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All of the Cisco Press books I’ve ordered have arrived, and the stack is looking pretty intimidating:

I have to work my way through that stack, not just skimming them, but paying attention, making notes as I go…it’s going to be a long winter working through them all.

I ended up buying them from a mix of Amazon, Fishpond and a local Borders store. I got lucky with the Multicast and Internet Routing Architectures books – Borders was selling them for only $20 each. They think that because they’re 10 years old, they’re out of date, but they cover core protocols, so they don’t date as quickly as technical books usually do. All the other books cost quite a bit, especially when you add International shipping. Kudos to Amazon too – one of the books was water damaged. I filled in a return form, and within 10 minutes Amazon had responded to say “We’ve shipped a replacement, and don’t worry about shipping back the old one – do whatever you like with it.” Good to see that for all the work Amazon is doing with things like EC2, they haven’t lost sight of keeping their long term customers happy.

You always have a different perspective on a place when you’ve actually been there, rather than just seen it in pictures.

I’ve been thinking about Libya quite a bit recently, after the unrest going on there. It was only a matter of time before things came to a head there, regardless of what has been going on in surrounding countries.

The thing that stood out to me when I was there 5 years ago was the enormous Gaddafi propaganda. Every place where you might see a commercial billboard in another country, Libya had a huge picture of Gaddafi. Signs, slogans, posters. Watches were the souvenir to buy – I still have a watch somewhere around the house with a picture of Gaddafi on the face, celebrating 37 years of rule. You don’t have that much propaganda if everyone truly loves you.

It was an unusual country to visit, in many ways one of the lowest hassle Middle Eastern countries. Few tourists visit, so there hasn’t been the same development of touts, scam artists, and general level of people selling you crap you don’t need. Instead, people are reserved but friendly. It is sad to think of them at war with themselves, people being shot at by their own government. Most of the people killed will just be ordinary people, trying to go about their lives.

I recall staying in a small town in the desert, walking around, when I met a young man who asked me “What are you doing here?” He couldn’t understand why I would be in Libya, when I was lucky, I had a passport and money, I didn’t have to stay there. He did. He was learning English, maybe he got lucky, and was able to escape.

As an aside, it’s not widely known, but Libya has some of the best Roman ruins anywhere. Hopefully Gaddafi will either see sense and leave, or someone will knock him off, and this can end, without further loss of life, or damage to the archaeological treasures.

When you finish university you think to yourself “Right, that’s it, no more study, no more exams!”

But it doesn’t work that way, especially in my field. It turns out that if you want to, you can keep sitting exams pretty well forever. “Certification” is big business in the IT field. Vendors push certifications, encouraging people to  study details of their products, and pass electronic exams on them.

The theory is that if you want to deploy and manage say Cisco products, then you can hire someone who has achieved CCNP, and assume that they will have a certain amount of knowledge about Cisco routers and switches. Of course, it doesn’t always work that way – you might just have been able to memorise enough stuff to pass the exam, but be crap at actually doing stuff in the real world. There are also many highly experienced engineers I have worked with who have never completed any certifications.

There are many different certifications out there, some of them very popular, some no longer in fashion. Vendors will often have different levels, e.g. basic, intermediate, advanced. There are also vendor-neutral certifications, such as CISSP, which covers computer security without focusing on any one product or company.

Many engineers never bother with any certifications, but I do. Why? For one it makes me learn about things that I don’t necessarily use every day at work, but am interested in. It keeps me fresh, and helps if I want to move my career in a different direction. It does also help if I am looking for a new job, as it helps validate my experience. It’s not quite such a big thing in New Zealand, where everyone knows everyone, but in overseas markets, many jobs will specify minimum qualifications, just so that HR can weed out people.

Over the years, I’ve picked up CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, CCSE, RHCE and CISSP. Along the way I’ve had a few others that I’ve let expire – that is of course the problem with having multiple certifications, they need to be renewed. The more you have, the more time you end up renewing them. That’s what I’ve just been up to, renewing my CCNP and CCDP. I had to pass a routing exam to do this. Routing is not a big part of what I do these days, making it a bit challenging. Probably not quite as challenging as when I last renewed it, three years ago in Singapore, after a year on the road, not even doing any technical work. It wasn’t easy, but I passed, and now that’s covered for another 3 years.

I’m now seriously considering studying for CCIE, a very high level networking certification. It will take me at least 6-9 months to complete, with a high chance of failure the first time I try sitting the lab exam. Put this together with the fact that Anna is working hard at university, and our flatmate is going to be studying part time while working full time, and things are going be to a bit dull and studious around here for a while…

I’m not dead. Not yet, anyway. In spite of what you may think, engagement has not led to me completely dropping off the face of the earth. Admittedly, it has meant a precipitous decline in the travel opportunities, but there’s a time for everything, and at the moment it’s a time for working and saving money. Getting married is expensive you know.

