This poem by Derrick Brown struck me solid today.  Not that I’m depressed, but that I’m not.  I’d cheerily add “before I started running” to the list.

wait until
a year from now
where you say,
“Holy fuck,
I can’t believe I was going to kill myself before I etcetera’d…
before I went skinny dipping in Tennessee,
made my own IPA,
tried out for a game show,
rode a camel drunk,
skydived alone,
learned to waltz with clumsy old people,
photographed electric jellyfish,
built a sailboat from trash,
taught someone how to read,
etc. etc. etc.”

The red washing
down the bathtub
can’t change the color of the sea
at all.

by Derrick C. Brown

Sitting for my first Microsoft exam on February 2nd: the 70-680.  Sometimes I wonder why I’m doing these exams.  Is it to learn more?  Sure.  Is it to “better myself as a person and contribute to society?”  Yeah, why not; we’ll throw that in there too.   But I’m sitting here, finishing the prep for yet another certification exam I can’t help but get a bit introspective and question my own motives.  Is it money?  Skill?  Bragging rights?  Hell, I don’t know.  Yes, no, who cares?  I’m half-convinced that I’m doing this just to prove to myself and everyone else that I can.

Update 3/11/13: I wanted to update here that I did, in fact, pass this exam.  It was substantially harder than any of the CompTIA exams.

So I’ve recently passed my third CompTIA certification: Security+.  That makes three certs in the last 4 months.  I’ve received my A+, Network+ and Security+ certifications as of today.  Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking these certifications are impressive, they’re not.  Respectable, sure, but not impressive.   Personally, I don’t care how impressive the certifications are; I didn’t get them because of what other people would think of them (or me).  I got them for myself.

See, I have a B.S. in Ministry.  I know the Bible inside and out.  I know theology and I have the paper to prove it.  But when it comes to computers, or anything IT related, I have only my own empty promises to give when I tell others, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”  While having certifications doesn’t necessarily mean I possess more knowledge than I did before, it feels good to have an organization back me and my skill-set.

These certifications are only the beginning.  I’ve already started prepping for the first exam (of six) in the MCITP track.   My goal is to finish that certification by Christmas 2013.  After that I may take a break, but maybe not.  I’m eye-balling Linux certifications as well as Cisco certifications because those are two areas in which I have a lot of interest.

All men may be created equal in regards to their unalienable rights (cf. the Declaration of Independence). But in virtually every other sense they are definitely not created equal. Some men are created with an arm span three inches longer than his height (Michael Phelps) which has enabled him to go on to achieve great success in swimming. Some men had the good fortune to be born in the United States as opposed to a warring country in Africa. The fact of the matter is that the position in which we individually find ourselves today was largely determined before we were born or, at least, at our birth.

Mitt Romney isn’t a self-made billionaire, few men are. Note, there’s nothing wrong with being born into priviledge. Mitt had no more control over his parents than I did. But the circumstances surrounding our births greatly explain why he earns my annual salary in less than 15 hours. Understand, however, that this article isn’t about class warfare because frankly I think it’s a largely political construct. I’m here to talk about attitude.

Here, attitude refers to the related emotion in only a passing similarity. Think instead about piloting an aircraft. A plane’s attitude refers to its pitch, roll and yaw in relation to the horizon. In simpleton’s terms, it’s attitude is all about where it’s going; it’s all about where I’m going.

I told my dad this past month that my goal is never and will never be to become a millionaire. My goal in life is simply to be a little better off this year than I was last year. I strive to apply this attitude to other areas of my life as well, not just finances. For instance, my goal isn’t to be the head programming engineer at Google or Microsoft. My goal is to be a little better this year than I was last.

When I get down about my current place in life — which interestingly only happens when I compare myself to others — I try to remind myself of this simple yet powerful truth: I have no control over where I started, but I do have a great deal of control over my attitude.

A year and a half ago I stepped into the world of professional IT support and I’ve had the time of my life ever since. There is no other job on earth that I could enjoy more at this point than working full time with technology and people. As you’d expect, the learning curve from youth pastor to computer technician has been fairly steep and not without its own set of challenges. Let’s talk about some of what I’ve learned these past 18 months.

Define the problem

Once you accurately understand the problem you’re halfway to finding the solution. And when I say, “understand the problem” I don’t mean “the computer is broken.” Anyone can tell you the computer doesn’t work right. But as soon as you know why it’s not working correctly, discovering the solution will shortly follow.

Divide and conquer

First determine if the problem is hardware or software. Personally I find it easiest to rule out hardware first. For instance, if a computer can’t connect to the internet via an ethernet cable the first thing I’ll do is fire up my laptop and plug in physically into the same ethernet cable that the faulty machine is using. If my laptop gets online just fine, I can be sure the issue lies within the faulty computer.

At that point I’ll continue to divide the problem further until I reach the conclusion and resolve the issue.

Frustration is good, use it

There are two kinds of people in this world. The first kind encounter a problem, get frustrated and quit trying to solve it. The second kind get frustrated which makes them dig deeper into the problem. The key to solving the issue is taking that emotion and channeling it toward the task at hand. Don’t give up!

Research is essential

At one point in computing history it was possible to learn all you needed to know from books published by the software or hardware manufacturers. Today that is no longer true. The sheer breadth of the computer market means that it’s literally impossible to know everything about every piece of hardware and software. Never stop learning.