... or something like that.

The week of Xmas 2005 I got a call from my Fearless Leader at SafeNet.  It seems that for 2006 Microsoft has made it quite abit harder to be a true Microsoft Partner, and as such they are going to lose about 80% of their current certified partners.  This sounds good to me, since this might make partnership mean a little more.  However it turns out we are short an MCAD plus one premier certification on staff in order to qualify.  As the person with the Fanciest Title it falls on me to get 4 certs before January 31st.  I have never cared much for certifications, from what I had seen from the MSFT practice questions in the past they seem to cover a lot of stuff I am not likely to use in the real world. 

So, xmas weekend was out for studying, under pain of death from my family.  The following week was out because I was getting ready for my CF 2 presentation.  By the way I still need to pos the slides/code for that.  The following week I'm not sure what happened.  In order to force myself to study and take the exams I just scheduled 4 tests in close succession on the 18th, 20th, 23rd, and 27th.  A part of me secretly wanted me to fail something to prove that the tests are a meaningful measure of skill.  I did have to read up on the remoting and COM+ stuff for 70-320 but I passed the 1st three easily, I suppose I am an MCAD as of this morning.  On Friday I have to take the Solution Architecture test to prove I am a sufficiently skilled Hand Waver and SafeNet will get to keep its partnership status.  After that I might as well take the BizTalk test to get the illustrious MCSD designation.

To me, the only reason to take these tests is for partnership points, no client has ever asked me about certifications.  Most of the very skilled people I know locally do not pursue certifications.  I am somewhat hopeful that the Microsoft Certified Architect program will be brutal, and therefore mean something when you pass.