I figured it was only appropriate to write a little about myself, who I am, and what it is I'm doing here. I'll be getting to know a lot of you pretty well these following months so I find it's only fair to make my fist thread in this section a public get to know Scottsee.

• This will be my first certification
• I've never held a IT Position
• Neworking has been a hobby for over 10 years
• I hold an AS in Network Engineering
• My professional goal is to eventually reach a Network Security Positition..

I'm 30 years old, I live here in Casa Grande, Arizona with my Wife Samantha, and our two children Kaylei and Jessica. We moved down to Arizona July 22nd, 2009 from Spokane, Washington on a whim. We decided to take a chance while we're still young and movie across the country, not something my wife was to thrilled at the time about, but is grateful for now. Arizona is an interesting place, you have an indication of what kind of heat to expect, but nothing can really get you ready it. With a alminac of over 100 days hovering over a 100 deg F takes it's toll on everyone, especially with 2 small children. I don't mean to paint a pessimistic picture, it's great right now, and during the winter we love it, and for the most part we're happy about this little adventure..

So who am I? My name is Scott See, I grew up in Burlington, Washington, and for you non-geographical people, that's the most upper left region of the the United States, right near the Canadian border. I went to high school, 2 years of community college, then a 2 year tech school Bellingham Technical College where I received an Associates in Applied Sciences in Network Engineering in 2002 I attended an Internship with a company called "Third eye systems" who focused was Digital surveillance equipment, in which I learned absolutely nothing. They didn't sell or build a single piece of hardware or software my entire 3 months. It was just bad times in Washington, one of the hardest hit areas during the internet bubble of the late 90's and early millennia. It's amazing wow technology's shifted, I remember studying Active Directory in it's infancy when Microsoft took the Idea from Novel for Win 2000 server, the implementation of DDC's had just came out, and without a whisper of 802.11, boy how things have changed.

I started selling cars for a Hyundai dealership after failing miserably in the attempt to land a networking job without any certification in 2002. I stuck around for about 5 years before jumping ship to a Toyota dealership where things just completely fell apart in the Auto Industry. It was like a cascading effect that stretched one end of the nation to the next, it was pretty drastic. One month we were all doing fine, the next business was down 50% and 15 of us were out of a job! It was crazy! To be honest I use to really love specific aspects of the business. Having the flexibility and freedom to do what you needed to when you needed to, there were no time clocks, just your personality, pen, and a customer. A lot of people don't make it in the business because the lack of structure, you have to be a very good self motivator to get out there and talk to someone right after being treated miserably just because someone was having a bad day and wanted to take it out on you. Being a car salesman really opened my eyes in many ways to people and real life. I've noticed that people are generous and inherently good until money is inserted into a situation, at which point the rules change.. Also I'm happy to offer my experience to anyone here that may have a question about the Auto Industry.

So why me? That's the million dollar question. I'd love to know myself, maybe it was being at the right place at the right time, maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was wrote the conditions of my essay better then the others, I'll never know, but I would like to think is I received this scholarship due to my absolutism and love for the technology, and for the most part I just have to step back and realize for whatever reason I'm here now, It's time to focus on my commitments, inspire who need it, challenge those who seek it, and help those who wish it.

I look forward to getting to know all of you. Please, feel free to ask any questions you may have, I'll do my best to keep this updated as much as I can..



Scott

What's your existing knowledge regarding networking? What made you interested in IT in the first place?

Where do you hope to end up after becoming certified? What are you doing in your current employment?

What are your study plans, and what resources are you going to be using to complete the CCNA certification?

_________________
Study, study, study...
Believe yourself~
Do more than say!
At proper time, try some dumps!
Then succeed belongs to you!!

For the moment I'm a stay at home dad to our 17 month old. It's a pretty awesome, I thought for sure I was going to want out after the first months, but it's been great. I'm glad I've had the opportunity to experience the satisfaction of raising my daughter, it's not something a lot of people get the chance to do.

Back in the day when I started learning about networking the internet was in it's infancy. I learned to to network using DOS 6.22, and Win 3.11. Back when if you wanted internet service you had to use Prodigy or AOL. It wasn't until I was just getting into high school that Netscape came out, and internet venture capitalists were picking up sites like Excite, Amazon, and Cisco! It was the "it" thing, and for some odd reason I really took a liking to what it represented and where I knew the world was going.

As for my existing knowledge of networking? I would like to think I have a pretty broad knowledge of general networking. Ethernet 802.11x protocol communications: TCP, IP, ICMP and UDP & Wireless and working knowledge of Cisco IOS & SDM. I know I lack significantly in scripting languages, and server administration. Though I can read most bash, C, C++ and PHP, I'm really not interested in software development or plucking at a mouse, or creating automated scripts to purge users. I love the behind the scene packet communications and configuration. I'd much rather use Wireshark then Powershell. and be in a hot, dusty network closet. Most recently I've geared my studs towards network security. I'm comfortable enough to sit the CEH exam, but I have no intention of doing so until I can utilize the expense and certification with job experience. I've almost on several occasions broke out the credit card and ordered the Offensive Security PWB, but I can't justify the $1000. I really enjoy offensive security, and that really the reason for my resurrection. Some people have hobbies that include building race cars, dirt bikes, boats, mine networking.

My real dream job would be a Network Security Annalist position working with perimeter defense, IPS, IDS, Firewalls, doing vulnerability testing and network auditing. There is a good amount of information I need study before that will ever happen, and Cisco is a great place to start. Layer 1-2 and 3 are fundamental. I've self studied the ICND1, ICND2, and BCMSN without equipment using Dynamips/Dynagen in Ubuntu, but not enough ever to have it sink in permanently. I'm EXTREMELY looking forward to having that happen this time. When something is your hobby, it's easy to let loose an idea and let your mind wonder and not truly buckle down and finish something before moving on.

For the study plans, I'm going to follow the Cisco Press book, and see which direction it wants me to take. But ultimately I'm going to go down the direction those on this forums suggest. I can't imagine there being a better place for study planning ideas then here. I plan on using Dynamips/Dynagen in collaboration with the Donated CCNA provided by Wirerat. I may look into getting a couple more 2650 switches for practicing etherchannel, vtp and 802.1q. I haven't completely decided as of yet. I now that Stretch over at packet-life has one hell of a setup. But unless things get diar, I'll probably just stick with hardware & Dynamips/Dynagen combo!

Ah nice, I'm originally from Seattle. Good to have another Washingtonian.

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Reasonably un-nerdy blog:
americanwerewolfinbelgrade.wordpress.com/

I'm also from Seattle Scott. Best of luck on your CCNA journey. One step in a long road ahead.

I'll be expecting you to be taking that IE written in 12 months. Get to work.

_________________
i <3 wifi

What are you wearing?

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http://blog.alwaysthenetwork.com

you think the CCNA is going to be hard? try surviving the heckles and harassment from the forum members

If this was addressed to me I just finished shaving my legs last night and almost have my satin/velvety dress finished... just a few more stitches and I'll be done.

I think my high-heals and fishnet stalkings are gonna really sell it though

_________________
Freedom to all the people. Brave, true and strong.
Freedom to all the people. Unless I think you're wrong

dhimes.com

To borrow from that one guys sig

Quick! Write erase!!

_________________
Study, study, study...
Believe yourself~
Do more than say!
At proper time, try some dumps!
Then succeed belongs to you!!

Welcome and Good Luck.!

_________________
"Trust No One."