Friday, February 10: See updated post.
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I am pumped up, let me tell you!
I’m a credentialed blogger at the Conservative Political Action Conference for the second year running. I didn’t announce it before today because I’ve spent the past week nervously preparing for a “Crash Course on Blogging” seminar co-presented at the conference this afternoon with fellow consultant Ken Yarmosh, our second. (See Money, Blogs, DC, and Money) It somehow made me feel less nervous to keep it to myself. If you understand why, good, because I don’t. 
Anyway, I’m pumped up because I’ve finally found a way to beat the jitters while speaking in front of a room full of people that works for me: preparation, practice, passion and…out-of-body attitude. I usually do the first, skip the second, don’t show enough of the third, and discovered the fourth only today. This time I prepared what I wanted to say, practiced the speech several times a day for several days until the information was in my head, and focused on my passion for blogging. I performed much better.
But…as I replayed the performance in my head, I discovered a fourth factor, one I wasn’t aware of on the surface: concentrating less on the fact I’m in front of a room full of people and more on what I wanted to convey to the audience. Whenever I suddenly remembered that I was standing in front of a room full of people, the jitters briefly returned. I pushed them back, stepped outside myself again, allowed the passion to come through, and the confidence returned. Yes!
(I was asked to speak at the Blogs4Life conference the night before the event and was only the tiniest bit nervous and quite relaxed at the podium. Interesting.)
I wasn’t too thrilled with my presentation last December, but this time I had out-of-body attitude. 
I didn’t blog from CPAC today, but tomorrow I’ll let you in on the action and post pictures. Check out the CPAC posts (with pictures) from last year. It was fun.
THIS was the highlight of the conference, though. 
CPAC blogger Rocco DiPippo at The Autonomist has the list of CPAC bloggers. I stopped by Bloggers Row today and saw Sean Hackbarth, Ace of Spades, Mary Katharine Ham, and Pat Hynes again. Met for the first time Jeff Harrell (finally!), Tom Bridge, Cam Edwards, and others I can recall at the moment. (Sorry!)
I’m deliriously tired from thinking about the presentation, offline life, and other stuff. Crashing. Thanks for listening.
