people seem to get into it, right? Like you get people to jump in.  Feel free to copy because I oh would like to  learn from someone else who knows how Packet Tracer works.

13:54
Cause apparently I don't.  if you want to be bored to death, I have two Python episodes out where I'm live streaming. I'm literally reading the textbook and Jeff's yelling at me like, why are you reading the textbook? Hell yeah, Jeff. Oh my gosh. But the good news is  the second half of the second Python episode was really good because I got so despondent. I closed the book.  No.  But then we had a really good conversation about coding and Python and why it's hard. All of it, like just all of it and why it's important. so.

14:23
We did a good episode after the reading episode and I'm like, well, I can't figure out how to make it its own. So it's all just an hour and 40 Yeah, make it the coding series. So where do you  live stream for the folks at home and for me? Is it Twitch or?  Well, it's funny. So even trying to live stream in multiple places is so hard to me.  So we use Riverside to record, which is what we're in now. And it's already set up to stream to YouTube just from  us. Nice. We used to like stream it out. Yeah, well.

14:53
I was trying to plug into other things and that was a whole thing. Like I still don't have my TikTok live. key or whatever. don't even understand. of it. I had to apply for it on TikTok. They still haven't gotten back to me, but once you apply and rub your belly and pat your head and look at the moon,  they'll eventually give you like a key I can put in something. So  it's YouTube. Doing it on TikTok will be really cool and interesting. I think you'll reach like, you'll reach  some dumb people.

15:21
some interesting folks  who don't know what's going on and just like happened upon it. But that's kind of the fun of it, right? Cause I'll ask questions and like, actually really enjoy when the weirdos come in on TikTok.  I wasn't planning on going down this road, but you've been like, I know you used to stream on, was it Twitch?  Was that the original? Yeah, I still stream on Twitch. No, what was the original one?

15:45
Oh, our pan. was, oh my gosh, this sounds so reddit, right? Yeah. Reddit used to have so many people don't know about this because it only happened for like a brief period of time, but it had the reddit public something network or whatever. Is that gone now? It's gone. They got rid of it. It was only around for like, I don't know, six months or something like that. They get rid of it. They had like TikTok before. I think. Right. I think that it just wasn't successful for them in whatever, whatever parameters they set for themselves. It wasn't successful enough. I really enjoyed it because I got

16:13
practice streaming. That's where I found you. think I think you were streaming on our panel. I think that's where you started. You're a real one. Whenever you whenever you got on Twitter and talk shit, I'm like, oh my God, she's my people. And then I found these live streams.  But what I wanted to ask you and I got sidetracked.  You've been on our pan. I know like  TikTok. Did you do stuff on YouTube? Like, do you have  have like a streamed on YouTube yet? I've considered it. It's just there's a lot of platforms and I haven't figured out.

16:42
technically like how to tie them all together and what's best and I  need to utilize YouTube better. So are you like split between Twitch and TikTok? Like do you have a preferred?  Yeah, and I'll say  for some,  I have a terrible camera in case you can't tell or viewers of the YouTube version of this can't tell. I have a terrible quality  camera and I need to get a better one. So I typically actually.

17:07
prefer TikTok live because it's just so easy to flip open your phone and just do it.  But Twitch, think ultimately is like a more robust platform if you want to have like a really nice polished look to your streams. uh If you want like multiple cameras on different things, depending on what you're doing, like in the lab or whatever, it just, you do it all in OBS and it's not super hard if you're used to streaming. Like it's, it's superior for sure. So it's just depends on what you're doing. This is going to sound ridiculous to you, but it's

17:36
I'm so clueless with this stuff. So in OBS, is that where you play your starting soon  thing? Yeah, yeah. You can create different scenes and you just click on the scene and you put that up there. I did everything wrong. So  I did a screen share playing a looped MP4 of my starting soon thing we made in Canva that Jeff helped me with. I love that. It was so clunky. Did it work? afterwards was like,  I mean, kind of. But then it was real janky when I'd like.

