CrashTestChix

“Slide, slide, slide…”I've been humming this to myself to the tune of Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools.  I’m working on materials for the slide decks for our presentations at Lotusphere 2010. 

For those who may in any way think that preparing for Lotusphere is easy.  THINK AGAIN!  I am a new speaker, but I’m presenting with experienced Lotusphere speakers, and from my bird’s eye view it looks like hard work no matter if you’re a newbie or if you’ve been a Lotusphere speaker for ten years!

My sessions are running the gamut from Jumpstart, Best Practices to Show ‘N Tell.  And each session definitely has its own nuances for preparing slides.  And the thoughts running through my head include - what would I have like to see if I was sitting in the audience? How can I best connect with the attendees without having 32 bullets on one slide?  How can I make the content informative and engaging at the same time?

A lot of work is going into session prep over the next two weeks.  So gear up and be ready in January for another great Lotusphere!

Okay, I'll admit this post does not have anything to do with server administration or client builds, etc., etc.  With Thanksgiving a little more than week away, I'm starting to think about holiday baking.  I love to make holiday treats.  I was looking through my recipes and found one of my favorites as they have a wonderful lemony yellow curd topping.  And as some of you may know - yellow is Mary Beth Raven's signature color!  So here are some virtual cookies for you Mary Beth! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels to all next week!

Lemon Butter Snowbars

Crust:   1 c softened butter

2 2/3 c all purpose flour

½ c sugar

Filling: 4 eggs

6 TBsps lemon juice

1 ½ c sugar

4 Tbsps flour

2 TBsp lemon zest

Combine – butter/flour/sugar, blend until finely crumbly and press into ungreased 13x9 pan.

Bake at 350 F degree oven 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Mix eggs/lemon juice/sugar/flour/zest and pour over crust.  Return to oven 18-20 minutes or until lightly browned.  Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.  Cut when cool.

It all started with the Nerd Girl BOF at Lotusphere January 2009.  A little nudge to start a blog.  And now many months later as a result of that blog – CrashTestChix – a huge opportunity has surfaced.

Packt Publishing contacted me (out of the blue) about writing a user guide for Lotus Sametime.  It turns out that the editor had read my blog and liked my writing style.  Wow!  Once I realized that this was not a caffeine induced hallucination,  I had to think about whether such a large project was practical for me.  Three hundred pages? WOW!

After talking with family and friends, I realized that it was a chance I could not pass up.  It also occurred to me that I would be wise to seek some assistance on this project.  So I asked Tom Duff to join me as a co-author.  He was stunned and flabbergasted.  I had to pour water on him (figuratively) a few times to revive him, but convinced him that since we had worked well on the TDI blog articles that we could work through a larger project.

So here we are at the very beginning of a new opportunity.  Thanks to the Nerd Girls for that initial nudge.  Thanks to Connie and Joni (the original Domino Divas) for your daily support.  Thanks to Packt Publishing for finding my blog and giving us this opportunity.  Thanks to Paul, Warren, and Gab for agreeing to provide a test environment (we will endeavor not to crash servers).  Thanks to Tom for acting as co-pilot in this venture.  And finally thanks to the larger Lotus community/family.  I look forward to seeing many of you in January 2010! Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!