PeteLumbis(dot)org – Blog

I went to Asheville with Lisa this weekend for a joit bachelor + bachelorette party for two of Lisa’s friends. Their bomb idea was to rent a big house for all their friends and then have a party bus pick us up, drive us all to Asheville and tour a few breweries and drink lots of beer. It was a great time. We toured Highland Brewery and French Broad Brewery. We also checked out the Craggie Brewing Company bar and I also went off and broke veg (sorta) to try the OysterHouse Moonstone Stout which is brewed with five pounds of oysters. It was very smooth and light for a stout, but still creamy and a bit on the chocolaty side.

Anyhow, I put some pictures up on flickr for your enjoyment.

Today I passed the MPLS exam to finish up the tests necessary for me to earn the CCIP certification, my second professional cert after I earned the CCNP in 2006.

So now what? Well, this was all part of reading books I needed to read anyhow. Next up is the CCIE Written exam, which should take me through the month of March and maybe into early April. Then it’s really time to start grinding as I read and study and practice for the CCIE lab. That will take me a number of months I’m no where near ready to estimate. I may also do a few things in my life to help this along but I’ll talk about those when it happens.

Wednesday was Lisa’s birthday so we had a nice dinner at the Italian place in my apartment complex and then went over to Duke to catch their weekly (free) jazz concert. Both of which were excellent. I really love Jazz at the Mary Lou. I’ve been three or four times and it’s always fantastic, especially for free. Totally worth the fact you have to rub elbows with dirty Duke undergrads.

Anyhow, after we were leaving Lisa and I were walking back to my car. On the way we ended up racing back. During the race I took a jump off a four-foot (or so) retaining wall landing square on the ball of my left foot. This gave me the joy of experience some of the most intense pain I have ever felt in my foot. I hobbled the rest of the way to the car and grumbled about how my foot hurt. When we got back to my apartment it was obviously twice as big as my other foot and I couldn’t put any weight on it. It feels like something smashed the area between my toes and ankle with a mallet.

The next day I made an appointment with my doctor and got it X-rayed. The doctor noticed that two of my 4th and 5th metatarsals were super sensitive (that’d be my pinky and ring toe bones to those of you not dating someone in med school). Luckily the x-ray came back negative but now it’s four days later and I still have a limp, but at least I don’t have to use a crutch any more. I guess I just f’ed up a ligament really bad so I just keep taking Advil by the fistful three times a day and gimp around in a very sad fashion.

So the moral of the story is, don’t be an idiot and jump off of retaining walls

Hey World,

Remember when I wrote in this thing, like all the time? Yeah, me neither.

Life has been busy. Mostly routine but busy. I work a lot, but less than when I first moved here. Having a clue (although not a large one) helps keep the time to solve cases under control.
I’ve been studying for the CCIP forever. I just had to check when the last time I updated this was. Wow, it has been a while. So, CCIP. I didn’t get a lot of studying done over the holidays (surprise) and a lot of vacationing in October (a trip to Philly to welcome Tom back to America and my first trip to Chicago to see my dear friend Rachel. Both trips were the bomb.com).
So I finally got around to studying and passing the QoS and BGP exams. I’m finishing up my studies for the MPLS exam, which is the 3rd and final test (in the CCIP) for me. I’m currently planning on taking it sometime during the first week of March. I’ve been feeling a bit shaky but that should be enough time to get things straightened out. Worst case scenario I take it a second time a week later, no big deal. I’m not really that worried about it.

After that it’s moving on to the CCIE Written which is the qualifier for the big gnarly CCIE lab. The Written will probably take me through the month of March to study for then it will be serious cram time for the lab. I’d assume my first lab attempt will be in June at the earliest (Jesus, where does all the time go).

What else is new?

I moved into new digs in Durham. I actually move into even newer digs tomorrow as we relocate across the hall to a different apartment. The place is a little yuppie, but otherwise awesome. They are old tobacco factories and warehouses that have been converted into boss apartments. 10-15 foot ceilings, lots of stone, hardwood floors. Very nice. I’m very happy here. My commute is a bit longer, but not by much. I also have a roommate who I work with so we carpool sometimes and I’m also two blocks from the Durham bus station which takes me right to work (the only challenge being that there are only 3 buses in the morning and 3 buses in the evenings). Also the American Tobacco Trail is in the neighborhood which will take me half way to work when I start bike commuting when there is a bit more sunshine outside.

Speaking of bike commuting I just bought a new bike today! It’s a 2009 Novara Randonee. I’ve been thinking of getting a touring style bike for a while mainly for commuting and I read a lot of great reviews on this bike and REI is having a huge sale so I jumped on it. The downside is that I’ll be selling my road ride of four years. I realized that I never ride it and that I’ve come to find road riding very boring. I’d rather bike to somewhere or for some purpose. Road riding just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. I’m not really that sad about it, to tell you the truth. I look forward to having that bike in a much more loving home.

