Save Big When You Bindle ... er, Bundle
Posted by TestOut Staff on
Back in the 1880s and 1890s, the era, in the United States, of the first transcontinental railroads, poor workers used to follow rail lines from place to place in search of a job, a handout, or something better than whatever they'd left behind. A culture gradually grew up around these disadvantaged wanderers that persists to this day. Something about so-called "hobos" fires the imagination, and almost everyone is at least passingly familiar with bits and pieces of hobo lore.
For example, even people who don't know what it's called would probably recognize an illustration or replication of a hobo "bindle." The bindle is a section of cloth, often colorful, patterned cloth, used to wrap up the few personal items or belongings a hobo didn't wear on his (or her) body or carry in his (or her) pockets. The bindle would be tied to the end of a stick, and carried over the shoulder as a hobo walked along the railroad tracks in search of fortune's next windfall.
Another familiar hobo hallmark is the drifter anthem "Big Rock Candy Mountain," popularized a few years ago in the George Clooney comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? Big Rock Candy Mountain, where there are "cigarette trees" and hens that "lay soft boiled eggs" is a sort of hobo paradise (and also the name of a roadside resort at the foot of a colorful mountainside here in Utah). Big Rock Candy Mountain would fill the average hobo's bindle to bursting with its simple delights.
Most people don't use a bindle to contain their earthly treasures in 2019, but there are some things that are better when you gather them up in a single package. For example, TestOut Continuing Education has training bundles that include multiple certification and training courses and save you a lot of money. Our CompTIA Bundle includes training for the CompTIA A+, Security+, Network+, and Linux+ credentials and saves you more than $800!
If you love IT training and certification but you've never checked out our Traning Bundles page, then you'll feel like a hobo getting his first glimpse of Big Rock Candy Mountain! If you're intending to get multiple certifications, then there's no better way to go. Maybe there's a real hobo heaven and maybe there isn't. (Anyone can drive past Utah's Big Rock Candy Mountain on U.S. 89.) But training with bundles is definitely IT pro pocketbook heaven.