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#5273 – capm crunch

ever since i made my last post about how i might need a miracle for my foot to feel better, it’s been feeling 100 times better. not better enough for me to run in the annapolis 10-mile run (at least, not yet anyway), but better enough that i only really feel pain if i turn my foot in certain directions and it feels perfectly fine for me to walk on it and go up and down stairs and press on the clutch pedal in my MINI and so on. festive suggested a sports medicine place that i should check out and see if they might be able to fit me in earlier, and i may try giving them a call to get a second opinion and because at this rate i may not even be feeling any pain by the time my original appointment rolls around at the end of the month.

at work about a week or so ago we had an “education fair” where human resources had different local and online schools come to the office so we could talk to them about their degree and certificate programs. now, i’m already taking online courses for my master’s in information systems, but i figured i’d go see what’s available for when i’m done next year. i had talked to the UMBC representative during a previous education fair about their certificate programs, and so i stopped by to pick up details about their current offerings since i’ve been toying with the idea of getting a project management credential… they offer an 8-week course for about $2000 (held on saturdays from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM starting in late september) that fulfills the 35-hour classroom requirement for the PMP exam. unfortunately, i don’t have the 4,500 hours of experience leading projects that i would also need, so that classroom time doesn’t quite do me much good for the PMP credential.

still, that got the gears turning, and i realized that i’m qualified to take the CAPM exam (certified associate in project management), and i don’t even need to take their certification course! to qualify for the CAPM exam, i’d need either 1,500 hours of experience participating in projects (which i have but it’s tricky to document), OR i’d need 23 hours of project management education. this is the part where i say “hello undergraduate degree in information systems management!” since one of my classes happened to be named “project management”, and happened to meet for 3 hours a week for 15 weeks (hello 45 hours of classroom education), and happened to be one of the three courses i got an ‘A’ in during a semester when i was a 4.0 student. BINGO! i already had the coursework part done and i didn’t even realize it!

so i ordered a copy of the PMBOK and a “how to pass the PMP exam on the first try” book that had rave reviews on amazon. i’ve got until early november to pay the testing fee and then 1 year to actually take the certification.

i also made the mistake of looking into a doctoral program. specifically, one that was mentioned by Classmate #3 from my earlier lj post when we were still in the middle of the semester and before she accused the rest of the group of sabotage. i figured i ought to at least look to see what my options are. my only requirement was that i wanted to be able to complete it (mostly, if not entirely) online:

if i did the doctor of management program at UMUC, it’s an online courses with an on-site residency once per semester on a friday or saturday. i’d need 48 credits.

UMBC doesn’t have an online doctoral program, so there’s nothing to investigate there.

but, if i did this doctor of science in information systems program at dakota state university that my classmate had mentioned, it’s also online courses that may or may not require an on-site residency one weekend a month… and what’s one trip to south dakota once a month for school but a minor inconvenience? for this program, i’d need 88 credits.

now when i read about that i was like “88 credits?? holy crap! are they serious?!”, and yes, they’re serious… but then again, it’s not really as bad as it seems. see, here’s the trick:

it’s 88 credits, but 27 credits of that are master’s-level courses that you have to take if you don’t have a master’s degree in information systems management, and that they waive if you do. seeing as i’m in the middle of my master’s degree right now, well, that 88-credit requirement goes down to 61 credits.

ok, so now it’s 48 credits vs. 61 credits. let’s see what i’d end up paying out of pocket after my $8000 / year tuition reimbursement through work. i’m already drawing from my tuition reimbursement for spring 2011, so that’s the reason for the two different prices depending on when i start, and it’s likely that tuition would increase as the semesters went on as well:

48 credits at UMUC x $1087 / credit = $27,169 (fall 2011) – $28,176 (spring 2012)

61 credits at DSU x $343.75 / credit = $1,399.25 (fall 2011)

yes, $343.75 / credit hour for online graduate courses. i’m serious. $1400 for me to earn a doctorate. CRAZY! and even that is because it would exceed my $8000 cap on tuition reimbursement in 2011. i’d be able to take 23 credits a year at that rate and still not break my reimbursement amount for the year.

it was at that point that i had to remind myself to stick to one degree at a time. but BOY is that tempting!

