Wow - four posts, four days! It must be some kind of... pathetic attempt at something. Anyway, today is the day I'm preparing to get back to work and preparing to try out some new hockey equipment.
It's a new year at work. We've shipped product into an actual market, we have loose ends to tie up and I have to endeavor to make things better for all. Complacency is an enticing and dangerous state - we're an "agile" workplace, but I don't think I did enough retrospecting. Now is a good time to look back and think about I could have done better. Team-wise, I think things went quite well, except for a lack of retrospectives. The team is cohesive, adaptive and gets things done. We've tried, in our own silo fashion, to develop practices and methods that result in better output. Towards the end of the year, I gave a presentation on one of these practices. Another team member gave a presentation on the technical details of the features our team maintains. This kind of outreach is the type of company-wide connection that I'd like to promote. I haven't done enough to make that happen, other than complain - something I know I'm pretty darn good at already. It's time to branch out from complaint to action.
Optimistic words for an optimistic time of the year. Now on to my other preparations - hockey related. I got myself a new helmet and a new pair of skates. My current helmet, although quite nice, was beginning to react poorly during the course of a game. I suspect, (but can't prove), that certain pads were absorbing sweat and slowly crushing my head. Not good. I have the dents to justify these suspicions and the cage was getting rusty, so it was time to move on. I bought a cheaper version of the same helmet, with nice smooth pads. Hopefully this will provide the protection and lack of soft padding that was SQUEEZING MY BRAAAIN!!!
I also got new skates, which I've been promising myself for a long time. I wanted to get a pair of high-quality, modern skates. I asked around and Graf was touted as the best, so I've been investigating for a while now. I went to Pete's Sports to see if I could find someone that could fit skates properly. Graf is not a volume brand, so I was confident that any store that actually carried them would have suitably trained staff, and I was not mistaken. Graf is known for their comfortable skate and their range of shapes - capable of accomodating a very wide range feet. I have small feet, so they are hard to fit. Because they are so small. Anyway, this turned out to be an advantage as I fit best in a Juniour size, which cost less than the Senior sizes. Also, I ended up choosing a pair that I probably couldn't break in if they were a Senior pair. Turns out, it's not a great idea to go into the nearest sports store and buy the top-of-the-line skate. Usually they are so stiff that you'd have to play in a competitive league to break them in properly. So remember that when buying your next pair - save yourself some money and some pain!
Anyway, buying was good, but today I prepare to actually use them. It's going to be different because they are a size-and-a-half smaller than my old ones, so the blade area is much decreased. On the other hand, they are lighter, so maybe I'll be able to pump those legs a little faster. Now I just have to look into that extra padding 'round the middle...
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