A Talk

So my mom and I had the opportunity, thanks to a kind request from Mary Bumiller, to speak at the midcoast chapter of the Maine Women’s Network.  Mary asked us to speak about our technology backgrounds, how we got to Maine, and how we came to collaborate. 

The talk was a great opportunity for both me and mom.  I won’t speak for mom, but for me personally, it makes me nervous to talk in front of others.  This seems strange because I did years of training for groups of people from 5 – 40.  But it has been a while and when you are out of practice you are out of practice.  This became clear when I had to be on stage for a very short while during the Juice 2.0 conference.  I thought I would throw up.  But I got through it.

During the talk mom and I both spoke how we came upon technology, her via a serendipitous move to Seattle and me through an out of college job with dad.  We talked of influences, experience, and impressions.  I did prepare a Power Point that had old family photos of 2 influences each for me and mom.  But my mom was uncomfortable sharing them with the group, she felt maybe it wasn’t appropriate.  But after the talk, that seemed well received, I had many requests for the photos, especially the one of me and my tutu.  So here I share the photos with you. 

My mom and her grandmother, Ruth Buys. 

Me and my brother! 

My parents, Roy on the left, Lee on the right.

Me in my tutu.

Thank you to Mary and Maine Women’s Network for hearing our story.  It was a great experience that we both enjoyed and are extremely pleased to have had.