OK, so this should be fun. I am scheduled as the sole speaker at tomorrow’s Nashville ISSA chapter meeting. That alone is no big deal. I mean, there will probably be at most 100 people there. I give talks like this all the time and to much larger crowds. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that I am sitting in the Nashville Marriott sipping warm tea with honey in it in hopes that it will preserve what little voice I have left.

Yeah, that’s right, I’ve lost my voice. On the way home from work yesterday I was singing along with the radio and noticed a little rasp in my voice. Great, I thought, now I can sing John Cougar Mellencamp songs too. Neat. And it was for a while but by bedtime I knew something else was up. My voice had gone from Mellencamp to somewhere between Barry White and James Earl Jones. I normally have a deep voice, but this was almost sub-sonic. Its a shame Christy had already gone to bed or I coulda tried some of Barry’s moves from the 70’s with that voice. “Hey, baby. Mmm mmm mmm, you are lookin fine tonight, sweet mama.” Hmmmm. OK, so, as I was saying, luckily she was already asleep…

I feel fine, mind you. Not even a sore throat. Just can’t talk is all. Well, I can a little but at the moment I sound like I am re-living puberty. I’m fighting off the urge to go to my 7th grade girlfriend’s house just in case she still lives there. I could see if she still thinks the squeak in my voice is cute.

Tomorrow should be interesting. I am practicing my shadow puppets since I know I’ll have a projector at least and my tap dancing isn’t so good. That, and I’m trying to figure out how to convey “virtual server” and “hyperjacking” in case we end up playing virtual security charades. Wish me luck. I sure hope the boys team wins.

/g