Back in the swing of things

After nearly 6 months away from most forms of content creation, I am finally ready to jump back in. Here’s what I’ve been up to

1. POOP. SO MUCH POOP
   The twins were born prematurely, ahead of schedule by almost two months. They had no issues at all – they were just small, and had to spend a couple months in the NICU. They came home, and my wife and I enjoyed paternity and maternity leave.
   The biggest of shoutouts to CBT Nuggets for providing me with **6 weeks paid paternity leave.** I needed it. I needed it bad.
2. Adjusting to life with 3 kids under 3
   You know what? It’s chaotic. But it’s not as chaotic as I thought it would be. When my paternity leave ended a few weeks ago, I had relatively no friction with returning to work. That being said, this is the first time in years that I have not EITHER worked 2 full-time jobs, or also had children who were quarantined at home (the kids will be in daycare). So I have only 1 full-time job, and I have (mostly) a whole day to focus on it. It feels *wild*
3. This is the year of Juniper
   I like Juniper. It’s what I worked with most in production networks back when I was a consultant. We actually almost never touched Cisco equipment. We really only worked on Juniper (the majority), UniFi (small clients), and Palo Alto. So when I looked at all of the certifications that Juniper offers, and then looked at CBT Nuggets (lack of) Juniper content, I decided that will have to change in 2021. We have since released new JNCIA-Junos, JNCIS-ENT, and JNCIS-SP courses. I am about 95% done recording the JNCIP-SP now (only VPLS and EVPN left), and I will tackle JNCIP-ENT, JNCIP-DC, and the JNCIx-SEC tracks next. I will potentially work on Palo Alto, SPCOR, and Azure content (I recently wrapped AZ-104 updates for Azure networking and Azure Storage).
4. Hobbies – I am super interested in Blockchain tech
   I want to build my own blockchain this year. I already have a name picked out. No, it is not KnoxChain and does not contain my name in it lol. That being said, have you checked out the Brave Browser? I can’t recommend it enough. I am not switching back.