ok so it's been a while I tend to do that

so, let's see...in no particular order:

I got new glasses for refereeing - they're big lenses with no transitions, so I can see a lot and see it clearly. 

one thing I forgot to mention from Beast - at one point, a referee from another crew told me something like "I've been watching you, and how when you're middle OPR, you stand way back*.  I tried that, and I really like it."  HOLY CRAP I INFLUENCE PEOPLE KINDA SORTA.

(*I stand pretty much at the edge of the OPR lane, to the point where I almost run into coaches who are standing at the edges of their box.  It gives me a wider field of vision and helps me from getting into too much tunnel vision.  I also try to do it on the inside when JRing, but it's harder.)

still haven't ordered new boots yet.  I can't decide on the colors I want.  I was going to get a mix of orange/pink/blue/yellow/purple, but then I saw a picture of silver ones with pink and blue trim and they were amazingly beautiful and now I'm all torn.  I think I need to see more of the actual colors in person before I make a final decision. 

Put Up Your Toques was a few weekends ago; it went really well.  I was happy with how I performed and all that.  Got some good feedback - more acknowledgment of communication; clearer and slower signals - one particular piece was that I often forget to do the follow-through of pointing off the track when completing a penalty call, which I never realized until I paid attention and yeah, I do forget to do it often.  So I've been working on that. 

The double header that I was HR for the entire night (regulation game and 40 minute juniors' game) went ok as well; we had a slight emergency when the laptop with the stats book on it wouldn't connect to the printer, and that took up a lot more time than it should have and then people would come up to me with questions and I'd be like CAN'T YOU SEE I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CRISIS HERE and was much snippier than was necessary (I need to work on that).  No one died, the juniors were a lot of fun, happy ending all around.

Yesterday I went out to Buffalo for a juniors game; I RIPRed but wasn't HR (and I'm very glad I wasn't; had a situation where THREE players were expelled in a single jam (one of whom most definitely got a suspension).  I'm not going to go into detail because it was a juniors game, but it was something I'd never seen in person before and hope I don't see again.

Related to pack definition and whatnot... I really need to stop resting on the laurels of being naturally loud and work on actually projecting from my chest.  It'll only help me get better.

Let's see... I may or may not hit 300 games officiated before the end of the year.  I'm at 282 (238 ref/44 NSO) right now, with at least 9 more games scheduled, not including ECDX.  Wheeeeee!