What better place to announce my return to Grex than in Anne's conference?
Hi everyone. It's been quite a while. What's new?

142 responses total.

Business is booming, married life, each and every day.  :) Welcome back !

New job, great relationship. Absolutely no children yet and no hopes of
marriage. Too young. By the way, Kerouac, oh sullen one who did not believe
in me....I have so far obtained the first level of certificvation from
Microsoft, and within 3 months I will be a MCSE. Within 6, a CNE.
So there. THbbbbbtttttt.

Procrastinating.  Wait, that's not new.  I always do that.
Welcome back, morgaene!

Procrastination? ;) Well, we sure have been procrastinating about breathing
new life into this conference! ;)

Uhhhm,
Same job, no relationship for sofar, good friends, new house.
Cerification from Microshit? (oops, sorry)
Well, that's quite worth something, a friend of mine is trying
to get the same certificate. When I asked him if that wasn't
something for me, he said that it's not my cup of tea.
I wonder if he meant to say that I am to dumb for it...:)
(or it is another certificate)

        Microsoft Certification is largely a matter of sending money to
Microsoft (it's one of the recent corporate certifications, the test covers
more what you'd learn at the Microsoft seminars than actual knowledge about
the product - it tends to be heavy on the "in which option in which menu would
you find the option to change so and so").  He's probably implying you were
poor. :)

        I've looked a CCIE, which is the networking standard for diety-hood,
but the X.25 stuff I've never covered.

Poor I am, but that's not it.
He is a cum laude graduate in Informatica and math. He said that the
particular course was worth $ 20.000 and that it demanded full, ready
knowledge of Windows NT and yadayada.
Currently he is working at Shell Rotterdam developing firewalls.

        Hey, cool, I develop VPDN stuff. :)

Actually, John, allow me to correct you, which I rarely do.
I used a QUE book which I bought for $85.00.
The exam I took was for Win95, and does not cover *which box do you check*.
It is actually a fairly comprehensive exam, and to be quite honest, I am glad
I got it. It would be nice if it were only *which box do you check* because
that would have made it a whole lot easier. ;)
I believe the actual Microsloth scam is the following:
Pay $50.00 to take the Beta exams and go through 3 hours of absolute hell,
or pay $100.00 to go through 1 hour of absolute hell. ;)

For a package deal of hell, the $ 50,- is way cheaper.
What is the price of your soul?
But the discount is of course the other way around.
But, Morgaene, I understand that it actually was something different than what
my friend did.
For him it was a six month's or so, course (full time)

Well, Clees, the exam I took was only one exam. You cannot achieve an MCSE
certification level with one exam. The MCSE requires a minimum of 6 exams.
If I spent 2 weeks preparing for each exam before I took them and passed all
of them on the first try, that would require 12 weeks, which is a minimum of
3 months. That is the current schedule I am on. If I am able to achieve MCSE
in 12 weeks, I will be shocked. ;) The tests are rather difficult, and even
right now as we speak, they are changing them to make them even more
difficult. I only achieved the very first level of Microsoft certification.

        The general Microsoft scam is pretty industry-standard - they charge
an enormous amount of money for dubiously useful seminars and test heavily
on the material in those seminars.  The rationale is, it's usually a company
that's paying for an employee to be trained, and they usually make more in
sales by claiming n number of certified employees than the exhorbitant cost
of the seminars and tests.

        When I was originally MCE'ed, in '94-95, it cost the company I was
working for about $1500.

        Never took the Win95 test, though, I have to give you that, so I'm
judging on what I have taken.  The NT 3.11 stuff wasn't too hard, though,
after having successfully set up and configured the beast for IPX - IPXODI
and NASI/NACI stuff.

I have never paid any money to attend a Microsloth seminar in my life.
I have also never shelled out any money to take their expensive courses, and
I won't.
Microsoft doesn't make any money from the courses. They make money from the
certified people spouting their praises.

        I don't doubt that they make money from people who've just got their
Microsoft certification at considerable time and expense (I had to talk one
of them down;  he didn't seem to understand that the fact that the OS could
be crashed by one packet disqualified it completely from being a reliable
firewall) - but at $1500 a head, I'd imagine they make money from the
seminars, too.

        I'm just surprised they haven't tried to put the other people offering
guidance in their products outta business. :)

Okay, well, I think we need to agree to disagree. This is drifting too far
into a niche that everyone in this conference can't appreciate. ;)

And the last time I checked MicroSoft didn't have much to do
with relationships...  Not positive ones anyway. ;)

I beg to differ, Microsoft has, indirectly, had a very positive effect on my
life. But, this is drifting, ;)

details schmetails?

Comments schmomments?

<grin>

Yes, even I know that kind of expressions (learned it from Civ II).

        You learned to grin from Civ II?

        Eeeryeh.

No consequences schmoncequences.

Hey!  Congrats on your new title(s), Melly!  =)  I tried to send you mail on
your birthday, but it bounced back and said "morgaene" isn't a username.  Do
you have a new one?

Most of the time she can be found on AOL- Ashnsoot@aol.com  :)
that is.... If you REALLY want to talk to her. ;)

What if we really don't?  :)
*poke at the silly anne & melly*

Well... If you really don't want to talk to her... well... That's okay...
<scratches her head>

I'm just being a silly. :) I miss both of you!!!

<grins>  I miss you too Silly Meg. :)

Missing one another is not silly, silly.

No, but Meg is Silly.  Anne is not silly.  Anne is sane and always
serious...


Not buying it hey?  Guess you wouldn't be interested in a bridge
then either?

        Does it have trolls underneath it like the LAST bridge?

This is the Lower Penninsula of Michigan, of course there
are Trolls here... Geeze... <giggles>

Trolls?
I thought that kind fabled figures only existed in ole' Europe?
'Guess they must migrated along with everybody else.

Clees- there's a Michigan joke about Trolls... Namely that the bridge
that connects the two penninsulas (The Mackinaw, or 'The Big Mac')
Divindes Yooperland, and then the Lower Penninsula.  And Trolls live
'under' bridges right? So the people north of the bridge are Yoopers
(from the U.P.) and those south of the bridge are Trolls.

Since you live 'under the bridge' you must be a troll.

You can't prove anything...I've had the warts on my nose removed, so nobody
can tell me I'm a troll!  :)

Well, my daddy is a Yooper... I'm a Trooper... <grins> Half-Troll
half-Yooper (my mom was born and raised in the Lower Penninsula)
Either that or a Yoll... Haven't figured out which yet.

Why not just be Trooper Yoll?

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