If you are around San Francisco bay area, then a training outfit that I very much recommend is LinuxCertified (http://www.linuxcertified.com). I attended a "bootcamp" style class (Linux system administration) there few months ago and it was by far the most helpful IT class that I have attended. I found the training to be very practical in nature. It was distro independent (although they used Fedora during the class itself). Also, I would recommend having a shelf full of oreilly books... :)