Mission Accomplished

Well, the corporate gig went fine. People ask me "Whaddya do?" and I always reply "Whaddya got?" and this gig qualifies for that irreverence. A break from my usual engineering - I put together a powerpoint presentation for an after dinner talk / skit. Yesterday was a travel day and set-up. Today we rehearsed, did the gig, and struck the set. Tomorrow, travel back. Skillset required - the ability to crank out PowerPoint quickly, a fair level of graphics and web surfing skills (to find stock photos and templates and stuff) and nerves of steel to change the slides during the presentation.

The audience view of things. The conceit was that the executive was running for president (of the USA) so it was a patriotic color scheme, a fake campaign speech (with funny slides), and a finale with a balloon drop, confetti cannons, light ballyhoo, and the Rocky theme song.....

My view of the proceedings, from backstage. I watched the gig on a small monitor. Mostly, it's many hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of frantic revisions (during rehearsal) and minor terror (during the show, when a lot of the timing of the show falls on my fingers and instincts, since the audience reaction changes the dynamics and the timing a lot.

Highlights of the trip - yoga by the pool this morning, overlooking a beautiful valley. Also, Robert Klein was the entertainer; he was hilarious. Lowlights, the weekend's food was pretty unhealthy (burgers, sandwiches, quesadilla's), although we had a wonderful meal last night (tuna steak and asparagus with a romaine salad).

Off to bed - I've got a 7:20 a.m. flight tomorrow.