18:04
I'm gonna have to So I had to stop that and go, I mean, it's,  he's the only one.  But yeah, I did everything wrong. um That's how you learn. So, yeah, you know what's funny? Like there's something about vulnerability and this isn't what we're talking about, but like my wife and I turned a corner years ago when  we're in some kind of argument and one of us got vulnerable with the other and it just kind of opened us up to like, oh like we're not.

18:32
adversaries like yeah we're on the same team we're having different experiences through this thing and like so i think there's vulnerable there's magic and vulnerability and the reason i'm bringing it up in this context is like if you can just study publicly and be vulnerable and lost and because it goes a long way well i think so because when i  when i see somebody doing coding or when i try to watch and i'm no shade on any of these people and i try to watch a kirk byers python like

19:01
Everything I consume, it's just so slick and they're so confident and they're so fast and I'm like, I'm so lost. it's intimidating for sure. Well, it is. And I know what they're doing and keeping it tight. but like for me,  so what I'm hoping that does is like, listen, I'm as clueless as the rest of you. I don't want to learn this either, but I realize the value in it. It's going to help my career. So I'm to do it publicly and embarrass myself publicly. Right. But if I can do it, you can do it and maybe you'll learn something too. And so I.

19:30
I think there's something to be said for being vulnerable publicly, especially learning in public, because I think it pulls people along. You know, there's so much, who was I just talking to about this? there's, oh, uh Erica the dev was saying something about she feels like she's falling behind in her career and like, like it never ends in tech, right? Like there's always a new thing. It never ends. You're never catching up. Most of us work insane hours or nights and weekends or like, I used to study.

19:57
every night from like 10 to 12, 10 to one trying to like- You go to work and then you study. Yeah. Sucks, man. Like it's another job. So I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that other than like, it's just, you can never keep up and it always feels like it's never good enough. But seeing people who are known, like let's say you, or maybe somebody like me who's just struggling publicly learning something, it's like, oh, okay. This is a struggle. This is a thing. Everybody isn't perfect. They don't know everything. None of us do.

20:24
Right, exactly. And that's also why I love doing even you don't even have to stream to be vulnerable, right? Like I'll every once in a while do a video where I like, you know, do a simple little lab thing that's like, okay, if you're studying for your CCNA, you've got your CCNA, you're gonna look at that video and be like, that's so easy. That's such basics. Like, why are you teaching? But it's like, okay, some of us forget these things. And some of us just like to

20:53
play around and so like, there's something to be said for the whimsy of making mistakes and messing around. um And I get sometimes I'll get flack for like doing weird lab shit that like, don't know that you don't. Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't bother me. labbing is for. It's for fumbling and breaking like, oh, okay, like, yeah, I think there's this impression that people

21:18
especially folks new to tech or like who want to get into tech,  they're going to feel intimidated because I hear this in my comments a lot honestly is like, oh, I see all these these people with their like slick home labs and like a big  tall rack and like it's all beautiful and everything's perfectly organized and there's like pretty LEDs and like this person has coded all this stuff perfectly. And it's like, OK, no, let me get on and show you how I can cut a cable in half and just like plug it in.  You know, like you're you know, I like your ethernet.

21:47
The crown that make. Dude, so much garbage around my The one you wear on your head? I don't even know. Oh yeah, the, yeah. Like, let me just show you, like, the messy stuff is actually the cool stuff. It's not that fun. I mean, it's nice and satisfying to get everything perfect how you want, but it's really, if I can just say it, it's really all about the journey. Right? Like. it's really up to Kevin Hart as an AJ Burr. I'm invoking. But like, you don't. the I'm invoking the spirits.