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#5272 – runner's low

remember when i said how i was planning on running the marine corps marathon at the end of october? i’m not sure if i can do it now. for about the past 3 or 4 weeks at least (i remember not being in pain on july 10th when cynicalscribe and i went up to philadelphia for her roller derby bout), i’ve had a pain in my left foot / ankle section. it really started to bother me when i was running 3 miles on the treadmill at work, and looking at my schedule that was probably on july 13. it seriously hurt so bad i thought i twisted my ankle, and so i went home and put ice on it and let my leg rest. since then, i’ve realized that it’s not the ankle that’s hurting, but some point just a few inches above the left outside ankle. even now it still hurts to various degrees, and it’s really annoying… sometimes it hurts so little or not at all and i’m able to walk around without pain and at a normal pace, and other times i really have to limp my way around. it sucks.

for the most part last week when we went on a trip to the virgin islands it was ok, but going snorkeling with a sore foot like that might not have been the best idea, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse. my thought was that it’s a stress fracture or something like that, but i have no idea. my coach at the office gym saw me the other day and asked me how my marathon training was coming along and i had to admit to him that i hadn’t been running for the few previous weeks because of this injury. the coach thought that maybe it could be a combination of things, something like the muscle is growing so fast it’s pressing up against a bone and that’s causing the pain. later that day we looked up some sports medicine specialists in annapolis for me to check out, and i scheduled an appointment with a foot and ankle orthopedist.

unfortunately for me, the annapolis 10-mile run which i was hoping to run (i mean, it starts and ends on the stadium grounds across the street from my house, so since it’s so convenient, why wouldn’t i want to join in?), that run takes place on august 29th. the earliest i could be seen for an appointment is on august 31. i’m not going to go running on this sore foot, you have to keep something like a 12-minute / mile pace in order to make it through the course, and i don’t want to injure my foot even more and only just days before this appointment.

so i have this appointment scheduled for the end of august, and i’m not sure if i should even be running the marathon now. assuming a miracle cure, that still gives me only 8 weeks until the race, and i’m woefully behind in training… partly because of my foot, and partly because of the heat. so… yeah. i’m disappointed. there’s an option i think for me to defer my registration until next year, but i’ll talk with the doctor and see what they suggest.

in other news, yes, we went on a trip to the virgin islands last weekend and stayed in the tent cottages at maho bay on st. john — we flew down on thursday, i was there friday-sunday and returned on monday, and the rest of the family returned on tuesday. it was a nice little vacation for anne’s high school graduation present (she wants to go into marine biology and she and dad have been taking scuba lessons, so that was the big reason for the trip). the rest of us went snorkeling, hiking, exploring, swimming, shopping, etc. hopefully tonight i’ll be able to edit my pictures and videos from that, and from my cousin’s wedding we attended in new jersey this weekend.

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#5271 – burning bridges 101

From: [Classmate 1]

To: [Classmate 2]; [Classmate 3]; Glenn Fitzpatrick ; [Classmate 5]

Sent: Sun, July 25, 2010 10:06:04 AM

Subject: How are you al

Hi friends

How are you all doing? I am doing well. I have few questions on the course below. Has anyone taken the course IS 667: Interaction Design (3 credits)? How do you like the course content? What is the difficulty level?

Thanks in advance for you inputs.

[Classmate 1]

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On Jul 25, 2010, at 7:13 PM, [Classmate 5] wrote:

Hi [Classmate 1],

I have not taken this class yet, I would also like to know the answer to your questions. I too am doing well, hope everyone else is as well.

Regards,

[Classmate 5]

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On Mon, 7/26/10, Glenn Fitzpatrick wrote:

From: Glenn Fitzpatrick

Subject: Re: How are you al

To: [Classmate 5]

Cc: [Classmate 1], [Classmate 2], [Classmate 3]

Date: Monday, July 26, 2010, 12:10 PM

I haven’t taken the class yet but I’m signed up for it this fall; I haven’t heard much about the class but I’m looking forward to it! Glad to hear you’re all doing well!

– Glenn

Sent from my iPad

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From: [Classmate 1]

To: [Classmate 5]; Glenn Fitzpatrick

Cc: [Classmate 2]; [Classmate 3]

Sent: Mon, July 26, 2010 10:55:13 PM

Subject: Re: How are you al

Thanks for your replies [Classmate 2], [Classmate 5] and Glen.Let us see, we will probably end up doing this course in fall.

Cheers

[Classmate 1]

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On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 5:19 AM, [Classmate 3] wrote:

Hi guys,

I am guessing the question was aimed at me since I have finished my degree. I am not inclined to help since I feel I was sabotaged by the group in the grading area. I honestly tried my best and spent a lot of time on the group project but obviously not eveyone was forth coming on their thoughts concerning my work but were very forth coming during the end of semester critique.

Just a note, in all of the other groups I have worked, everyone worked on all sections of the project so if someone, like me, took it upon themselves to work on a section not assigned to them in order to help the team, taht was looked on favorably.

Best of luck.

[Classmate 3]

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what an email trail to wake up to this morning! the five of us worked on our group project for our systems analysis and design course this past semester.

