Microsoft Certification Exam

I have a goal of getting a Microsoft certification this year. The one I want requires two exams. For the first one, I took a Udemy video course. It was not that helpful. Then I studied the Microsoft prep guide. A little better. The last thing I did was rent access to sample tests. They helped. But they were buggy.

My normal and backup testing sites were closed down due to COVID-19. So I found another open site near my house. The next available testing date was Saturday. I arrived there early, and read an eBook in my car. When I got in, the lobby of the testing suite was crowded. Eventually I got led back to the test room.

I read the first exam question. When I tried to answer it, the program crashed. The administrator tried a lot of things to get me back into the exam. He restarted the software a few times. He rebooted my PC a few times. I think he even rebooted the server. Eventually he got me in, but the software knew there had been an error. The admin had to call the testing company to unlock my exam.

The admin assured me I would get the allotted time for my exam. However the exam was a 2.5 hour one. My clock showed under 2 hours remaining when he got me back in. The testing company said there was nothing they could do. I said forget about the time, and got to work. There was one more surprise in the question format. Some questions had me writing code. Never saw that in any practice exams.

In the end I passed the test with flying colors. Now I am hitting the books for the second exam.

Grocery Shopping for Little Kat

 

Little Kat is living on his own in his basement apartment. Momoko and I have got him on a rigid schedule to improve the grade in his required Anatomy class. He works a long week at his job this week. So he has not been able to go grocery shopping by himself. He used to tag along with Momoko for family grocery shopping.

Momoko decided we should help Little Kat out. So this afternoon, Momoko and I drove up by his house and went grocery shopping while Little Kat was at work. We happened to shop at the grocery store we went to when we lived in our prior town house. Their county had just started requiring that they charge customers for plastic bags. Luckily we brought our own bags in the trunk.

We went to Little Kat's house. I parked in the driveway to unload the groceries. I used Little Kat's spare door key that we keep at our house to let us in. It came in handy. After unloading, I parked my car in Little Kat's spot on the street. I put some weed killer in his laundry room. Momoko put the cold stuff in Little Kat's fridge and freezer. The rest we left on his kitchen table.

Presidential Election Time

It is getting close to election time. As usual, I am voting by mail. Trump came in 4 years ago with a lot of promises. Don't think he followed through on any of them. The other big option is Biden. He seemed a bit weak on what to do with looters/rioters. He also wants to spend a lot of money on his own version of the Green New Deal. I checked his web site. All it seemed to do is have pop ups asking for donations.

I saw there were a lot of other candidates on the ballot for president. Jo Jorgensen is the Libertarian party candidate. I really like that she wants to end civil asset forfeiture. She is against more borrowing by the government. She wants to end the war on drugs. She backs free market health care instead of Medicare. She wants to replace social security with individually controlled retirement accounts. On Twitter, she said she would eliminate the department of education.

The Green Party candidate is Howie Gresham Hawkins. He was a founder of the 2010 Green New Deal. He has run for governor of New York many times. He has been a member of the Socialist Party since 1972. Although he was against the war in Viet Nam, he did server as a marine there. He was a Teamster at the UPS for a long time.

There is an interesting guy named Jerome Segal running for president too. He formed the Bread and Roses party. He wants to reduce the time everyone spends working at their jobs. He backs universal health care. He wants to eliminate any tax exemptions for the wealthy. He would like to expand local agriculture initiatives. The thing that turned me off from him was his teaching policy at UPenn. He made students choose to either pass/fail his class, or get a default "C". That is because he is opposed to competitive grading.

Failure is not an Option

Momoko went shopping with Little Kat today to look for a desk. They did not find a suitable one. Momoko mentioned that Little Kat was planning to drop his anatomy class if he thought he would fail it. This was disturbing news. He needs this class to complete the prerequisites for the program he is trying to get into at college.

I called Little Kat on the phone. Had him go over what the prerequisites for his program were. Helped him understand what  prerequisite means. Note to the reader - it means you need to complete the courses before hand. Momoko, Little Kat, and I came to an agreement that he needs to pass this course this semester.

Momoko said she needed a copy of the anatomy textbooks. Little Kat has copies at his apartment. We need some for our house. I checked on Chegg, where Little Kat rents his expensive textbook. They only seemed to have a similar book. But it cost a lot to buy (even used). Rental was expensive too.

In the end, I decided to call the college bookstore. They have new copies of the books. They cost a fortune. But if this makes the difference between Little Kat getting into his program at college or failing, we need to get them. There are COVID-19 restrictions on campus. I needed to make an appointment and pass security COVID checks to get into the bookstore. I will get those textbooks.