Thursday, April 7, Day 4

Another day, another new instructor in this tech paradise called Microsoft Masters.This time it was Steve "Spat" Patrick who was going to give us the low down on Windows Authentication and all of its inner workings. Kerbing my enthusiasm, I slouched down lower in the chair and prepared for the information deluge, and indeed it was. Not that it wasn't interesting stuff, as interesting as Gina and her friends get, but I can only hear so much about ticket this or ticket that before I find myself daydreaming of taking a ride on the Polar Express.

We learned how to troubleshoot and configure Kerberos constrained delegation and protocol transition, and a whole lot of new stuff like how to configure Authentication Mechanism Assurance. It was also cool to see how Steve analyzed authentication related network traces in Network Monitor. "Exercise your curiosity" Steve was fond of saying as he lead us down another rabbit hole to Tech Wonderland. Grinning like the Chesire Cat, he would emerge from the exercise satisfied that he had put yet another technical doubt to bed.

I don't know why but I was under the impression that our first written exam was this Saturday. How did I fat finger that one? I wondered. As it turns out, Ryan gave us the option of either taking the two written tests the same day on the last Saturday of the class or splitting them up and taking the first exam on Monday. Well, that's a no-brainer: If given a choice of falling from a one story or a two story building, which are you going to take?

Some of my classmates worried about failing the first exam and the impact it would have on their mental state and morale going forward. Ryan had a fix for that - he would change the exam so that no one would get their pass/faill result at the end of the exam. Those who wanted to know their results could have their exam score emailed to them the same day and those that did not, would get their results at the end of the course. I am not a patient person when it comes to such matters and chose the instant gratification. Wearing a blindfold in front of an execution squad typically doesn't make the outcome any less painful... I reasoned.

Class ended at 7:30PM, again. I could tell by the look on everyone's face that they were stressed and that I was not the only one feeling the drag. Well, at least I can sleep in on Sunday, I thought to myself, thankful that there was one non-lecture day to look forward to over the horizon. But right now I had to focus on reviewing the lecture items that I didn't have a good grasp on today. Back to the grind.