Well, nothing like realizing the talk you're giving the next day is based off a completely wrong interpretation of the main article used for inspiration. At 11:45 the night before. No wonder the demos didn't work. It would have helped if I hadn't been so swamped for the last three weeks at work with server STIG-ing. (I'll tell you where to STIG those servers!)

Well. Nothing for it. Time to re-invent. I went to bed @ 2:30 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, and got up at 6:15.

I checked in, listened to the start up talk, then headed for the nearby starbucks. I hate coffee, but I ordered two venti Tazo ice teas, claimed a table with a plugin, paid for internet access ($3.99 for 2 hours, not bad, in my book), and went back to 'work'.

I only missed two talks.

At 3, it was my turn. Wouldn't ya know, the laptop wouldn't go into dual screen mode, so I could only use the main projector screen.

There were about 8 people there, and one left. The rest were fairly interested. It was a high level ish talk, very niche. And I hadn't done anything like this in at least 11 years.

Negative: I could have had better demos. I could have been a little more polished with my words. I used 'um' and 'okay' way too many times. My powerpoint deck sucked (way out of practice). One person left the talk about 10 minutes through.

Positive: I stayed engaged for 50 minutes out of the hour. Only one person left the talk. I answered questions without freaking out. I vaguely remembered how to stand up there and make eye contact and present without looking like a nervous idiot.

Conclusion: I definitely want to keep this up. I don't want to go back into training as a regular gig, but I do want to reacquire my presentation skills so I lose much of the nervousness I had last week. I'll be working on a set of interesting but unique topics that I can submit for code camps that won't be like everyone else.

In other news, the fam damily is coming for the spring birthday/memorial day shindig. I don't know that we'll be swimming, though - depends on the weather. Also, now that code camp's over, I'll definitely be moving my PC from the family room to the yarn room, and finally installing Windows 7 RC. 8.5 days left of kindergarten, and 9 and 2 half days left of first grade.