Classmate 2 emailed the rest of us, wondering if we were being blamed for Classmate 3 getting a bad grade in the course and to say that she gave everyone a good grade. i know i gave good grades to everyone in my group (and got a good grade on the project). we all busted our butts on our project, so i don’t know why anybody in our group would have received a bad grade from the other team members.

…and then this happened to be posted today:

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#5270 – clean slate

my profile page looks so weird without my giant list of interests i’ve had there for the last 10 years.

i’m still trying to decide if i should try applying to other jobs elsewhere before the fall semester starts, however unlikely it’d be that i’d be starting before the end of august. on one hand, if i stay, it’s free tuition for this semester (well, i have to pay $1060 out of pocket since my total tuition for the year exceeds the $8000 limit my work will pay)… but if i find something that pays me more than what i currently make, i may not necessarily need tuition reimbursement at all. i’ve just been thinking a bit about what i’ve been doing at work versus the position i last interviewed for, and while i don’t really mind the work that i’ve been doing, because of 2 or 3 department reorganizations that have occurred since last summer, my current job responsibilities are nowhere near what i last interviewed for, and i feel like my increased responsibility should mean more pay.

(yes, i know that this means that someone is going to say “then ask for a raise, you big dummy”, but it’s not that simple since it’s not something that i want to be doing for an extended period of time — sql statements are only entertaining for so long, and i kind of want to do something other than SELECT this FROM that WHERE nonsense all the time… which isn’t to say that i’m not good at it. i’m almost too good at it, that’s the problem — i’ve turned into the team’s go-to guy for query-writing and modification, when we also have a separate team that puts together queries, so it’s as if i’m doing two separate but related jobs at once).

even though i’d stay in this position until finishing my graduate degree next year, there’s something pestering me that if i have the opportunity to try to earn more, why not take advantage of that opportunity sooner rather than later? but then again, what’s the rush? i’m still working on this master’s degree, so why not take it easy as much as i can in the meantime? but then again, with my self-imposed deadline of finding a better-paying job by september 2011, i don’t want to go crazy trying to find something between april/may and september.

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#5269 – guess whose electricity was out for 24 hours?

yup, 24 hours and 25 minutes, to be (pretty much) exact.

yesterday i was over at cynicalscribe‘s, and even though i knew a storm was coming (“winds up to 80 mph! 1″ sized hail! etc!”), i didn’t really think too much about it. but then i checked the weather map and saw this…

Sally forth me if I'm wrong, but you haven't taken shelter from the murder storm… doom storm yet. #wx #doomstorm

…and figured that i should better hurry up and head back to annapolis before it hit, and i still had to stop by the giant to pick up a few things i needed too! so i ran over to the giant, grabbed my groceries, and was leaving there just as it started to rain in columbia. floored it back towards annapolis, and on the way i heard that there was a tornado warning for the county for the next 15-20 minutes or so. didn’t see any tornados, but i did see some spooky-looking weather.

i got to annapolis just before the storm hit; i literally pulled up the driveway at 3:58 and the wind picked up and was blowing like crazy, and i hadn’t been home for more than a few minutes before the power went out. mom and anne were about to leave to go to a cousin’s birthday party out in the direction i just came from, but when they saw the weather map…

#wx #doomstorm

…they figured they’d wait for the storm to blow over. i brought out my radio scanner and listened to all the police / fire department / paramedic calls go out during the storm, and heard all sorts of crazy stuff:

– barn on fire

– drawbridge stuck open because of the power outage

– people trapped in elevators

– cardiac arrest at sandy point state park

– customer/management dispute at the grocery store (the customer was described as wearing “a black top hat”, so perhaps it was mr. peanut who was upset)

– a “tree through [a] house”

– an assault at the bar where we used to go do karaoke

– a nosebleed (caused by an assault in a hotel, apparently)

– a boat capsized (after the storm had passed) and people were in the water; the fireboat had to be summoned

– the annapolis summer garden theater was putting on a show and some kids kept peeking over the wall (so not quite a knothole gang)

– intrusion detection alarms went off at the football stadium across the street, and though police found someone walking around the area and checked him out, he turned out to be ok and the gates at the stadium were all secured

the power was out all last night, was still out this morning, and was out until about 4:25 pm this afternoon. we ended up tossing almost all of the stuff in the refrigerator (since that’ll only stay cold for about 4 hours or so. the freezer had to be partly cleaned out too, but i think most stuff in there did ok since a full freezer will last 2 days and a half-full freezer will last 1 day without power.

i drove through the neighborhood this morning on my way to work and this was probably the most severe tree damage i saw on the few streets i drove down… it’s a bit bigger in diameter than a telephone pole:

Big tree down in the neighborhood.

anyway, we’re glad to have power again.

in other weather-related news, i signed up for a skywarn (see also) basics 1 certification class in columbia in september. should be interesting.