This being New Zealand, everything more or less shuts down around Christmas/New Years, and with the office closed, I’ve just had a bit of time off. This year has broken my run of 5 Christmases in 5 different countries – I’ve now spent 2 of the last 3 Christmases in New Zealand. So it was a good chance to catch up with family. This used to be a simple exercise, but now my own family is spread around, and I have a whole new branch to account for. Rather than have the whole lot in one hit, you see different branches at different times, spreading things out over several weeks.

Starting a week before Christmas, we had Anna’s brother visiting, with his wife and children. 3 lovely kids, but all under 10, and when it rained the whole day on Sunday, and we were all stuck in the house…let’s just say I don’t know how mothers cope.

We then spent time with my parents, and my brothers family, before heading further north to Anna’s father’s orchard. More family connections there too. We’ve seen plenty of nieces and nephews over the last few weeks, and as much as people talk about how lovely children are, Anna and I are OK with not having kids right now…

Over at the Met Service, they have been predicting all kinds of doom, but they do seem to be scare-mongering. I can’t understand why they can’t just stick to having the forecast in the paper. Instead they have “Weather ambassadors” and “Head analysts” giving interviews and writing columns in the paper. So we’ve had generally hot fine weather, a far cry from anything going on in Europe right now.

We even managed to get in a bit of pleasure diving, picking up a few scallops, and seeing heaps of fish. It’s nice to be able to dive in just a wetsuit, without hoods, or extra layers under the wetsuit, or a drysuit. Other divers go on about wearing drysuits all the time, so they never feel any cold, but there’s something nice about being in the water, feeling it next to your skin, and feeling so much more free in just a wetsuit. I think I should head up to Thailand again, so I can dive in just a shorty wetsuit. Perhaps next summer?

A date has been set for our wedding, early next summer. Naturally, as the man, my responsibilities are limited. One thing I do have complete free reign over is the honeymoon. Obviously since it’s southern hemisphere summer, my choices are a little restricted, but with two months holiday, where do I go? And do I try and get Anna on the bike? Have to think about it.

Many of you will have heard via other channels, but just in case you missed it: I have gotten engaged to Anna.

I first met Anna early last year, on a dive trip. We got on well from the start – just as well since we were doing a lot of work together as we began working towards being PADI Divemasters. It wasn’t until the middle of the year that we became an item. This worked out well, as we got to know each other in a more relaxed, friendly manner, before we started going out together.

Obviously my trip to South America put some strain on the relationship, but we got through that, and I moved in with Anna on my return. Things have been going well, and so I decided to make the next step. You can just drift along otherwise.

Anna didn’t know it was coming, but I first sought approval from her father, then surprised her by asking her to marry me, on the banks of the Hatea River in Whangarei. Once she established I was being serious, she agreed with almost unseemly haste. Now we just need to plan the details, of which there are many, but few resolved.

It turns out that men just say “Congratulations” while women go straight into planning mode, discussing outfits, arrangements, flowers…best I just keep out of all of that.

Someone asked me what it was that attracted me to Anna. The best way I can describe it is that she lights up a room, if not the whole house. You know when she’s entered a room, it is full of laughter and noise. The house is quiet when she’s not around. Anna’s social functions are a highlight, with great lengths gone to, to ensure everyone is enjoying themselves. There’s the bright, vibrant Anna that most people see, but there’s also the quieter, determined Anna, that would do anything for her friends. She’ll help you, but she won’t stand for bullshit from you.

She’s good for me – I just need to be good for her.

I’m sure I’ve remarked on it before, but in Europe, people see any flight over 2 hours as “long haul.” Things work a bit differently here at the end of the world though. What would those people think of me flying to San Francisco – a little over 12 hours – to attend a 2.5 day conference?

We use Splunk at work, and they were having their first ever conference. A couple of days in San Francisco, one of the great cities of the world, did I think I could go? You’ll have to stay in a hotel like this one though. Er…is a fish waterproof?

Turned out to be a good conference too, lots of ideas on things that we could do to get better use out of Splunk. Lots of serious sized organisations there, with some pretty massive installations.

Good to walk about in San Francisco too, a little shopping, a little sight-seeing. I visited the Apple temple, but it was a bit overwhelming. There’s so many iMacs, iPhones and iPads there to play with, so many people, most of them just using it as a free Internet cafe, plenty of stock being sold. There seemed to be presentations going on, classes for older users, blue-shirted Apple staff everywhere…Steve Jobs is a genius. Somehow the store was a destination.

Clothes shopping is cheap there too – Levis are around $50NZD, vs at least $100NZD here. Someone’s ripping us off. Pity all the shirts these days are in the “lumberjack” style.

I ate in Chinatown several times. Last time I was there, I ate in Chinatown, and thought it was good, but that was before spending several months in China. I’m pleased to say that I still see it as good. Although I’d rather be in China…

One of the surprising things about downtown San Francisco is the numbers of winos, homeless people, and general derelict types, just a few blocks from the financial district. There’s also a disturbing side to it – while I was there, a tourist was shot, just a couple of blocks from my hotel. Just doing the sort of thing I might have been doing, out walking around, ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Things like that could happen anywhere though.

Oh and it wasn’t cold, but it certainly was cool during a San Francisco summer. Heatwaves 50 miles away, fog over the Bay Area.