Let the planning begin

Yesterday, I put the deposit down on the wedding location, location fee and paid the coordinator fee.  The wedding will be held at a private estate in Summerland. None of these are refundable so there is no turning back now.

Snowboarding in Snow Valley

Microsoft 70-562

I thought I would have several months to study for this test, but I needed to take this test to become a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) and I needed to take it before the end of the month for work reasons. So this month, again, was devoted to late night and early morning studying. Fortunately, when I took the practice exams that accompanied the book, I was already scoring in the 70's w/o having read the book. I needed to identify my weaknesses since I only had a month to study. My weaknesses were apparently in mobile computing, templated controls and healthmonitoring. After having read the book, doing the lab exercises, and taking more practice exams, I took the test and ........ PASSED!!!

The questions were longwinded and so were the answers and I was dozing off (from lack of sleep). I had a hard time focusing. But, I believe having a solid development background in ASP.net programming along with the book (and their lab exercises) helped me past this test.

Now if I take one more exam (70-564), I could get my Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD) certificate. Fortunately, my company does not require me to get this certification anytime soon, so I will hold off. Now I can sleep..............

----> I am kind of on a roll, so I am going to start studying for the 70-564. What's one more exam....? Unfortunately, I can't find a book for this exam, so I am unsure how I am going to prepare for this exam. I did find this blog which may give me some direction.

Bridal Bouquets

I had no idea there were so many types of bridal bouquet.
Nose Gay

Posy

Beidermeier

Cascading

Crescent

Arm

Pomander


etc..etc..

I find that I prefer small and simplistic arrangements. Something like the nosegay bouquet with lots of greenery.

Happy Valentines

courtesy of Rusty's Pizza

Went to an art exhibition by Carlos Mascherin. I aboslutely love these pieces and am feeling inspired again...

A night at Chef Karim

We heard that Chef Karim of a little Morrocan restaurant in town was going out of business, so a few friends and us went to bid farewell. Here are the boys belly dancing it up.

Microsoft 70-536

I took some time off from wedding planning to study for the Microsoft exam: 70-536 .Net Framework Application Foundation. C# was my preferred language. I spent the 2nd week of January reading the entire book. The following week, I re-read the book again and took notes. Last week, I re-read the book once again and typed up notes as I went along. I also started the practice exams that came with the book. This week, I stepped it up a bit and bought a practice exam from Transcender. I was averaging about 90% on the book's practice exam and 80% on Transcender's. In addition, the last three days, I started pulling all nighters because I was planning to take the test today. What a day, it rained like cats and dogs and I got lost trying to find the test center. I barely made it on time. Don't even get me started on Prometric phone operators.

I've been so focused on the exam and am completely exhausted now. The exam was incredibly hard. I read the book three times and felt pretty confident but was immediately brought to my knees. There were questions on the exam that was not covered in the book. I was able to eliminate 1-2 of the answers in most cases, but still was not confident. Thank goodness there were no regex questions.

But all the hard work paid off.... I PASSED!!!!!!. This test counts as credit towards the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): .NET Framework 2.0 Web Applications. I just have to take one more test: Exam 70–528 : Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-based Client Development. I think I will hold off for another month or two. It's been exhausting....

edit: 2/6- I decided to study for the 70-562 : Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, ASP.NET Application Development exam instead since I am developing in 3.5 and not 2.0. 70-528 seems to cover more fundamental asp.net programming where 70-562 will extend to that client side scripting and AJAX. I read that Microsoft intend to retire the MCTS, MCPD and MCITP when mainstream product support ends. That means support for the product or technology. . Visual Studio 2010 (.Net 4.0)is set to be released around April 12.

ARRRGH.. all this tech talk to putting me to sleep..

Now back to wedding planning :)