22:17
Um, but yeah, it's really it's not about like being perfect. It's not about showing off like I know it's nice and tempting to like show something perfect and sleek but like at the end of the day You got to show the fun stuff and the fun stuff is the messy stuff and i'll never you know, what sucks not believe that It's so easy. I agree with everything you're saying and I feel it in my bones and it's so easy I got to a point in my career and I think it's when I went to my first vendor role that I felt like I had to change

22:45
parts of my public persona and  I couldn't be the dummy or asking embarrassing questions or embarrassing myself because now I'm like representing this company and uh I'm a leader on a BU team and like people are looking to us for direction in the industry. know, if you work for a company, you can influence things that happen in the company. If you work at a vendor, one of the big three or four in networking, you can influence the entire industry if you have the tech behind you and you have smart people and you do it right. like.

23:12
So what I'm saying, I guess, is like, was a great experience and I made good money and learned a ton, but at the same time, something inside me shifted and I I stopped being as authentic as I was before that job publicly because I felt like I had to kind of change my image into a more businessy, more polished. it didn't feel right.

23:41
It just didn't, it wasn't who I was,  you know what I Right. So now I'm  at a different vendor, but again, I'm on camera every other week, embarrassing myself, trying to learn Python, calling myself a dummy because that's, it's who I am and it's the journey I'm on in the struggle I'm having. And think it's important to connect to people through that and not put on this polished,  I am on the mountain, I am great, listen to me. But it's so easy at a certain point in your career to feel, uh

24:07
this pull to like, well, now I am leader. Now I must be not wrong. And I don't know if it's just cause I went to a vendor or not, like, do you ever feel like you can't be wrong? Cause people are always giving you shit for like not being perfect. I don't feel like that, but if I were in the same position, I absolutely would. Like I think I totally, totally understand that. Yeah. that's why, that's why Andy I'm determined. I'm determined to never move up in my career. This is it. This is where I'm going to be forever.

24:36
Stop it. You're building networks going to the moon and eventually Mars. I'll be real though. Literally, where else could you go but space? There's no higher. Well, okay. only. pinnacle. All right. If they offered me a seat, I'd get on there in a heartbeat. You're going. I know you're going. That's it, right? You're going. But for real, I love. I'm calling it right now. Have you said it publicly yet? I'm telling you, you're going. I have been watching your career and impossible things keep happening.

25:03
And it's awesome and it's inspiring. You're going to space. We have sent at least one of our actual engineers that worked at Blue at the time. He went up in New Shepard. for free, they put him on there. And I'd say he definitely deserved it. He built it or something. yeah, I'd love to. I'd get on there. I'd get on there. But would you just go? So how far would you go? You just want to go past the whatever the thing? I'd go to the moon.

25:30
I go to the moon. We're doing stuff that's supposed to go to the moon now. that's publicly available so I can talk about that. I think I'd freak out. It's too long. Yeah, I mean, I would be, no, no, no. I would be terrified. I'd be terrified out of my mind the entire time, right? And I'd be thinking I was gonna die, but the coolness factor is worth it in my It'd be so cool. I think I'd go to the moon. I don't think I could go further than the moon. I don't think I'd go to Mars or anything. Yeah, no thanks. Every once in while see the article of like this person has signed up and she's gonna go to Mars and never come back.

26:00
Wow. You're not though. I mean, I hope you get to, but I follow your dreams. right? Especially in the beginning. I mean, how long Once they send people, they're not coming back, right? Three months at best, if we live in an upgrade, think. It's a long time. here we are. Could you sit in a tin can for three months?

26:21
No. Right. I know. can barely sit in a tin can from Washington to Florida. OK. I can't sit in a car for two hours driving to the shore. I'm like, oh my God, get me out of here. My back hurts and I'm going crazy. But I would go to the moon and that's my limit and I'll stick by that. Would you land on the moon or would you just go around? You know, now we're getting if it were autonomous, I would land on the moon. If somebody's driving it, I would not land on the moon. That's my limit. It was an astronaut whose whole, you know, nope.

