{"id":929,"date":"2007-09-12T02:58:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-12T06:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/09\/12\/tuesday-evening-stage-fright\/"},"modified":"2007-09-12T02:58:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-12T06:58:00","slug":"tuesday-evening-stage-fright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/09\/12\/tuesday-evening-stage-fright\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday evening – stage fright"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t\t\t\t\t\t Yikes…. I’m sitting in this meeting pretending to pay attention. I’m actually sitting here worrying about what I’m going to say when when I do my keynote address in an hour or so.. Wish me luck !more about how it goes later.
-me.<\/p>\n

OK.. now I’m back.. I think it went pretty well.. I’m glad it’s over… SO.. now where was I ? <\/p>\n

oh yeah…<\/p>\n

September 11th<\/sup>\u2026 . It’s a date that brings back terrible memories  <\/span>to everyone.. It still does to me.. though they seem much. Much more distant this year. <\/p>\n

I’ve only got a few minutes to post. I need ot wake up in 5 hours to catch a plane to DC then on to home\u2026<\/p>\n

   <\/span>I had a really good day here in Austin<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. I spent a good part of the day working in my hotel room\u2026 The part I wasn’t working I spent worrying about my talk tonight. I do my best worrying while pacing around form room to room. On that particular circuit I started noticing the patterns in the wallpaper here.. I noticed that there were 7 distinct swirly patterns in the print.  <\/span>It was much easier thinking about that  <\/span>than thinking about finishing my talk\u2026 <\/p>\n

 Wallpaper swirls in my hotel room<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Around 11:15<\/st1:time> my friend Wolfgang came over for lunch. We walked over to a tex<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> mex place nearby and ate outside.. Today was cool (by texas standards at least) and wet..The air felt really good. I really enjoyed spending the time with Wolfgang.. we had a good set of personal and work talks. He gave me some very good advice today.. Now.. let me see if I can take it\u2026  <\/span>After lunch we took a short walk around the area.. we came across a little park with these really cool stone cows. They’re huge and beautiful.<\/p>\n

 Cows and Wolfgang<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Good bumber sticker in the parking lot of the hotel
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As I came back into the hotel after lunch I was nabbed by my friend Ginny from the SRC. She’s coordinating this event. She asked me to see if I could make my  <\/span>do to make the talk a little funny\u2026She hadn’t seen the talk.. but she said things could use some livening up here.    <\/span>Yikes.. it wasn’t really set up as a funny talk. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to funni-fy it a bit..   <\/span>Not easy to do in a pinch.. and not that easy in my current mood.. But I tried.. The rest of the afternoon passed too  <\/span>quickly. I spent the time in conference calls as I feverishly tried to figure out how to  <\/span>‘lighten’ the tone of the talk\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Around 5 I started the toughest  <\/span>task of all.. deciding which shirt and tie to wear.. I tried all combinations\u2026 and finally went with red shirt, red tie.. Here are the choices.. what would you have chosen ?<\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/span>I drifted downstairs around 5:30<\/st1:time> and started mingling with the students and professors at the conference. I felt very much at home.. I knew so many of the folks here.. it immediately put me at ease.  <\/span>There was a small reception, then we were called in to dinner. I got to sit at the grown-up table\u2026 it was pretty exciting. 18 years ago I was one of  <\/span>students in this conference.. and now I was the dinner speaker.. is that progress ? I guess so. My good friends Bill and Mary Brenda were at the table as well as my friend Tak and several of the execs from the SRC.<\/p>\n

Bill and Mary Brenda <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here I am right before my talk with a SamStone for good luck<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

. I enjoyed talking to all of them  <\/span>which put my a little bit at ease\u2026 then came time for my talk The head of the SRC gave me a really nice welcome then\u2026  <\/span>Eeeeeeeeek.. It was time to go. I came up on stage in front of the 420 folks in the room and for about a half of a second.. I had no idea what to say..   <\/span>Then someone  <\/span>inside me started talking\u2026 and the next thing I knew I was done.. I do remember a point in the middle of the talk where I drifted out of my head and into the audience and thought to my self\u2026 ugh.. this middle part is boring\u2026 but  <\/span>I managed to get through it. I ended with one of my favorite  <\/span>demos: the frying pickle . I know folks liked that. I ended then went sat back down. I sat there trying to figure out if the talk had gone well or not. I always<\/i> think I suck when I give a talk like this.. this time.. I was pretty sure I had sucked.. but the audience reaction seemed to lean against suckage\u2026 who knows.. who cares.. the one thing I know is that I was done.. Whew\u2026<\/p>\n

The Bio they had for me on the program<\/p>\n

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After my talk came the awards part of the banquet. The biggest award by far was the Aristotle award\u2026 given to a teacher for distinguished teaching and mentoring. It ‘s a really big deal. I’ve managed to get this award once for my friend and advisor Rob one year. This year’s winner was my good friend Wojtek, a  <\/span>Professor at CMU where I went to grad school.  <\/span>I was so very pleased that he had won this award. He is one of the best teachers and overall mentors I have ever known.   <\/span>He and I shared a wall when I was in grad school. I still remember the conversations we’d have at 3 in the morning\u2026 He’s such a wonderful guy. I felt honored to be there watching him get this award<\/p>\n

Wojtek <\/p>\n

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The banquet broke up and then I was sort of  <\/span>mobbed with folks wanting to talk to me.  <\/span>that as pretty cool.. I managed to get In a few good conversations with some of my buds from IBM.. and a few Profs I’d lost touch with.. I was really glad to be here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Me, a student and her wierd green stuffed thing<\/div>\n

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Before I knew it .. it was 11:30<\/st1:time> and I was beat\u2026 I said good night and came up to my room to pack. I was just about to jump into bed when I realized that I had forgotten to blog\u2026 so.. here I am.. Now I really gotta get to sleep. More tomorrow\u2026<\/p>\n

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Love you all.. you too Sam..<\/p>\n

-me<\/p>\n

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\n<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yikes…. I’m sitting in this meeting pretending to pay attention. I’m actually sitting here worrying about what I’m going to say when when I do my keynote address in an hour or so.. Wish me luck !more about how it goes later.-me. OK.. now I’m back.. I think it went pretty well.. I’m glad it’s … Continue reading Tuesday evening – stage fright<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}