2018: The year it was

If you are not a youtube follower of mine, which I believe you should (shameless promotion) follow me at

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCplk8JQcRTWpUdYNlYNagfQ?view_as=subscriber

I have been more active there than here as it has been really hard writing blogs than just turning on my celfone’s camera and shooting myself rambling about random things. But anyway here’s a quick recap of what 2018 was for me:

• I was officially promoted as NOC manager early 2018 for an ISP
• Travelled outside Australia, went to Tokyo & the Philippines
• Went to a number of non-IT related seminars/forums which includes Landmark Forum, Achievers Conference (Tony Robbins), Writers Training, Forex Training (SYD).
• Have read more books this year both in paper and audio form most of it is non-technical.
• Enrolled myself into one of Narbik’s CCIE RS bootcamp in Sydney which eventually got cancelled last minute due to some technical issues with Cisco SYD. I got offered to attend it in Glendale, Calif USA but opted out as it would mean more expense.
• After returning from Japan, had decided to leave my position of NOC manager as the commute to the Gold Coast from Brisbane is becoming unbearable.
• Started a new job as a Network Engineer for an MSP based in Brisbane.
• Since started new position in MSP has explored new technologies outside Cisco such as Palo Alto, Juniper, Asterisk etc.
• Decided to forego the 2nd attempt at the CCIE RS lab exam and opted to renew the CCNP certs which will soon expire.
• My home lab has now expanded, despite toning down the number of physical routers and switches in the rack. I just acquired 9 VOIP phones, an Asterisk server, more virtual servers running Palo Alto, ASA & Fortigate. I do have a small Fortigate Firewall. I still need to fireup again my Microtic router, friends gave me when I was in Belgrade, Serbia.
• Been diagnosed with liver failure and will be undergoing more test in the future. Have hypertension and now under medication to have it under control.

To sum it up, it was the opposite of how it was back in 2017 when I was hard core in terms of being more technical but for some strange reason I have learnt more.

Here’s to a great year ahead in 2019.