Matt Matteson

I’ve done quite a few presentations; The last week of class I had a 15 minute presentation, I was crunching to complete everything that was to be handed in the day of the presentation and never took the time to work on the presentation. As I raced out the door running a little late, I realized it would work in my favor. If I showed up late, I wouldn’t be the first to present. I walk in a few minutes late, sure enough someone else is getting ready to present and I have the 15 minutes of the first presentation to detail my presentation and create a few slides. Turns out it was A material.

Well then here comes Ignite Boulder II, and I apply to present. I really enjoyed my evening of a Ignite Boulder audience member as I learned about everything, be it Crashing Parties, Perception of Possibility, Being #1, or Angel Investors.

The magic of Ignite is that all the presentations are exactly 20 slides, 15 seconds each. Oh- and they auto advance! So school wraps up - I graduate on Friday the 12th, I race collegiate Cyclocross nationals that weekend and instantly it’s Monday night, and the presentation is supposed to be submitted to the orchestrator of the evening, Andrew Hyde. I set up shop at Hydle’s place, and submit my presentation at 5:03 Tuesday morning. The lesson I learned is, unlike the presentation I crafted in 15 minutes during the first presenter at the beginning of this post, making a presentation you care about takes time.

My presentation set out to educate the masses on photography - grand visions of ISO, aperture, shutter speed, geo tagging, fancy flash techniques and what not. As I plowed through the first draft of my presentation to Hydle, I felt and he voiced the truth: there was only five minutes and I had enough content for a few hours. The new challenge was to just fit in just the details of capturing the light: shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and metering. Still too much, but I knew I’d have a smart audience.

After my presentation was accepted, I sent out an email to some friends and posted a twitter update announcing my commitment. I was amazed by how many of my non-techy folks were signing up. Thanks to Kory Z, Drew M, Shaun H, Sean C, Allison B, Greg Hydle, Ryan Behner, my parents and my techy friends that I expected to be there for coming out. Thanks for for giving me another challenge, and finding a few rough edges to work on.

Here is a video captured as the event was streaming, I start up around 56 minutes in. Edited video’s are being uploaded by Kendall Media to the Ignite Boulder on Youtube. I’ll give you guys an exact link once my edited presentation is posted. I have uploaded a set of photos from the evening, and so did Jared.

– Update –
Here’s a link to my presentation on YouTube.

The 104 by 107 foot Colorado School of Mines “M” on the side of Mount Zion is the single largest illuminated letter in the United States.

Every day the M sits on the mountain watching over Golden. I’ve heard it be compared to the Eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings, but to me it’s a welcoming feature of my home. Driving home from Denver and Boulder I note when the M comes into sight, “I’m almost home.”

At the end of the semester the M is not lit as an M, but numbers counting down. Usually I ignored the number, my finals never were on Friday so I kept my own tally. Tonight the lights on Mount Zion read “4″, and I’m paying close attention. The count is finally my tally; When the lights shine the blocky zero I’ll know there is not another final exam or another final project.

On Friday December 12, sometime after 9:30 AM I’ll be wondering across the stage collecting my fancy piece of paper. A paper that means my 16 years of public education are over. A paper that means a deep breath, weight off my shoulders, and a new heading.

With eight days of college classes remaining, my window of opportunity for bad decisions is closing. Tonight I took on the challenge by joining downhill Deider, Turman, Price and Nick for a full moon shuttle ride down Apex trail.

There is no micromanaging little rocks when you can’t see them.

It sure felt nice to clean some sections that I even hesitate on with daylight. Only once did I hurdle my handlebars while catapulting off the bike, no blood so it didn’t count.

Shout out to Chris and Clay for the tour of the Broomfield Sun Microsystems tour. Definitely the largest data center I have seen in my life. I really hadn’t seen a large scale tape array, setup either - that’s what the photo below is of.