Michael is away at a training seminar for Home Video Studio owners. He will return Monday March 5th. However he is blogging daily from the field. Subscribe to have it delivered straight to your email.

The keynote speaker at last night’s Celebration Dinner was unable to attend and so I was asked to step in at the last minute to address my peers on the subject of my journey to becoming a Home Video Studio franchise owner.

It was an address I was supposed to give two years ago when I was honored with the title of Home Video Studio Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately, family circumstances prevented me from attending in 2016 so this opportunity allowed me to say some of the things I had planned to say back then.

Truth be told, it wasn’t my first keynote address. Back in high school, I was tapped to deliver the class history at our senior class banquet (later to be repeated at an all school assembly). I remember being nervous. I had scripted out the speech which was more or less constructed like a Johnny Carson monologue. One joke after another, many of which were innuendoes in order to get them past the red pen of the administration officials assigned to censor any inappropriate comments. They missed more than they found. But I was nervous because I had never tried any of the jokes out on a live audience. I was going in cold.

I had crafted the speech as a twenty minute routine but it stretched out to twice that length due to the overwhelmingly positive audience reaction. At the end, my classmates rose as one and gifted me with the first standing ovation I ever received.

No, history did not repeat itself here. But, then again, I think I was a lot funnier when I was 18.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio of Mount Dora specialize in the preservation of family memories. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit www.homevideostudio.com/mtd.