On Saturday I attended BarCamp 4 at East Perth TAFE. It was a really well organised event (Matt and Darcy did a great job) and the content presented by the speakers was really engaging and interesting.

I saw Jessica Ender’s talk on form design as well as Samuel Spencer’s talk on the Australian Bureau of Statistics and their adoption of open data formats for delivering data sets to the public.

My talk was on after lunch, and I think me wandering around in a blue gi drew a little bit of attention (which if I’m being honest, I was banking on) and had people interested. Aaron helped me with the talk and received a few knocks to the head as thanks - his noggin was determined to meet the carpet-covered-concrete as often as it could.

I talked about the overlap I see between my jiu-jitsu training and every day business life, and my hope is that I’ll get the audience thinking about all the areas of their lives, which they may have previously considered insular or separate, and how they might in fact be connected and relevant.

I personally had a great time at the event, and The Frontier Group will be sponsoring it again in the future. I was disappointed that another engagement meant I couldn’t stay for the whole day, but I was very pleased with what I did get to partake in. There were a few of us pressuring Matt to plan for the next BarCamp in 6 months, but we’ll see how that goes.

I’ve uploaded the slides from my talk if you’d like to check them out.

Most people have a team. In Australia it’s likely to be your state’s AFL team, or either Ford or Holden if you’re a bogan, or maybe an English Premier League team if you’ve got an international flair. I don’t have a team.

Or rather, I didn’t have a team, until last week.

When I was in Vancouver a few years ago I saw the Canucks play the Edmonton Oilers (in ice hockey). I had a great time, and made some instant-friends in the process. I picked up a Canucks cap at the game and still wear it with fond memories, however I haven’t watched a game of ice hockey since I left Canada. Incidentally, I was watching NHL on TV nearly every night we were in North America. I think the lack of exposure made it easy to forget.

I decided I wanted a new team, but didn’t want the usual Eagles or Dockers. A quick search showed that the US Major League Baseball season was about to start, so that’s the sport I chose. As a kid I used to wear my grey Cleveland Indians beanie and the Indians are not a super-common team (which was another requirement) so they were a fine choice for this adventure. You can expect to see the beanie in the cooler months.

I decked my Xbox Live avatar out in a Cleveland Indians cap, and bought one in real life (which arrived today, prompting this post and the above photo).

We lost the opening game to the White Sox yesterday, but tomorrow’s a new day, and the season has only just begun! Starting next week, One HD will be showing up to five games live, which might mean a few 6AM wake-ups for me if the Indians are playing.

What’s your team, and what drives you to support them?