Studying for my CISSP is going well. I still have a lot to study for during the week.

Friday and Saturday was about reading all about telecommunications and networking. I took 2 practice exams on the subject and my skills are getting better. I know enough about the base to be able to deduce the right answers most of the time. In every area except data and cabling transmission methods. Grrr…I just have to improve upon that subject area. ANd maybe some more on the TCP/IP suite…

Where I am still really weak on is Enterprise Security Architecture. That bothers me because I am supposed to be better in that area than I am scoring. But I think me scores will improve the more that I drill. I just hate lattice-based access models!

Since I don’t want to study on all 10 domains/topics, I have choosen to focus this week on where I scored the lowest when I took the exam cold last time. I am going to need every night this week to cram. I will study tonight for about 3 hours. And then M;onday for about 4 hours. And then Tuesday for about 3 hours. Wednesday night I will take a full practice exam, and make some final study notes to cram for on Thursday. Friday night will be a rather relaxed night — I don’t want to stress. Just will review quick guides and study tips for 2 hours. Early to bed. My exam will be on Saturday. 250 questions. 6 hours. I am not nervous as much as I am just anxious to get the test over and get my passing grade 😉

For the next 45 minutes anyway, I’ll be listening to dance music (a podcast by DJ Racim) and relaxing. And figuring out what to do with this caviar I bought…

In the final installment of the Lost Pictures, we look at Helsinki.  About 2-3 weeks ago (around 29 March).  What a difference those weeks make!  There is a distinct possibility in Helsinki that they will miss out on Spring and jump directly to summer, weather-wise.  I was in the taxi as we were driving to work.

Baby, it’s cold outside!

My most recent trip to Berlin (1-3 April) was rather uneventful.  And that was actually just how I wanted it to be.  At this point I am pretty comfortable with certain sections of the city, and I feel confident enough on my own to take the public transportation, with my sporty bad and iPod video to keep my company.

In a change, I actually arrived to Berlin on a Saturday.  I was supposed to take a flight from Copenhagen to Berlin because I was supposed to be working there for a week; however, business plans changed and I was forced to be in other parts of Scandinavia, so I had to book an additional flight from Stockholm to Copenhagen to make my original flight.  So it was basically SAS from Stockholm to Copenhagen and then EasyJet from Copenhagen to Berlin.

On the flight, sat next to a really cool guy.  He moved to Berlin with his girlfriend and he was just in Copenhagen to visit family for the weekend.  I meant to ask for his number to keep in touch, but I forgot.  I didn’t forget…I was in a rush.  On the way into the city, I managed to get lost.  Robin called and offered to help me out, but I declined.  I was going to have to make it on my own — even if that meant it took me longer than planned.  Part of the problem was that normally there is a direct train from Berlin’s smaller Schönefeld airport into the city.  However, on the weekends there is construction so that you have to make 1 or 2 connections.  Of course I could have taken a taxi, but that would have been €30 compared to the €2.10 to take public transport.  But I eventually went with instinct and only managed to delay myself about 15 minutes longer than planned.

So this weekend was more low key.  Saturday I met up with people and went out.  On Sunday morning I came back to my hotel and was tired, but there was the Berlin marathon happening right outside the hotel.  No sleep for the weary.  Instead of getting angry, I took some pictures.

Free Government Cheese Downtown! Run!

One of the things that makes the Radisson SAS Berlin so cool — besides the fact that it is really close to transportation to the airport and around the city — is that there is a huge really cool fish tank in the center of the lobby.  The fish tank is meters upon meters high — as tall as the hotel itself.  I took some pics when I was there in March.

I have been forgetting my regular camera a lot lately, so again, all taken with my digital camera.

Something Fishy

I’ve been rather inspired lately by all of the photo blogs.  So as I was cleaning out my phone, I came across a bunch of pictures I have taken, but have never done anything with.  So I will be posting some of them over the next few days.

First up, Copenhagen…

I took this from the 11th floor of the hotel.  It was 07.30 in the morning in the middle of February.  But no more of that no-sun nonsense!  The sun is starting to make its way up around 06.00 or 06.30 now.  In a couple of months it will never really set and come up by 03.00.  Those lights in the sky aren’t flying saucers — they are the lights in the lobby area.

This morning I was awake at 09.00. I found a nice bottle of reisling, chilled it for 2 hours. made some banana bread, set my iTunes to play random jazz and i am still enjoying the day 🙂

Tonight I might go to dinner and a movie with Robin. I don’t know yet.

Was supposed to visit with Markus and go out afterwards last night, but Markus had other plans he couldn’t avoid and so we didn’t meet. More on that another time in the friend’s area of my LJ.

