I am not sure if its the excitement that I am still feeling from BlogOrlando, but I am thinking I may want to speak at the upcoming Tampa Bay BarCamp.

Of course that is easier said than done. You see, there are two things that are holding me back on giving a 100% go ahead on speaking.

• 1. I am not sure what I would or could speak about that would benefit others…anyone have any ideas?
• 2. Perhaps this point is holding me back a little more, but I will let you in on a not so well kept secret. I have a huge fear of public speaking and suffer from social anxiety. It bothers me just to speak with people I do not know, much less getting up in front of a group.

But the bottom line is that I am passionate about blogging and furthering myself in this industry. I know that speaking could always help me out in that respect, or more important (assuming I could get over the fear and come up with a good topic) my talk may be good enough that someone else could get something to take away from it and possibly help them move forward.

I am a professional blogger and blog for other networks, so maybe I could speak on something along that line. Maybe my experience in general and how I got into the blogging world. From finding my first job and moving on from there.

The thing is that I have never attended a BarCamp and I am not sure what kind of crowd to expect and what level they will be at. Meaning I am not sure if my knowledge will be able to help anyone at this type of event. I do have stuff to share, good points and things that I have made mistakes with.

With BarCamp coming up fast, I have plenty of thinking left to do…

The “cloud” seems to be the hit item lately, there are plenty of options for online storage, web apps and much more. It seems there is so much available at this point that many users could have a super small hard drive, just running a basic operating system and keep most if not everything off your computer.

As many that follow along here already know, I work from home as a blogger and you would think that as a home office based worker that most of my data would be locally stored. But thanks to some new (and old) programs I have found myself storing quite a bit of data in the cloud. Now don’t get me wrong, I still have most of this data also stored locally, but the cloud storage allows me to access this on multiple devices.

At this point I am using:

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I am really excited, today I am making my way over to Orlando. Its a relatively short drive, just a little over an hour and I am sure the drive will be worth it. The event I am headed to is BlogOrlando and from the looks of the schedule it is going to feel like information overload.

This should be a good day, a day that I can get out of the house and out of my home office and just enjoy learning and meeting some new people. Of course the learning part is fun for me, the meeting new people is going to be a little harder. I guess part of the reason why I enjoy blogging so much is that it can be very virtual and I can avoid the awkward social face-to-face meetings.

But with that, I do realize that I also need to network in real life to make progress in the pro-blogging world.

I was registered and intended to go to IzeaFest a few weeks back, but my wife ended up having surgery a few days before and it just was not a good time to leave, after all family comes first. Then after BlogOrlando I will also be attending the first Tampa Bay BarCamp, which is on October 11 and 12th.

That should be interesting in itself, I am planning to attend the party the night of the 11th, which begins at 5:30 and then the full New Media day on the 12th. I say that it should be interesting because I am running a 50k trail run on the morning of the 11th and will most likely be pretty sore and tired. But overall it should be another great event for me to learn and do some more networking and hopefully work to get passed some of my social anxiety.

begin note
This post is actually a little old at this point, I had started it as a draft a while back and just let it sit. You can see my few previous posts if you need any idea of why it was never written. Anyway, I still wanted to post this because even though I wrote it based on a now old comment its still relevant.
end note

begin post
Sarah Perez posted a message, well actually a question on Twitter and it really got me thinking…

“I still care about what mainstream web users think and feel…do you? Or do you think we should just leave them all behind?”

After giving this some thought, lately I feel like I am leaving people behind, and when I try to figure out why I cannot come up with an answer.

To give some background, I am a full time tech blogger, which means that the latest story is the hottest story and it gets old quickly, actually very quickly and we need to stay on top of what is going on. I have gotten so used to that with my online life it has started to spill out in the real world for me.

Giving it some thought, I am not sure what it really means, logically thinking is it really that exciting to know that a new (enter product name here) is coming out in (enter future time here)? Or can I be just as happy to know the details when its actually available?

I think I can describe this with a statement, although to be honest I am not sure it makes sense, but here goes…

I feel like I am living a virtual life in a real life world.

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Things have been changing lately for me, I had questioned my desire to keep blogging full time a little while back. Since then some positive changes have taken place, I have taken a few days off and I now have a few things in the works that look good for the future.

The roles that changed have given me some more freedom to come and go, which is why I began blogging in the first place. I can now write as I want and need, but do not have to be available 24/7 any longer. That is good news to me!

As for my few days away, they have done wonders for me and once again I have a refreshed feeling and I am ready to begin writing again. Its strange because when I was getting real burnt out I found myself resorting back to my old life and actually handed out a few business cards as a mortgage broker. While I still maintain my studies with that and keep my license active with the state and a company, its not a path I want to pursue full time at this point. Also, if you have seen me in real life or in pictures you can most likely tell that I am not really a corporate type of guy.

During my few days away, I have kept tabs on a select few of my favorite sites, just to stay somewhat in the loop and it looks like that may have been a good move because another opportunity seems to have come up for me. This latest will hopefully allow me to reach another audience and hopefully grow further as a writer and blogger.

As of now I am hoping for the best and still looking to further myself in the blogging world. Although I have a hard time telling people what I do for a living, as most do not seem to understand, I am proud to be earning a full time living as a blogger. Of course there is always room to grow and better myself.

In the meantime blogging will retain my full attention and as far as being a mortgage broker, that will remain on the back burner and I will pick up a deal here and there just to make some extra money.

I have long struggled with this site, over the years it has gone through several focal points and numerous designs. Bottom line is that I have never really been able to post with any consistency and even when I manage to get a few posts out I am not really sure where I want this to go in the long run.

I have at least figured out part of my problem, and it is actually pretty dumb. I tend to avoid posting here because by the time I write everywhere else (for sites that pay the bills) I generally just do not feel like writing anymore.

Granted I have things to say, but most of the time they just go unsaid. Talk about being a bad blogger. Even though I realize by me posting here I can only further myself in the blogging world, it is still hard to find make the time to actually put my thoughts down.

I need to get passed that. I has settled on a theme for this blog, and it would be to basically just talk about my experience in blogging, things I have found interesting in the online world and want to share, but generally speaking I consider it my “journey through the internet.” Now I just need to get it through my head that just because I am not getting paid to write here that I am doing it for free.

I guess this is a drawback to being a network blogger and not working entirely for yourself as an owner/blogger.

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