(no subject)

As I wrote last night, I was bored and alone, and sitting around with nothing to do. So when Benjie got online and invited me to come down and see him, I did. I got my clothes out of the dryer and headed off to visit at 1:30 in the morning. We watched The Two Towers, or part of it; we were both exhausted and fell asleep about halfway through. But it was so nice to have someone to snuggle with for a while. Heh. I'm such a touch-junkie.

I woke up in the morning and read some poetry by Morris Stegosaurus that Benjie had around. Then I read more of Neverwhere while trying to decided whether I should knock on his bedroom door or let him get more sleep. *grin* But, finally, we were both up, we went out for lunch, and we browsed slowly through a neat used bookstore. It was one that I was trying to find when I was down in Chicago with my dear one a couple weeks ago, but couldn't locate because the big sign over the shop says 'City Cleaners' or something like that... Heh.

So later on tonight I ended up working on my brother's girlfriend's computer for her. She had a virus I mean Windows ME (they're so tough to tell apart...) on her box and wanted 2K. I figured this would take about 2 hours. I have to learn to add 2 to 3 times my estimate when dealing with computers. Without even mentioning the problems I had backing up data, she has an HP which made things even more difficult. Bloody weird proprietary components. And thank you Hewlett Packard for creating such an amazningly useless support section on your website. I'm *still* trying to find a driver for the modem half of their audio/modem card...

Finally as 2K was installing, I called my love and spent some hours on the phone with her. I so missed hearing her voice... My parents have cellphone plans with free weekends, and I took full advantage of that. Only 5 days now...

And tomorrow, er, today, I'm off to my grandparents' house with my family for our postponed easter thing. *shrug* I'll see y'all later...

Open request for information

I know there are many LJ'ers who have some kind of experience in the IT field. I don't know if any of them read my journal, but on the off chance that someone who does can help me out, I have a question.

I am getting tired of my job. It's not bad, but it's honestly not very interesting to me and it's too far away. I have wanted for years to try and get into some kind of computer field. Tech support, building systems, fixing other people's boxes, something along those lines. But I don't have any formal training or certification at this point. What I do have is a good number of years of experience building systems for myself, my family, and others, troubleshooting a wide range of problems that arise from everything from misconfigured jumpers to driver isues to backward IDE cables and much more. I think I might be able to pass an A+ cert exam, and will probably give it a shot when I have money for it. I also have been running my own server for the better part of a year now and have some experience with home networking and related issues. Will an A+ cert do much for me? Do I need an MCSE or some other thing? I really don't know a whole lot about what the various certs will do for me.

Given such experience, what are the odds of me finding a job in that area? Do I really need some formal training, or could I get a gig with Best Buy doing hardware installation or something? That wouldn't be bad. I'm probably going to try putting in some applications in a week or two when I have some time to go and get them. Anyway, much thanks for any info and comments. I would really like to find a job closer to home doing something I'm really interested in. And since I'm making minimum wage right now anyway, I can't do too much worse... *grin*