Matthew George, CCIE #38216

My journey started about four years ago with on and off studying throughout the years due to major life events such as new jobs, moving between states, getting married, etc... The whole kit and kaboodle. I've used primary INE preparation materials for the CCIE RS and of course Cisco Press books and the Doc CD. My first attempt was on 12-12-12 which was unsuccessful however I did not let that get me down. To be honest, the first time I failed, I was more pissed off than I was depressed. I guess you can set I was mad at myself for letting myself fail, none the less I hit the books twice as hard after the failure and retested on 2-11-13 and passed the second attempt. I received the results in record time, 68 minutes after I walked out of the Cisco building. Low and behold, I logged into the newly designed CCIE portal and it said CCIE #38216 in bold. None the less I was pretty stoked. You never forget what you're doing when you get that email and the results... Ironically I was sitting there in the Airport with another Candidate that was doing voice and I was eating a hotdog when the email came in... So apparently hotdogs are good luck for me :) Now that I've passed, I've noticed that there is a huge void that I have to fill somehow. I find that I have TONS of time on my hands. During that time I used to study, now I'm just thinking about what to do next...