Sara and I have been terrible about keeping the site updated in the last few weeks. Work has been crazy to say the least but I think we’re going to get a breather that should give us some time to get back to posting new articles and updates.

I am working on a new template for the site and some additional features that will allow people to connect to the website with their Facebook, Google, OpenID, etc. website logins that I hope will increase the interaction with our (few) readers.

Expect a lot of new articles that Sara and I have had in draft form for the last two to three months very soon.

I am trying out some new themes and plug-ins for the website to try to optimize the page for Search Engines (SEO) and streamline the user experience by allowing people to connect with their Facebook, Google, MySpace, or OpenID logins.

If things look out of whack or funky for the next few days just try back later. I’ll make a more detailed post after I have finished all of the updates.

Welcome to Collier-Byrd.net. Sara and I have been meaning for awhile to put up a web page to collect photos for family and write about our various interests but I can be a terrible perfectionist and spend way too much time getting something suitable before I ever (or never) get around to using it.

This time I’ve decided to try something different and put up a WordPress site, start posting, and we’ll work out the bugs as we go. I think we’ll actually get use out of the page this way and work on the non-content pieces when I have time.

As I said, the original idea was to collect some photos for family and friends, but we also have a lot of interests we’re planning to cover. Sara was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last year and we have been doing a tremendous amount of research about the disease. As her father’s side of the family has a history of the disease, it wasn’t at all unknown to us, but suffering from an auto-immune disease is a lot different from knowing about it as a result of family, friends, or acquaintances learning to live with one. Sara really wants to compile a lot of the information we’ve found and relay her personal experiences living with MS to date in hopes it may help others who know someone with MS or people who have been diagnosed that are learning to cope with it. The side benefit of this will be to (hopefully) raise awareness about the disease.

My primary focus for the foreseeable future (other than MS) is working through several professional certification tracks. I have been working for ISPs and Telecommunications companies for the better part of the last 12 years now and while I do have a lot of on the job experience and more than a fair bit of knowledge about the Internet and how it all works, there’s definitely no shortage of new things to learn. I’m currently CCNA certified (Cisco Certified Network Associate), and working towards my CCIP (Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional) and CCNP (Cisco Certified Networking Professional) certifications. At some point, once I finish these two certifications, I am planning to work on the service provider versions of the JNCIA (Juniper Networks Certified Internet Associate) and JNCIS (Juniper Networks Certified Internet Specialist) certifications to round out my experience. When I finish all of this, depending on what I am spending most of my time working on (Cisco or Juniper gear) I’ll look into pursuing one of the IE (Internet(work) Expert) paths. As I’ve got at least a year or two of work in front of me to get to a point where I am choosing an IE path I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself but I definitely want to have a rough timeline in my head to help moving me forward. Part of my learning process is putting together training materials presented in a method that clearly conveys the concepts and ideas I am studying, so I would say that you should expect to see a lot of boring and very technical information about Cisco and Juniper routers as well as different routing protocols, RFCs (Requests for Comments), and IETF drafts on emerging technologies.

Outside of career and health related pursuits Sara and I would like to travel. To start we will probably take day trips on the weekends to see the things we can reach in a day’s drive. As we run out of things to see in a day’s drive we’ll probably start flying. Eventually we would like to see all of the US and plan trips overseas. There’s so much to see and do and we’d like to do as much as we can while we are young. We’re hoping to put together photo diaries to track our travels and we’ll be posting them here. Our first big trip will be to Yellowstone for two weeks at the end of July next year when Sara’s uncle retires. Her aunt and uncle are taking their family out to Yellowstone for a group trip so we’re already planning our days and hoping we can make the most of it.

At any rate I don’t want to put together any kind of gigantic list of everything we’re planning or not planning to do with the site. We hope it will grow organically as our interests and tastes evolve and change and with any luck, you’ll be here with us for all of it.