Photo Dump

And so, some more pics. This one is the dining room at Dehradun. The food on offer today was Chilli Chicken, Dhal, Salad, Rice, Fries & Chappatis. Noah, Nirmesh & Lukas have not wasted any time getting stuck in.

Actually Nirmesh has indeed waited.

When I got back to my room tonight I got a new pet! He (or she) is a gecko. I shall call it Gordon. I'm going to assume male.

It's a bit pale isn't it? He needs to get out in the sun I think. Get a tan. I tried to get closer but Gordon hid behind a painting. I don't know if he's shy, or playing hide and seek. But I am too much of a wuss to move the picture and risk a gecko running up my arm. Do they bite?

And now for the two people who have smoothed the way at the Country House. This is Harish, the chef. He should open a cookery school or something. Give lessons to the students here.

And this man is Sunil who does all the rest...cleaning, admin etc. He sometimes cooks too. If you want anything, Sunil (& his bike) can get it...

Finally, the sunset. It coincides with the end of our school day. The sun doesn't do this in London. Here in India it kind of drops down very quickly. The slightly misty sky turns a deep red and the sun becomes a little orange ball. Every night it is the same. Note the picturesque water tower in the middle ground. Nice.

Something Is Changing

There are just a couple of days to go now before the exams. Something is changing, I am feeling a lot more confident. I think if I can retain what is in my head now, I will have a good chance. So, I must steer clear of alcohol, late nights, too much TV and try try try to avoid something like Delhi Belly. Or Dehradun Belly. Fingers crossed, all has been OK so far.

One more pic, this is me and the person who is responsible for turning me into a Red Hat Master: Shikha.

Note the advertising for Koenig Solutions, and the pretty fairy lights. Diwali is coming..these lights are just the start. I am led to believe that all kinds of madness will be happening in Delhi.

The Last Days In Dehradun

My how time flies.

The course is over, and we are now picking over the important details and applying them to some questions (the sort of questions I might see in the exam on Monday). There are so many flags & switches to remember, I'm pretty sure I'll forget some or most.

And as for rpm packaging....if that comes up in the exam I'll just pretend I didn't see it.

Shikha is busy writing more questions for me...

I am looking through my photos...did I mention the cows? They hang around on street corners, they disrupt traffic, they belong to nobody, they are sacred and we cannot eat them. Not even in MacDonalds.

They are street cows.

This one just came straight for me. I ran away.

And these grow in abundance at the Country House:

I believe that Koenig will not be renewing their lease on the Country House after Dec 31. Most students apparently prefer to stay at the apartments. So those staying in December will be the last. Its a shame as it is a lovely setting.

So, two more days of revision, then the train to Delhi, then Diwali, then...then...if I don't need a retake I have three days (Wed to Fri). I may try and see bits of Jaipur & Agra. The best bits hopefully.

RHCE Stuff

Oh lord. Today we covered ISCSI, network config, port forwarding, iptables and syslog. Tomorrow: package management, file encryption, samba, ftp and troubleshooting the boot process. This is the real meat of the RHCE (along with http & postfix). There seems to be an AWFUL lot to learn.

However I did just configure two virtual servers on my laptop, in different networks, that could route via the main desktop host. I could therefore test out my aliasing, port forwarding & firewall skills. All good. My brain is feeling fuzzy though. All I want to do is watch a load of South Park episodes that I have on my hard drive. Instead...back to revision.

Its less than a week now to the exams. I'm really confident about the RHCSA. Just a bit nervous about the RHCE. Fingers crossed.

This is me, in my room, studying hard.

  

Freedom

On Saturday night we got carted to and dumped in Dehradun, near all the shops. And all the restaurants. We decide to head up to Black Pepper...a well known restaurant here. The food was good, even the conical popadoms. Halfway through, a giant TV screen was turned on and we watched Man Utd beat Arsenal. Thank god we didn't stick around to watch Spurs v Wigan.

After this we all sort of went separate ways to the shops. The fact I am still here writing this is incredible. I have never felt so close to death quite so often as trying to navigate that shopping street. Motorbikes going the wrong way, no stopping at all for any traffic... And the fact that still all pedestrians use the road shows how bad the sidewalks are! Littered with rubble, and massive holes. Still, I am alive. I bought nothing though.

The next day, I went with Lukas up to Mussoorie & Dhanoulti. Our 9am cab arrived at 11am. He spoke not one single word of English. he took us up to Mussoorie, then spent the best part of an hour just driving round in circles. I think he was looking for the road to Dhanoulti but who knows? Eventually after we shouted stop at him (lots) he stopped in a car park. We thought he would wait for us there whilst we went out to explore Mussoorie but no! off he went again. So we jumped out. We never paid him. We never saw him again. But later on we discover he waited for us somewhere...although that somewhere was never disclosed.

Mussoorie is a lovely hilltop town. Dhanoulti? Dunno, we never made it there.

So we had lunch (excellent) here...good to eat some Tibetan & Chinese....

And we saw these:

And this:

And I rode on this:

Conclusion? Mussoorie is lovely, but get a good taxi driver!

Some Nice Photos

The Country House (again), some flowers, and a beautiful spider. Off to Mussoorie tomorrow. RH3 started today and looks a bit harder. And, curiously, we had penne & garlic bread for lunch. Am I now in Italy?

The Park

Some pics of the IT Park in Dehradun. Some of the plots have been inhabited by some people in decidedly temporary-looking accommodation. The first one is Koenig. The second one is next door (abandoned halfway through & lived in by several families).