Diary of a Network Geek

Well, it seems the “sure thing” contract I thought I had lined up is far from it. I’ve been chasing after a contract upgrading a local school district for almost four months now. A little over a week ago, I was told that schools “in the area” were getting their money. Apparently, the person I was talking to thought that New Mexico and Houston, Texas are in the same area, because the government money was flowing there, not here. Behold, the joys of nation-wide recruiting firms!

So, in the meantime, I had told a different recruiting firm that I wouldn’t shave my beautiful beard off for a contract-to-perm position that paid roughly $13K less than my last job. Guess what I did yesterday morning? Yeah, that’s right, I called back telling them I’d changed my mind and if the nice, beard-shaving people with money were still interested, I’d talk to them. Frankly, I think it’s too late, which is a shame because the position might have beefed up my Windows 2000 experience. Not to mention my Exchange exposure. And, I would have still been using Novell, too. Sure, they’re phasing that out in favor of Windows, but there’s a lot more work in the Microsoft arena these days anyway. Shoot, there might even have been the possibility of getting my MCSE! But, despite swallowing what little pride I had left and just about begging for an interview, I don’t think that one’s going to work out.

Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime? Or a job? I’d settle for a job.

Well, if you’ve looked at my resume, you know that I’m out of work. In fact, you know that I’ve been out of work since the end of October this past year. So, why, you’re wondering, has it taken so long for me to update the Diary of a Network Geek? Well, mainly, because I’ve been trying to find a job and overcome depression. I’d like to go into details about it, but I’m not quite ready to tear into the crappy company for whom I used to work. At least, not until I find another job. ^_^ I have a funny feeling that the nice folks who might hire me wouldn’t like my attitude toward my last employer, so….
In the mean time, I’ve been playing around with PERL and working on my CCNA certificate. (That’s a Cisco Certified Network Associate, for those of you who were wondering.) And, I probably should update my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer), but I’m not quite willing to do that yet. It’s not cheap and not too many people seem to be looking for CNE’s right now. I guess I should start working on my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), but I’d rather not if I don’t have to just yet. When I’m done with my CCNA, I’ll probably work on getting the Linux+ certification that came out this past year. At least it would get my foot in the Unix door! Not like I was promised at Kirby…. Whoops. Almost started in on it!
Well, I’ll update more later, but if you’d like to check out what I’ve done in PERL lately, jump to the Amazing IT Title Generator. Or, head over to my other big website, Fantasist.Net That’s what I’ve really been working on lately. Though I have to admit that I don’t have much there yet. The PERL script is under Resources, BTW. It’s a creativity jump-start tool for authors. Enjoy!