The entry below is classified as a LEGACY post, meaning that it was written (well) before the current version of Avalonstar was released. Although these posts have survived the numerous moves over years, there is no guarantee that they've survived the trip unscathed (especially the links).

LEGACY–

September 22, 2006

The Jam Session

Dead Happy. Dead Tired. Dead... something else that I forgot.

(I'm writing this on 5 Coronas and 1 Heineken, so forgive me.)

This conference has been unnecessarily grateful and unnecessarily nice with rooms that have been unnecessarily big. All in all, at the end of day 1, I admit that I've been a bit spoiled for my first speaking engagement. Not just me, but all of the speakers have been treated extremely well. Sort of sets the tone, I guess. ;)

Just to summarize, the Jam Session has been an awesome, intimate event and has allowed me to chat with so many different people. You see, you go to SXSW for the people, but you're doing everything so fast that you never get to mingle. WebVisions looks on it's way to that as well. But for being it's first year, the CoffeeCup guys really have their act together. They knew what people wanted, and they gave it to them. It helps that the CEO is a laid back guy as well. I'd like to thank the team for giving me the chance to speak, and for being so damn awesome. :D

I was able to see some great presentations today, as well as meet people like Eric Meyer (who I hadn't seen or missed at SXSW), but unfortunately had to miss a few because I still lacked stuff on my slides. So, on the subject of my presentation, I would have to say that I did as well as I could have. I have been getting a lot of good reviews, some for the fact that I was able to (try to) tackle Photoshop in a way that was beneficial for everybody there. It's such a deep and multi-faceted program to work with. It has also been a learning experience for me, since this was my first time stepping up on stage alone in a very, very long time. The nervousness was there, for a few minutes. After that, I was surprised how quickly I went through my material. It went so quickly that I literally had 30 minutes for questioning. I realized that I truncated a lot of things, but at least I know what to do for next time.

Thanks for everybody that came to witness this spectacle/debacle. Hopefully you enjoyed yourselves.