Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday is coming up in a week.  I don't normally make a big deal out of these things; they're just another day on the calendar as far as I'm concerned.  But I decided to splurge this year and buy myself a birthday gift.

Last year was my first year officiating in my new location.  At the orientation meeting, I informed the commissioner that, because of timing and then location, most of my experience was with 4-man crews and that I was comfortable working as a Referee and Line Judge, I would work as Linesman (but preferred not to), and I would absolutely not in any circumstance work as an Umpire.  Again, because of timing and location, I have really only worked as a Back Judge less than ten times in my career.

That's what I told the commissioner.

As such, he saw fit to schedule my first four or five varsity games as the Back Judge.  Well, to keep this short, I got to enjoy the position, began to learn its nuances, and learned enough to have a decent rookie season back there -- so decently that I was called at the last minute to work a first round playoff game as the BJ.  I had to decline that, though, because that was the weekend my bishop was in town.  But I digress . . .

So I learned to work a new position last year and got to be fairly decent at it.  This year I bought myself a new toy to help me out:










It's called a Ready Ref and its a timer for timeouts and the play clock.  This means that I don't have to keep looking at my watch to see if we're on time.  I just push a button and it lets me know when time's up.  And since I don't have to constantly check my watch, I can pay closer attention to the game.  Which, by the way, first varsity game is in 18 days.

Happy Birthday.