0x21

Today I reached my geek coming-of-age, and turned 0x21 years old.

I celebrated in true nerd fashion, by spending the morning taking Microsoft exams 70-445 and 70-554. Both were tougher than I expected, particularly 70-554 which I only squeaked through with a score of 760. I think part of the problem is that I never really needed to do any WSE 3.0 or .NET remoting stuff in real life, so it was just a matter of learning the theory from books rather than on the job. On the other hand, I have been fortunate enough to do a bit of WCF last year, but that was too new to be covered on the .NET 2.0-focused 70-554 exam, being included as it was with .NET 3.0 and 3.5. I guess I’ve left it quite late in the release cycle to be taking the 2.0 upgrade exams, and must avoid making the same mistake when the 3.5 upgrades become available. Meantime, I still have to take 70-553 to take in order to complete the upgrade from MCSD to MCPD – but that can wait until after baby 2, I think – need to focus on getting the house ship-shape.

What did I receive for my birthday? The wife and son bought me a bottle of Laphroaig (which is now significantly emptier than it was half an hour ago), and copies of the latest CDs by U2 and Morrissey, both of which are really quite decent and made for good driving music today. The mother sent me Ken Schwaeber and Mike Beedle’s book on Agile Software Development with Scrum, which I’m looking forward to reading.

Thanks to everyone who sent me cards and FaceBook messages today – much appreciated.