26:52
Look, I don't have any like amazing data for that or any real reason other than I don't trust a person I trust I are all planes with people flying. Yeah, and that scares the shit out of me  But all look I'm gonna say all modern or almost all modern like spacecraft is autonomous and like I trust that I do try I do trust that right, but I the most airliners are like they're not autonomous, but they are so automated

27:18
So I got a buddy who's an American Airlines pilot and military and all that, he's been doing it forever. He tells me that the next generation will be flying in pilotless commercial airliners because they could do it already. It's just people wouldn't like go for it. That sucks for pilots though. Don't they have to be union? Listen, this is why I was yelling from the top of the mountains when they were saying automation. I'm like, oh my God, that means, I mean, if you can fly planes without people and you can manage networks without people and you can fly- You can't do that yet.

27:48
Fight me. I can hear the audience just like, and create, fight me. But that was my fear. And then of course I realized that I was a blacksmith making horseshoes and they've made the car. I'm like, no, you can't do this. And they're like, we're doing it. Shut up. And now your job's done. I mean, automation is, I'm not saying automation is useless and like not usable. Obviously it's used everywhere. you still need people to.

28:14
build the networks and to automate the things. It feels good to have a person there, especially if something weird happens, know, like automation relies on software. There's no software that exists that isn't perfect and doesn't have a bug somewhere. And if you hit a bug, it's really nice to have a person there. Can you imagine if you're headed to the moon or Mars or something else and like, uh-oh, and then you need somebody on the joystick and you're like, aren't any people. You know, oh my God, that does stress me. See, that's why I wouldn't go to Mars. That's one reason why I wouldn't go to Mars. No, you should go to the moon for sure.

28:44
I would like to go to the moon, but I don't think I'm allowed. um Let's pivot away from space.  So  we wanted to talk about, I have a note here, weird lab shit.  It's so  weird. So we love shit. Let's talk about, I love your labbing. When you were talking earlier about the person saying the perfect wiring and this beautiful rack and all that, I should show you a picture. I'll put it up when I edit this, but like the cabling in my home lab is so awfully terribly like gross and spaghetti and

29:13
I have four different color wires. They're just hanging everywhere. It's so ugly. do you know, do you do cable management at all? No, not even a little bit. I don't give a shit. I know that's the thing. matter. First, the pack is a little faster. I'll just head this off and I'm just going to tell you secret right now that I don't care that people know. I oftentimes will just film a video after having.

29:39
purposely plugged in every cable I can find into whatever random ports I can find on unpowered switches and it gets hella engagement. So there's a free tip for y'all. em People get real mad about that. em But it does get you engagement.  look, I don't care. Don't get me started on hubs. Yeah. Oh God. Don't get me started. But  people.

30:02
If you're playing around with your HomeLab, like I understand people having really nice management if they've got like  their network network that they're using for things and not changing around a lot.  If that kind of a home network is like in this perfect, beautiful, nice little rack, like of course you want it to look nice. Okay. And that's fine too, right? But like, that's where I understand it, like being super neat. But otherwise if it's your learning HomeLab, what are you doing, bro? Like, are you actually not using it? That's what I think when I think, oh, it's perfect cable management, it looks beautiful.

30:32
Amazing. You're not using it then. When I see your lab on content you make, like I just want to get in there and mess with it. Like, so like I'm fat, like your O-scope I'm fascinated with. Like you taught me, I might've been working somewhere when you asked me, yo bro, like, Oh yeah. Oh What's up with auto-NAG. We did talk about this. And I'm like, what do you mean? And you're like, yo, you know.

30:56
You turn off auto-NAG, but it doesn't work. Yeah, I'll just say this. I've looked at- You validated that with a freaking O-scope, and I'm like, are you kidding me, dude? Specifically, though, I will say this. It varies by PHY. I've come to learn this, right? I didn't know what a PHY was until you started talking about this stuff. See, and that's the thing, right? And that makes sense. Most network engineers don't need to care much about what a PHY is, other than like the very general. A PHY is a physical thing, a physical little guy.