Went out to Lino on my own, but forgot my VIP card so I just decided to come back home and stay home. The rest was quite nice.

Still must study today for my CISSP exam in 2 weeks. I am nervous, but with the holiday week this week and the less stressful workload the week after, I have lots of study time to make something happen. I really need to pass this exam. I don’t need to, but I really want to.

Happy Sunday to everyone! 🙂

Hello everyone!

Hope that everyone is doing well. It has just been such an exhausting 2 or 3 weeks since I last wrote. In that time, I have been to Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, and Berlin at different points in time. We had a major deadline to reach, but I think that we have done it. So that was a good thing.

Work was dramatic, home has been dramatic, life has been hectic. I want to take a real vacation but can’t. Can’t seem to get a loan to buy an apartment in Sweden, so I might have to rent. Can’t seen to get anyone to rent to an American, so I might have to sleep on the street. All of this, and then there are lots of things happening at work that are sapping my energy.

I am physically and emotionally exhausted at the moment. Each day I don’t know what causes me to go on.

But it’s warm enough to rain today in stockholm and the sun is trying. And I relaxed at home yesterday watching The Birdcage and the “Gay ” episode of Ab Fab which is always funny. An Monday I get my hairs cut.

Yay for me!

For those who don’t know….the last time I visited my original dentist, she broke a drill bit in my tooth while doing a root canal. That was not a fun experience. She couldn’t remove it so she sent me to their specialist clinic.

Well after 2 appointments spread over 3 hours, they finally managed to remove the drill bit so that they could continue on with the original root canal as scheduled.

I can’t tell you how happy that makes me actually. My dental insurance runs out on 31 May 2006, so I have between now and May to finish up the root canal and get 50-80% of the cost for that reimbursed. Then, it’s just simple maintenance work from that point on. I will warn my dentist that if she can’t finish by 15 May 2006, that I would rather use two dentists to make sure that the work gets completed. No sense in paying full price for something I should be getting a discount on.

Oh yeah, and I am at the airport right now. Getting plastered. I am in the SAS EuroBonus Gold lounge and I am a bit drunk. 5 glasses of reisling will do that to you. But hey, I have got to celebrate being able to make progress on my tooth, right? It’s the last piece of dental work I need before my mouth returns back to some semblance of normal.

And finally…it’s another busy travel week. I will be in Denmark tonnight, Helsinki tomorrow night, and then coming back to Stockholm on Friday to go to Berlin on Saturday for a long weekend. I deserve it. I have been good this year.

I have been wondering for a few days now what the future direction of my LJ should be. I decided that I won’t get rid of it, because I like it first as a tool for me and second that it provides a forum to share.

However, I have looking at several journals over the weekend and I am not sure what to do. Some journals are chalk full of text, and that is a positive and a negative because no one but your closest friends reads that text. Other journals have lots of pictures, but not lots of text. And still I see some on the middle. But the asthetics aren’t the only thing. I have been thinking a lot about content too. Some people post only happy things, others post everything good and bad. And still others turn it into a real experience through several forms of expression and media. There isn’t a right answer really and I know this. But that is my dilemma. I will continue to look at this journals that I think are more reflective of the style I want to move towards and come to some conclusion.

I know I want to add more pictures, but I am not sure I want to be the focus of them as opposed to how I see the world. I want to share my stories and stuff, but within what I feel are the correct contexts.

For the moment I will leave my journal as is. But I will probably change it over in june. to what i don’t know…

So the weekend in review…this weekend I decided to stay in Stockholm. Which was an OK thing to do.

On Friday I hung out with Markus. That was very nice. We hadn’t hung out together for ages. However, something went really wrong on Friday. All of the alcohol made me really sick and I had to leave without warning. Luckily I did not get sick on Saturday, but I didn’t feel good for most of the day.

On Saturday I just decided to take it easy. I was supposed to go to Lino to support Max who was beginning his first night as a bartender there. But I took a few shots at home to see what would happen. And sure enough, as I was walking out the door, I got violently ill. There could very well be something in the choices that I am making for drinks. I don’t know what to do, so I will avoid alcohol for the immediate future.

And today, it’s Sunday morning, and I am listening to jazz-influenced music. It’s really a tradition I had back in Boston. When I was away from home for so long, I often liked to spend Sunday morning listening to a radio station that played great jazz (Magic 106.7) and would just have a leisurely breakfast of something like scones and a latte while reading the papers or a good book and just spending a few hours disconnected from the world. Of course, I live in Sweden now, so replace the scone with knäckebröd och cheese, a youghurt drink, a piece of fruit, and CNN online. Funny how life is sometimes.