I recently saw The Shipment at UNC with Lisa. It was mind blowingly awesome.
Not long before this we caught The Soweto Gospel Chior from South Africa. Also a great show.

The near future looks like a lot more of the same: work, study, work study, and occasionally break up this routine by spending time with Lisa.

That’s about all for now. It’s late and I’m tired.

Goodnight.

I don’t know who originally made this image but I’ve seen it a few places on the internet today and I think it sums up why net neutrality is important.

Yesterday I went to the state fair and it was awesome. Sadly I forgot my camera and failed to document this wonderful place. I did enjoy both deep friend pecan pie and a deep friend PB&J. The pecan pie was heavenly (for the three bites my heart would let me take).

A few weeks ago I went out west and drove through the mountains. We accidentally camped on top of Mount Mitchell. It was super windy and I slept like crap. Turns out Mt Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi. I guess that explains things. We also went to Murphy, North Carolina to visit my friend Rajun who is recently back from Bulgaria. I took a bunch of pictures and will eventually upload them to Flickr.

I’m going to Chicago for the first time in like a week and a half to see my old friend Rachel and Shahab. I’m super pumped as I’ve never really been.

I’ve started studying again and I’m set to take the QoS Exam on Friday in order to work toward the CCIP. This is part of a bigger study plan for the CCIE.

I am going to start a CCIE/study blog soon so I can be super cool like that. It will be at http://petelumbis.org/ccie and will probably be me stressing out about studying or putting together write ups of shit I didn’t understand and found very frustrating so that I can both go back to reference it later as notes and to help solidify my understanding by writing about it. I’m sure that like 99% of the people reading this won’t care since it will be very technical in nature.

So I just wrote a big long rant about how I don’t understand home ownership and I think it just made me sound like an asshole. So in short, I don’t get home ownership, it makes me sad inside when people say things like “renting is just throwing your money away” and I’m pumped to move into a much less shitty apartment in January.

4 monitors, 3 computers, 2 keyboards. Bummer.

(I’m fixing the imac to be sold as I replaced it with a mac mini in the center)

Every now and again I run across something in my apartment that reminds me that I live alone and generally cook for one.

Today’s reminder was the hankering for a baked potato. After thinking of making a baked potato my first thought was “I wonder if I have sour creme?” I walk over to my fridge and take a look and low and behold I do.

As an aside, I have little faith in esoteric things in my fridge. Ketchup, eggs, milk, you know, the staples, get used with a fair amount of frequency and I rarely have to worry about the expiration on these things. Anything off the beaten path becomes something to always be skeptical of.

Anyhow, I grab my sour cream and exercising health skepticism I take a look at the date: April 29, 2009. Three months ago, almost to the day, is when it was no longer suitable for consumption.

I do not even want to describe the level of unholyness that existed in that small container that now lives in my garbage.

Sometimes living alone is a silly activity.

I recently went back to Bulgaria to see my good friend Thomas again. I was there for a week and only stayed in Bulgaria this time. I took some photos which are posted on my flickr page. I’ll post my travel journal sometime in the next six-months.

• Life is still good. Work has been going well. I’m actually getting half-way decent at the job. Studying starts soon as the summer is starting to wind down.
• Today I went sailing on Lake Crabtree with my new buddy Alex, who recently moved down from upstate New York for grad school.
• I’m heading to Bulgaria again in a few weeks which will be AWESOME. I’m super pumped to see Tom again and bum around the beautiful Bulgarian countryside.
• I finally got around to uploading the rest of my pictures including a few photos from New York (subway trips, various things) and my trip to Seattle. This has made me really miss Seattle, a city I nearly instantly fell in love with.
• I’m going to see the Rx Bandits tomorrow. I’m pretty pumped about that
• Last week I went just outside of Hillsborough, NC to pick blueberries. Lisa and I made a totally bomb blueberry pie the following day. My first blueberry pie was a roaring success.
• I spent the 4th in Chapel Hill at a day long grill out a a friend of Lisa’s. We ended the night by going to the top of a building to watch the Chapel Hill fireworks from the best view in the city. Also since were were on one of the tallest buildings on the top of a hill you could see the fireworks from at least 4 or 5 other cities in the area. Pretty awesome.

I’ve been super busy lately with activities that included a trip to Boston (which was a blast), spending a lot of time with a nice lady (who is quite sweet), camping out at a fiddle convention, and adopting a cat (more like long-term cat sitting while Jasmine lives in South Korea for the next year). Also work has been pretty brutal as of late so I haven’t had the time/energy to actually write about any of these things. In the mean time you should check out my photos from the Fiddle Convention and check out this little video I took of one of the many jam sessions that went on all weekend at the convention.

Grill out in 75 degree sunshine out on St George Island in Boston Harbor. Happy birthday Jasmine.