31:25
I'm not an electrical engineer, so this is what, yeah, it's a little physical chip guy and it sits on a PCB and that is what bridges for PCB is a motherboard, right? Is that what a PCB is? Yeah, Like, think about, you you have an ASIC, that's also a chip, but in order for that ASIC to make switching decisions and stuff, it has to send stuff, it has to receive and send out a PHY or else it's just an ASIC and it doesn't have any connections to the outside world. the PHY So does the PHY connect things?

31:52
It bridges your layer one with your layer two and inside the PHY the MAC layer lives  of Ethernet, right? Now this is an this is I'm talking specifically Ethernet. There are other layer two protocols, right? Pause  pause  So does your MAC address table live in the PHY when you do a MAC address table?  No, so that logic actually lives in an ASIC typically, okay and in my experience there might be PHY connects the ASIC

32:21
The FI, so yeah, let me actually, cause all of these words can I'm sorry, am I taking a stand a weird path No, is, Andy, this is my obsession for the last three and a half years, don't worry. But nobody knows this stuff, it's crazy. You say FI and I'm like, wait, what's that? And now we're down the rabbit hole. And there's no shame in that for anyone listening, like if you don't know what a FI is, but you're like a network engineer, a network person, that's the FI wasn't in CCNA or the CCMP, right? It sure wasn't, it sure wasn't. They don't tell you that stuff. that's not, that's not Cisco's like-

32:50
bad or anything. I know she don't need to care about that much. But the Fi is basically the physical thing that, and when I say Mac here in this context,  have, ethernet has, has several sub layers to it, right? And the Mac sub layer, that's what I'm talking about. I know there's Mac addresses. Those live at the Mac sub layer as well. So it's confusing, right? It's very, no, it's not. just amazed that you go in this  Mac layer. isn't Mac addresses. Wow.

33:16
I mean, Mac addresses are they live at that they sort of live at that layer, right? And like  the Mac addressing happens there among other things, right? But like,  yeah, so there's like processing that happened between the ASIC and five, right? But anyway, you've got stuff that lands there. There's other stuff like there's the LLC sub layer, there's the Mac sub layer, but then you also have the reconciliation sub layer. I think I learned about the Mac and the LLC just

33:41
learned that they existed in CCNA class. What I didn't learn was about the reconciliation sub layer about, uh and I'm forgetting all the little terms, but it's like PLA, PLD, whatever PMD. How did you learn all this? Was it that ethernet book you used to study or not? It's the ethernet book  and it's the ethernet standard. And that's not a humble brag, but I have had to dive in there a couple of times.  Right. Yeah. But like if you standard to write, like how long is that? It's thick ass standard. But the thing is, you don't know it's so an RFC comes.

34:09
RFC, yeah, RFC comes from IETF, whereas the IEEE writes the 802.3 or 802 whatever working group standard. This ethernet is specifically 802.3. So  if you wanna know about like fiber flavors of ethernet, copper flavors of ethernet, all the different speeds, whatever, they're all in 802.3. That's why it's so thick. em Whereas like, know, Wi-Fi would not be in there, cause it's not 802.3. em Interesting fact, some people think When we have our guest who had to reschedule on that you're gonna join me with. I'm so stoked, dude.

34:38
I don't know if she had like, I don't know if she had something to do. Yeah, but like, I think she was also around when they like created it and like, don't know if she had any part And she has the right to criticize it because she was there. I can't wait. But same, like, can you imagine being there? Like if you and I were just in networking and like, oh, we're creating ethernet, we're creating like layer three protocols. can't imagine. She said something about they didn't put a TTL in frames because they never thought the frames would ever leave the local segments.

