TEDx Lacrosse24

As some of you know I'm a real fan of the TED talks. I've been thoroughly mind boggled several times, interested more times than I could count, and only rarely disappointed with a talk. Then a buddy of mine mentioned that there was a TEDx event at the school her kids go to. It turns out that one of the students had done a proposal for a TEDx event, and decided to actually carry it out.

I thought it would be really neat to go to one of these, and if it supports bright kids so much the better. The world is going to need all the bright kids it can find in the coming years. The theme was innovation. One of the speakers was worth the price of admission by himself. The other 4 were ok, but didn't look so good in comparison to the best speaker.

They had some video from other TED talks, a couple of which I'd seen, but that was ok. In between the kids put on some performances, all surprisingly good and enjoyable. All in all a good day.

There was some work paperwork in the afternoon. I had to insert a signature into a PDF file. I've done this before, but it took a few minutes to remember how I had done it. More than a few minutes. Stupid PDFs anyways. I just love reading company policies on health and safety, ethical behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, computing security and other such stuff. At least I didn't have to watch a video, though that may come.

Saturday I was up early to be an official witness for the Lacrosse 24 event. This was an official attempt to set a Guiness World record for the longest lacrosse game, aiming for 24 hours. Lots of paperwork to document it properly. I took some photos and video, but only one of the shots was really any good. The players were amazing, still moving pretty fast even at the end of the game. I went back to see the end and help out a bit more.

One of the things that was a real surprise to me was the smell. I played hockey in high school, where it was considered bad luck to wash equipment. There was a smell there. I used to do SCA heavy armoured combat, and there was for sure a smell to the equipment there. But lacrosse beats those easily. Wow.

In between my witness shift and the end of the game I came home and went for a nice run. It was just a bit too cool for weenie me to go out on my bike, but I saw a bunch of other riders. I rand down into Fish Creek out and back, for 90 minutes, about 13 K, nice and easy. The last 10 or 15 minutes my feet were getting pretty tired, but they were still turning over fairly well. 

Here's a few random shots from the Lacrosse game. Paperwork has to be done to track just about everything that happens.

Each team had 4 shifts. Two shifts were playing at any particular time, with another shift on the bench or in the dressing room available immediately if needed. They could and did snooze. The girl on the floor was sound asleep. The last shift could go into a quiet dressing room for some actual sleep if they wanted, or could sit in the stands with friends and relax a bit.

There were 8 women playing, and some were pretty scrappy. One got a penalty that was recorded as "holding", but really, it was a full on molestation.

Here's Martin Parnell, still moving fast in the closing minutes of the game.

I think he was asleep too, or nearly so, but while playing he could run like the wind.

Victory for everybody involved!