I suppose an update’s in order.

The Class

I’m in Appleton this week taking two courses with New Horizons to prepare for the Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician tests and certification. I have good classmates; they’re both from regional companies and are both here to learn as much as they can. Our class, though, is wierd. And sucky.

Our teacher is an ex-navy petty officer who used to deal with “special weapons,” aka “the bomb.” After getting shot up (and apparently carrying a bullet to this day), he became a mason, then went to school and worked his way into IT. He’s a pretty knowlageable guy, has a lot of certifications, and apparently, a lot of experience. What he doesn’t have a lot of is teaching experience or savy.

He let the class use too much time bullshitting on Monday, then pushed us like hell Tuesday and Wednesday because we “had to cover the material.” Never mind the fact that we didn’t really do more than “underline the third sentence in the second paragraph on page 18 because you’re going to need to know that.” Never mind that we’ve been able to make maybe one of our seven lab projects work they way they’re supposed to (but who knows why that one worked?). Never mind that each time I have a question that goes a little beyond the surface of the material we’re covering,my answer is one of:

1. “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you,” sans follow-through
2. “The lab’s not set up like a real machine; you can’t expect everything to work.”
3. “Did the instructions tell you to do that? Just follow the instructions word for word.” Which is, of course, just a great way to learn to troubleshoot, which is what this class is about.

We have a new book (and actually, a new class) for today and tomorrow, so maybe since the bullshitting is out of the way, class will go better. I’m not holding my breath.

The Hotel

Since this class is in Appleton, I’m staying in the Best Western Midway, in a business-class room. But apparently, the party-class room is right next door, the porn-class room is two doors down, the symphony-class room is kitty-corner from my room, the whiny-dog-class room is kitty-corner the other way, and the construction-class room is directly across the hall.

The bed is uncomfortable, the pillows are extremely uncomfortable, and the heating/cooling unit in the room is either broken, without a control unit, or both. The “full, complimentary breakfast” consists of coffe, juice, some poor-ass broken-down fruit, a few types of cereal, a bunch of crap you can put in a toaster, and a copy of USA Today.

Lest I forget to mention the smell. O, that 30-year-old stale cigarette smoke, weaving it’s gnarled tendrils around the evaporated industrial cleaners in the carpet, cutting holes in the perfume/cologne miasma of the business/porn/party/symphony/pet/construction-class wing of the Best Western.

But at least when I was soaking in the hot tub last night, the Buff Aisan Guy on the balcony leered at me while he filled his ice bucket. Yeah, thank god for that.