35:08
Like why would we put it, right? Like, cause at the time she said that basically, yeah, we could have just designed, they could have designed IP differently and then we wouldn't have had to use ethernet at all. It's so here we are like decades later still using it all and it was based on these weird decisions and these meetings people couldn't agree on. It's so fascinating. I can't wait to get it on. And I can't wait either. I don't want to give up too much, but I've, I've, know, I'm so stoked for that.

35:34
So anyway, ethernet is a lot and why did we start talking about this? I was just going down the home lab thing and we went in a down the, I was saying about the Oscope and link pulses and we got to Fi and. Yeah, it's a good way to learn. I love what you're doing in your lab. Thank you. Yeah. So cool. I like to show people because I have had some folks tell me, which surprised me every time, but I have had some folks be like, wow, you doing stuff in your lab has really like made me want to do stuff in my lab and like get back into networking.

36:01
And that's what it does for me personally. I do this stuff in my lab and then film it.  First I do it and I'm like, this is awesome. And then I film it, right? But like that's why I do the weird stuff. Not because it's gonna immediately translate to this bullet point on my resume and get me a job. It's just gonna make me happy.  Like it just makes me happy. And I like  doing weird stuff. Like today I did a lab or yesterday I did this and filmed it. um I literally was like, what happens if I...

36:29
have two auto negotiating NICs. I don't know you can see this, sorry about the blur. If I've, okay, whatever. If I have two auto negotiating NICs, right, my PC and my laptop, and then I take a regular ethernet, cat six, I cut the blue and the brown pairs and I just leave the green and the orange and I just connect up, you know, the two, the two PCs. Will I get gigabit speeds? Cause they are, they can go up to a gigabit, but of course, you know, it just proved that.

36:57
No, you can't get a gigabit that way with four wires. You have to have eight wires. They auto negotiated automatically. It sensed that it didn't have connections on those pins with the blue and the brown. So it downgraded to hundred megs. It was pretty interesting.  And like, you can say, okay, that's something easy that I knew, but have you ever just messed around and But until you do it, I mean, that's the magic of labbing. See, I thought I was like the physical layer  dude.

37:22
because I was a cable guy that did all this physical layer stuff and then I make my own cables and blah, blah, blah, right? But then- that's definitely the physical layer. Like you were Yeah, but then there's like, then there's you who's just like- Stop. No, but really, like that's why I'm so fascinated by your labbing stuff and your content that I see because the stuff you're doing, again, not to be fixated, like what you just did there with the cable and like looking at link pulses on stuff after turning off protocols that are supposed to stop what they don't, like who would-

37:50
That was cool. I thought I was curious. Your level of curiosity and go find outness is intense and amazing and awesome. appreciate And you're teaching us all, which is so cool. I'm not trying to pump you up, but I love the stuff you do. Well, I love sharing. Who the hell wouldn't be amazed by this? Look at this stuff. Nobody teaches this. It's so cool. I'm just glad to get people interested.  My focus is always girls and women, but anybody who gets interested in it because of anything I do, that's an

38:17
And I love that and I people paying you and approach you like hey This is really cool, and I'm like looking into like yeah, yeah, I've had people you know make comments here and there every once while I get a DM That's like this is so cool. How do I get into doing more of this? I'm always that what it's all about isn't that nice? Yeah, how did you do it? And how do I do it is because a lot of people don't know network engineering exists especially again, especially girls and women but like anybody who gets into it like I'm Super stoked because I just think it's really  it's such a

38:47
interesting field and not a lot of people know about it and you can make a good living on it. So why not? Let's take a dark turn because why not? Because all your lights are out and I can't see you. My lights are totally out. I'm so sorry. It's kind of cool. Now you look like you're floating in space. I hate that I've done this to myself, honestly. It looks good. So do you think, how long you been in networking? Like 10 years, five years? It's been a while. Oh, it's been since, well, I'd call it 20.

