ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED

1. Get accepted to a tournament with WFTDA sanctioned games as a non-alt referee
2. Get accepted to a tournament that requires air travel
3. Work as front OPR for a game and keep constant positioning (I guess I kinda did this?)
4. If certification opens up again, apply!

Hostile TacOver, the WFTDA B-Team Championships in Tampa in October!  yaaaaaaaaaay!

Unfortunately being accepted to a tournament that requires air travel means that you have to buy plane tickets.  ZOMFG I HATE BUYING PLANE TICKETS.  (Have I mentioned this?)  I finally pulled the trigger this morning and figured out it's cheaper to fly out of Buffalo, so I'll be doing that.

whee

so at practice last night we were working on things that we're not 100% confident on (hello, hockey stops!) and then at the end of practice our HR was like "okay, we're going to work on backwards crossovers."

My history with backwards crossovers is a bit fraught.  When I was a little kid skating my heart out in the basement listening to Hooked on Classics, my backwards skating stance was with my left foot behind me (i.e., my left foot leading in the direction I am skating).  Fastforward thirty plus years later, when I discover if you're going to do backwards crossovers in derby direction, YOUR RIGHT FOOT NEEDS TO LEAD IN THE DIRECTION YOU ARE SKATING HAHAHAHAH NEENER NEENER NEENER TO YOU.

So I had to relearn how to skate backwards.

Anyway, after much trial and error, I got fairly decent at backwards crossovers where I only pick up my right foot.  I can go around the track, I do it with no issues when I am the front IPR and all that.

So last night I decided to try and do backwards crossovers where you pick up both feet.

I realized something this morning, on my way into work.  Do you know what ice skaters do when they want to get up a LOT of speed to propel themselves into a huge jump or an amazing spin or an axel or a lutz or whatever it is they're called?

THEY DO BACKWARDS CROSSOVERS WHERE YOU PICK UP BOTH FEET

It was legit terrifying and very much a JANE STOP THIS CRAZY THING experience.  I couldn't think of a way to stop moving my feet without crashing and burning.  (Eventually I did crash and burn, resulting in a somersault on the track.)

(I also realized that I probably should not wear my glasses to practice.)

so that was last night's practice. We're having a scrimmage on Thursday and then we're off for about two weeks and things start up again.  I don't really have any officiating scheduled either (WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?  I KNOW!) so I don't know what I'll do with myself.

ok so to update

1. I got a new contact lens prescription (my left eye changed a bit - gettin' old sucks, y'all) and they're much better.  I think I'll go back to wearing contacts while officiating, but reserve the right to wear glasses if my contacts get weird...

2. ...which is what happened when I went to Ottawa for a doubleheader - I had to switch to glasses for the last half of the last game.  Made a joke about "oh, NOW the ref is wearing her glasses so she can see."

3. LEAGUES NEED WELL-TRAINED NSOs.  A sanctioned game is not the place for a brand new NSO to learn his/her position.  We got a fair amount of the way through the second half before we realized THE PENALTY TRACKER WASN'T USING ANY PAPERWORK.

4. I think I found a lipstick that will do (more or less) what I want it to do - Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink.  It still comes off, but nowhere near as much as everything else I've used.

5. OPRing a men's game tomorrow, then I actually have some weekends where nothing's going on ZOMFG.

a sad, bleak, black day for Queenie

RADAR DIAMOND WHEELS HAVE BEEN DISCONTINUED

INSERT BIG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HERE

I GUESS I'M GOING TO HAVE TO BUY EVERY SINGLE SET I CAN FIND NOW

every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

so Fresh & Furious went well! It was a fun tournament and it was interesting to see penalties that one doesn't normally see in the level of game play I'm used to.

So yesterday was my 9th derbyversary.  Nine years.  Sometimes I feel like I've been doing it my entire life, other times it seems like just yesterday I was lining up to do my 20 laps in 5 to be able to skate in a bout for the first time.  I don't like thinking much about how my life would be different if I hadn't discovered derby.

Not necessarily in honor of the derbyversary (it actually was just a coincidence), but a few things happened:

1. retired the hockey helmet.  NEW HELMET WHEE!

 2.  (related to 1) I refereed in glasses!  It went really well - I didn't have any issues with them fogging up.  (the Q was just a temporary decoration, stolen from my hockey helmet.  I have a few ideas on how I'm going to decorate this one.)

3. I retired my skate case (formerly a typewriter case).  One of the latches was breaking and it was getting to be more of a hassle than it was worth.  I bought a skate noose and we'll see how that goes.

wheep wheep

So QCRG (the Buffalo league) has been treating July as "Thank You" month, where they're posting nice things about their volunteers and officials and whatnot.

THEY POSTED A THANK YOU TO ME!

Queen Kicktoria also comes from Roc City Roller Derby to help us out and we are beyond thankful to her. She helps our games run smoothly and has helped us out more than almost any other outside referee. She's the first to volunteer to come if we need her.

 Thank you Queenie! We really appreciate you and all the driving you do to come hang with us.

And people wrote nice things after that blush blush eeeeee.

ANYWAY.

Saturday is Fresh & Furious, in Toronto.  That'll be fun.  Then Ithaca and then Ottawa and then who knows what else in the upcoming 

a weekend without any officiating OH MY GOD

I HRed the second half of scrimmage last night - it went okay.  Slowly but surely I'm learning.  Pack stuff changes so quickly - it's like "out of play in - you're in play now".  Then there's all the other stuff I gotta look out for.

Prompted by a thread I'm reading on FB about the reasons there is starting to be a lack of officials in high school sports and burnout, I decided to note how many games I have officiated since I started:

2017: 62
2016: 52
2015: 36
2014: 2 (I started in October)

(this is basically what's on my officiating resume, which includes things like 20 minute Beast of the East games and 30 minute ECDX challenge games)

I'm still definitely in the OMG OFFICIATING ROLLER DERBY IS THE GREATEST THING EVAR honeymoon phase.  I have to make myself take weekends off to ensure I don't burn out.  (it's not necessarily that I sit at home doing nothing - it's a "I have this thing I could go to, or I could officiate that game, I'll go to this thing.")

Anyway.  Things like ECDX and tournaments* are quite different for players than they are for officials.  Skaters might have three games an entire weekend - officials have that many in a DAY.  I had ELEVEN GAMES IN FOUR DAYS at Battle of the All-Stars.  It's a combination woodchipper and summer camp.
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*I'm guessing - I never actually went to a tournament as a skater