Dec 1, Saturday, ACN speach at The Pavilion

That was nuts today. So here's the deal. The company ACN has a conference at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. This is their big rally to get all the reps all jacked up about ACN. The charity they support as a corporation is the Ronald McDonald Charities. At this conference, any money contributed by ACN reps were matched by the ACN Corporation. All money raised went to the Stanford and San Francisco RMH.  So to kick off the conference they asked the RMH to come and make a small presentation and have a family come tell their story.  That is where Stacy and I came in.

I agreed a couple of days ago, but had no idea what exactly it was. I practiced my speech yesterday and this morning and left around 12:30 with the RMH Executive Director, Annette Eros, for San Jose, not really knowing what I was getting into. It would have soooo nice if Stacy or any of the kids could have came. They would have loved it. But Lindsey had her big walk and Sierra had IVIG treatment all day. So Stacy had her hands very full today.

When we got there, we noticed the parking lot was FULL. O my, that means the Pavilion will be full!

When the RMH Director, Annette, and I walked in, it felt and looked like a rock concert going on, loud music, laser lights, fog machine, concession stands open, and ALL the seats were full, about 14,000 people. We also found out the dress was professional dress, NOT business casual.  It was all suits and high heals.

They asked me if I was okay to speak and if I wanted a quiet place to gather my thoughts. Heck No! I needed to be in there to get the SHOCK out of my system. Once I walked around, took some pictures, posted to Facebook, and took a lot of deep breathes, I was good.

They escorted us back stage and we were ready.

Some ACN guy talked for about 5 minutes to introduce the conference, then it was our turn. Annette gave a little speech about the RMH then introduced me and I was on.

I introduced myself and my family, where we were from, then told them that we were ACN customers. We have the ACN phone service, just didn't know ACN had conferences like that. They liked that and that seemed to get me loosed up and the speech started rolling from there.  I told our story and how the RMH has helped us over the years. It took about 10 minutes.  Our family picture was on the big screen behind me, and when I turned around to point out my cute family and Lindsey's Berlin, I saw 'me' on the jumbo screens, that big ugly hair chin, and I thought for a split second, THIS IS NUTS!  At the end, I received a standing ovation. Very humbling. As we were walking off the stage a few people waved to me, I waved back, then the entire section waved. Good grief, felt like some sort of rock star.  I remember several times, thinking, 'Stand Up Straight', 'Don't say 'UMM'', 'I sure hope my fly is up!'. They taped the whole thing and I requested a copy.  It will be nice to get to show the family.

It has taken all day to come down from the high that was.

 My first view of the stage.

 Back stage, getting ready to go on.

 A view from WAY back after it was over

 About 5 minutes before going on. I wanted to look at the stage and try to stop shaking