June 2020

I did not end up going back to work. The COVID-19 restrictions were lifted for a week before the cases skyrocketed. Missouri had more cases in one day then ever before. So, I’ll be working from home until after July 4th, at the earliest.

My mail server can now send and receive mail. I still need to setup a proper SPF and DMARC DKIM records, so for the moment any sent mail is marked as spam. I’m lacking in the motivation department at the moment.

Some good news, the foot pain that took me out of jogging for a weeks has subsided, and I’m been able to jog a 10K two Saturdays in a row. Today’s was about 58 minutes, so pretty good for me. I think what really did me in was the 2-3 10Ks a week. That is just too much for someone my age, or maybe I just need to take is slower, until I’m in better shape.

I also decided to get some house plants. It was interesting to see that only two types of plants that Home Depot sold were not toxic to cats and dogs… I googled everyone they had, and came out with two. One is cool, with the bottoms of the leaves are purple, and in the day it spreads its leaves out, and at night it brings them up. Also a Fan Palm, or a Palm Fan, I forget. Ron Swanson has already knocked the Palm over, so I hope it takes root and recovers.

Anyway, here is my new car finished with the front windows tinted. I still haven’t hit 500 miles, but I’m loving the Android Auto. I decided to cancel Sirus XM and just use that for all audio and podcasts.

It’s been a while. 10 days. I’ve been busy. Traded in my old 2013 Hyundai Elantra for a new 2002 Hyundai Kona. I’m really happy with the decision. It’s got all the nice new features, leather, Turbocharger, it’s a compact SUV, and it just looks really, really nice to me.

I also finally got around to selling my dad’s old 2003 Toyota Tacoma. It has been sitting in my driveway unused for a year or two, and before that I wasn’t using it more than once a month anyway. I put about 4k miles on it the six years I owned it.

Getting the front two windows tinted at lunch tomorrow, and then I’ll take some pics. I’m also going to work for the first time since March. They’ve got plastic dividers between our cubes, and were required to wear masks when we are in any of the common areas. We are also required to take our temperature every morning, and log it. Seems like a great way to make sure every one in the company touches the same thing, but I’m sure they’re bright enough to but hand sanitizer by it. If not, guess I’ll be washing my hands after. Excited to be back, and if I have to spend an hour 5 hours a week driving to and from work, at least I’ll be a lot more comfortable doing it.

I finished my first Ann Rice book. Not sure if it will be my last or not. The main character turns into a wolf. Then he randomly comes across some woman in the woods while and wolf form, and they bang. My sister Diana said that is fairly tame for some of Ann Rice’s books, so I guess I got lucky?

I scored a 770, and a 700 was required to pass. There was only 38 questions. I’m amazed they gave you 3 hours for it. But, I’m glad to have it over. Got take out from my favorite Mexican restaurant, Chelly’s. Had my favorite burrito, Marky’s. It’s a chicken/rice/bean burrito with a light cheese sauce, and chorizo on top.

I’d like to go ahead and get 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert certification. I need to decide on a path. I might take the MS-101 first to give me more time to decide. You’re supposed to choose from one of 6 paths, get the lower level cert, and then take the MS1010 and MS101 to become an expert. I really like troubleshooting Email issues, and I think I’m fairly good at it. The Desktop administrator sounds like I wouldn’t learn much, but it would be easy. Teams or Security are also options. Teams is really hot right now, and it’ll probably stay that way for a while. Glad I don’t have to decide today.

After a month-month and a half of studying, I’d say I have at least a 50% chance of passing the exam. This is the first exam I’ve taken that has cover so much material. And most of it being new to me as of a month ago. Also fairly annoyed with the amount of bad info out there. Take this question for example:

Your network contains an on-premises Active Directory domain.
Your company has a security policy that prevents additional software from being installed on domain controllers.
You need to monitor a domain controller by using Microsoft Azure Advanced Threat Protection (ATP).

What should you do? More than once choice may achieve the goal. Select the BEST answer.

A. Deploy an Azure ATP standalone sensor, and then configure port mirroring.
B. Deploy an Azure ATP standalone sensor, and then configure detections.
C. Deploy an Azure ATP sensor, and then configure detections.
D. Deploy an Azure ATP sensor, and then configure port mirroring.

IT exams has the correct answer as C, which isn’t right because the question clearly says that your company has a policy that prevents software from being install on domain controllers. Another site had D, which is only half right. The correct answer is A, because can’t install software on the domain controller, and if it’s not on the domain controller, you need to use a stand alone sensor, in which case you need to have port mirroring enabled on the domain controller to send network traffic to the stand alone sensor.

So, I’m ether going to pass because I can tell when I’m being feed BS on practice tests, or I’m going to fail because I didn’t notice the right BS.

Out of the 5 people in the class only one has taken it so far, and he passed. I’ll update when I know.