this is not my beautiful house; this is not my beautiful wife...

How Did I Get Here?

Well, it's a long story I guess, but I'll skip to the good parts about why I decided to go to school, why I chose to go into the IT/Networking field, and all that good stuff. 

It's been a long journey up to this point but it only got started in earnest about a year ago when I decided to self-study to earn my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Assistant certification).  Knowing that I like techie things, my sister-in-law mentioned that she was self-studying around August of last year and gave me all her material and some kind words of encouragement.  I thought that I could work four, ten hour + days and study on my own on my off days.  This proved harder than I thought.  So, due to a series of events, I decided to quit my job and study full time on my own.  Again, this was a bit more difficult that I had anticipated.  I found that the discipline wasn't there, the free style of no tests (that I could find), lack of deadlines, and other slacker excuses were much too enticing for my wandering mind.  But I did manage to learn enough to take the CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician certification) exam.  I could never understand how devices worked within the OSI and TCP/IP models and though I scored over 98% on the rest of the exam's sections, I scored low enough on the other part for me to fail my exam.  It was heart breaking.  It took me a few months to even consider going to school because of the wealth of information that is available online but due to financial constraints six months of self-study can put people in, I thought it would be best to work in a structured class room environment full of faculty, staff, and fellow students to help beat what I call 'the interconnectedness of all things' into my head (oddly, I have less problem with the Zen philosophy of it than I do with the networking ripoff). 

Why not just do something else?

 I really enjoy building things.  I really enjoy building systems, charts, and other materials that help me understand things.  I like adventure and excitement (totally not Jedi material).  I enjoy feeling God-like while creating.  I also like making money.  Networking would let me feed all those beasts and enjoy the fruits of my labor. 

Hello and welcome to The Default Setting.  I'll be your host, Jesse Fillmer.  With this blog, I hope to advise, entertain, inform, observe, and maybe even ... uh... do something that begins with the letter 'u'.  What's starting out as a class assignment will, I hope, turn into a working, viable, and, again, entertaining blog about tech stuff, nerd stuff, travel, and the like.  I hope you enjoy it.