39:15
I started studying for a 2019. So about six years, we'll call it. Would you still recommend networking as as hardily today as you would have six years ago? Do you still think there's enough jobs? It's good. Well, okay, I'll say this with this caveat. I'm not super in tune with the job market right now. I've heard it's not great at the moment.

39:41
And from you, I've heard that there are a lot of jobs that require automation experience or knowledge, right? Which that does sound tough. I do not like programming. Somehow I've still gotten by without really being able to program. I'm extremely lucky, right? You don't have to do any of the stuff?  Dude, I'm so lucky. I'm never leaving this job.  But I've heard you mentioned like Git and stuff. Like you're doing some kind of DevOps and stuff. you know, yeah, like Git is good for like

40:10
config management,  like historical data. So like anything where you would need config management, right? Maybe you can think of that in network engineering, right? So it's a good place.  I'm not trying to come out and say exactly what it is, but yeah, like Git is good for config management in general. So that's like, but I, you know, I've used,  have like a version  of an LLM like thing at work that we're allowed to use that's ITAR compliant or whatever. So I use that everyone's small to do like simple scripts. Don't write it myself.  I don't,  I do not know how to script or

40:40
Right. And you wouldn't learn unless your job dependent on it, right? Or your career dependent on it. That's where I think most of us are. to be real forced into it, but I guess I could. I think that's how most network people feel about it, by the way, which is why, if you look at the data, like almost no networks are automated. It's very, very low because I most people have this feeling. I have is like, no, I don't want it. It's terrible. And you can watch me. become programmers. Exactly. And now the industry's like, meh.

41:09
You gotta know this stuff. Now it's in the NA and the NP. Like if you're coming in telling people to get the Right, you do learn Python and stuff. yeah. And it's intense in the book and in the exam, not breaking any NDAs. Like it's no joke. It's not like just spell Python. It's like, whoa. Right, right. I can't know some stuff here. You gotta know  some structures and But you don't have to code so good. Exactly. I passed, what was it, Encore, think, some of that in it at least. And I remember that. And it was fairly extensive for not knowing. It's Encore.

41:39
I did pass Encore, I did not pass Inarcy. I told you not to go for Inarcy, should have something easy like design. We're hiring for a position right now and like I certainly don't care. If you have the knowledge. How's that going? Are you allowed to talk about like, I've probably can't tell you about the candidates or anything, but yeah, I posted like, has it been hard to find like, network control that.

41:58
It hasn't been hard to find network people. It's just that this  position is like such a specific one that we are looking for a really good fit. we have some, we have like, obviously this goes for any job, right? Like the job wreck is a wish list. It does not represent everything you have to, like has to apply to you, right? Is the physical location the biggest constraint for people? Honestly, I do think that's a huge, yeah, that's a huge factor. And I totally get why you have to be there and you should be there.

42:24
Yeah, but I also understand why people don't want to move, right? You have to be on site for this one and it's like a unique thing. But it hasn't, it's just, know, it is.  And people with families, I especially understand like you can't just operate everybody. So that's a hard thing, but we, you know, we've gotten a lot of really good candidates and I'm really excited about. Are you interviewing? Like, is this, are they going to work? I'm not the hiring manager by any means. em But I'm still the most junior person on my team, right? uh So I'm, but I am involved in hiring.

42:54
process, right? Like I'm in the interview panel and stuff.  It's going well. I'm learning a lot by watching, you know, my mentors part of it. He's an architect and then my senior engineer is also obviously part of that panel and she's uh excellent too. So I'm learning from them, you know, how to interview properly. But your mentor guy, the tall guy that I, yeah, he's a tall guy. Yeah. His name is, yeah, his name is Eric. did, he and I did a presentation this year at Cisco live  at the Cisco youth theater. So check it out if you want to hear general stuff about network engineering in space, but yeah.

43:23
So he's a part of it and so is my senior. And um it's been a really good experience so far. We've met a lot of really good people  and had a lot of great, great applicants and candidates. I'm sorry, I can't move to Seattle because  I would work in aerospace in a hot second.

