One down... sorta.

I've been having trouble sleeping the past couple of nights. I wake up around 2 am and then toss and turn for a couple of hours, or at least I did two nights ago. Last night, when I realized that I was composing my presentations for the ATA conference in Toronto, I decided to go get my laptop and capture some of what I was thinking of.

Silly me. The act of so doing pretty much allowed me to forget all of the points I was trying to make. I need to brush up on my mnemonic skills so that next time, I can just hang the points to be made on a set of mental pegs and then review them at leisure later.

I've spent some time this morning working on my wiki presentation (instead of the translation, which I realize is due a long time down the road, although I hope I don't actually translate it while on the road, so to speak). Both of my presentations are 45 minutes long, and if there is one thing I learned at the hands of Jerry Weissman (Borland wanted me trained in public speaking, so they hired the best teacher they could), it was to observe time constraints.

I figure I'll have 30–35 minutes to say what I need to say and to demonstrate the technology (which is the point of my presentation, actually), leaving 10–15 minutes for questions. I am aided by the fact that the article I wrote on wikis for the ATA Chronicle has already been published, so I can assume -- that dangerous word again -- that my audience is not altogether unfamiliar with wikis, and that I can refer them to my article for more details. So I'll aim at 30 minutes of presentation, with 10 minutes devoted to talking and 20 minutes to showing.

Not counting the title, what-this-is-about, and what-this-is-not-about slides, experience tells me that five slides is about the maximum one can show within 10 minutes.

It's so easy!

The slides are done -- or at least a first draft of the slides is on my hard disk. Next, but not now: work out the demo portion (this'll probably be the hardest to do). Finally, I'll have to rehearse a couple of times to get timing down and make sure I'm making the points I want to make.

Between compiling the presentations, getting the car ready, writing the translation, paying some bills, and getting ready to depart, I think I am getting to the point where everything on my schedule is on the critical path.

Cheers...

(no subject)

Upon returning home this evening, I washed the car again and put it in the garage. I turned on the heater to take the chill out of the air. I have masked out only the hood. I have applied the first coat of paint and now, the smell of paint is well and truly embedded in my nostrils. I may have to take a shower before retiring if this continues.

Four days left. Not enough time.

Cheers...