43:43
I could take all these people up and take them across the country. There's no better job I could think of. I actually wanted to ask you, but I knew that you could not, you could not- Listen, I would love, dream job. If you ever find yourself, let me know. If you ever find yourself in the Seattle area, just looking for a home. Just let me know, hit me up. That would be so fun. We would be chaos though, I think. We'd be good chaos.

44:11
If we work together. would, oh man, that'd be a lot of fun in the lab with Andy and Lexi. Yeah, I can't imagine how much fun you have in the lab and what the labs are. And I know you can't talk about any of it, but- Fun is one word for it. it's a, I mean, I have Has it gotten easier? Like, have it worked out like, you know, went to the thing. Like, it went, like, okay, everything worked. I climbed the mountain.

44:36
Yeah, I'll say, you know, going from a data center. Because the hard part behind you, you think like, OK, we did it. We the the scary part, like with the launch and everything is that we're talking about like generally. Yeah, the scary part. All the network stuff, right? Like is it rinse and repeat for the rest of the rockets? Like, OK, we got this worked out. We're good. There's always, you know, thinking. But right in an ideal world, it's like, oh, rinse and repeat. Right. But there's always tweaking. There's some tweaks we need to make. There's some improvements we like to make.

45:01
And,  we're always looking forward towards the next thing. So I'll just say like, I, the reason we're hiring at work right now is to replace me because I'll still be on the same team and everything, but I'm going to be doing a similar role on  a,  on a related, but different project. So I'm really excited about that. So plenty of, plenty of growth and like learning opportunities. I've learned a ton already just doing development for this project. So. you're working on the warp drive, aren't you? Yeah. You figured it out.

45:32
We gotta get this rocket propulsion.  I see them working on stuff and they're doing crazy stuff and they had drawn collider and they're trying to bend  space and time wormholes and so you should read three body problem because they talk about some of that there's like a there's like a fictional body problem. Yeah, it's so good. It's very weird to read the first two books. Maybe not the third one third one made me question everything.  I hope that um

45:56
This has been fun for people listening. This has been fun for me talking to you. I wish we got to do this more often. we worked together, we wouldn't get anything done. You're way too interesting. wouldn't. We just chat the whole time. It's Yeah, it's good that we don't work together. ah Was there anything else you wanted to talk about? I really appreciate you coming on and doing this with This was was so fun, Andy. I just love chatting about cool techie stuff with you.  And people are going to love this so much more than me reading a Python textbook. So uh thank you.

46:23
Thank you for coming on and splicing it up and it being more More entertaining than it's been in a while I'm all by myself and Jeff and I'm just boring the hell out of people with Python. I'm happy I'm happy to come on anytime. This is always a blast. I love it. Thank you so much. It's always great Thank you for all things art of net ends. You can check out our link tree at link tree for slash art of nudge There is some new merch up. I've been talking about it for years and we finally got some merch up Thanks so much for listening. Check out our

46:49
Discord server, it's all about the journey. You can find it on the link tree as well.  We have thousands of people in there. Everybody's hanging out, talking, helping each other. It's a really cool place.  We have a happy hour, which has been happening more and more lately. People will just hop in, they'll have a drink, they'll hang out and kind of like we're doing here, but just with a couple of folks. So if you don't have a community, get one. You don't have to do any of this alone.  Thanks so much for joining us and we'll catch you next time on the Art of Network Engineering podcast.  Hey folks.

47:16
If you like what you heard today, please subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher.  You can find us on socials at Art of NetEng, and you can visit linktree.com slash art of net eng  for links to all of our content, including the A1 merch store and our virtual community on Discord called It's All About the Journey.  You can see our pretty faces on our YouTube channel named the Art of Network Engineering.  That's youtube.com forward slash art of net eng.  Thanks for listening.