Playing in club chess tournaments is often a very humbling experience. Trying my very best but losing, sometimes quickly, does not instill a sense of confidence. But then there are moments that make me smile.
This morning I received an email from one of the clubs in which I play notifying me that I'd won a section in a tournament there and was being “bumped up” to play the next round against more advanced opponents. This made me smile.
Tomorrow night is supposed to be colder yet, and Wednesday is supposed to bring us more freezing rain and snow on top of the three to seven inches we have in our area presently. And...
And in addition to the Wind Chill Warning and Winter Storm WArning we're currently under, we've also got a Pollen Alert due to the high levels od cedar pollen in the air now. And...
And though Sylvia and I haven't yet been hit by them, there are rolling power blackouts in the area that are expected to continue through the duration of this extreme weather.
While Svengoolie showed a movie I've seen about a zillion times I reached over to the little multi-band radio to see what I could bring up on the shortwave. The first thing I found broadcasting in English with enough clarity to hear through the noise (my room is a pretty noisy place from which to try to pull in radio signal) was Radio Habana Cuba.
After listening for awhile I switched off the little radio and began paying attention to the TV again. Even though the film was boring, Sven's schtick is always delightful.
I have active correspondence chess games in four different clubs. In one of those clubs I'm playing in three different tournaments and some players are playing in more than one tournament with me.
In order to keep myself organized during a session with these games, I record each opponent as I work on the game against him, then place a check mark when I've moved in his game and am ready to move on to another. You'll notice in today's list pictured above, two players get two check marks. These are guys who are playing in different tourneys with me, and the two marks mean I've moved in the two games against each.
And when a game ends I note that, too. Of all the games worked on today, I lost one, resigning to my opponent. Oh well, can't win them all, you know. I'm pretty confident that tomorrow's session will see me winning a game.
Rafael, Laurell Hamilton's latest novel in her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series was delivered to my Kindle today. And I'm looking forward to starting it tonight.
This is the 28th book in the series and, while I may not have read every one of them, I'm confident that I've read most. I've certainly read all the early books as well as everything she's published in recent years.
At only 230 something pages long, this little book is almost in the novella category. Some reviewers have said it reminds them of her earlier books in this series. I'm confident I'll like it.
San Antonio desperately needs a Republican Mayor to help clean up the mess that the Democrats in City Hall are making and to start restoring our freedoms. That's why I'm supporting Greg Brockhouse for Mayor.
As far as I can tell, mine is the first yard sign up in the neighborhood. Hope it stays up for the duration of the campaign.
Over the past 10 days or so I've been steadily ramping up an old hobby of mine, SW and MW DXing. I still have the portable multi-band radio that I used for shortwave listening in the late 1990s, and it appears to be in pretty good shape despite its age. A few days ago I added an external antenna to improve reception. And I've found a welcoming FaceBook group and an interesting YouTube Channel devoted to this hobby that help keep me informed and enthused.
Though I've not been posting too much about it recently, my correspondence chess play has picked up quite a bit. I'm carrying a bigger game load now and spending more time on my games. Most days find me working at least an hour on the games, and sometimes it's much more than that.
Both of these hobbies are solitary by nature and perfectly suited to the socially restricted lifestyle forced on us during this time of covid.
While they keep me from obsessing over the fake news of the day, which is a very good thing, they take time away from what has been my primary hobby for the last several years: my blogging.
Now that I've wiped the hard drive on my laptop and given it a fresh OS installation (that was yesterday's big chore), it's running faster and operating more smoothly. Hopefully that will make my writing easier and allow me to resume more regular blogging. We shall see.
Midday yesterday I won this Correspondence Chess Club Tournament game with my Black Queen, defended and assisted by her Rook, delivering the mating move.
Our board at game's end is shown above, and our full move record is below:
When I moved from Indiana to South Texas twenty years ago I was struggling (yeah, right) to get and keep my body weight down in the 220's. It was pretty consistently in the low to mid 230's then and I did not like that at all.
During the intervening years from then to now the weight increased slowly but steadily until it peaked at 255 lbs. Every time it got up into the 250s I'd begin trying more seriously to lose some until the body weight dropped down into the mid-240s, which I mistakenly considered my “normal.” And I held onto that mindset until as recently as this past December.
This morning the bathroom scales registered 232 lbs. after several days of moving steadily down through the 230s. And I'm feeling so much better! So after twenty years here in San Antonio I'm finally twenty pounds down.
If (when!) I drop another twenty pounds I'll be the same size as when I moved from Bloomington to Indianapolis. And another 10 or 15 pounds beyond that I'll be back to the man I used to be when I was zipping around in a UPS package car.
Earlier today my opponent playing the Black pieces resigned this game, giving me the victory with my White army. He was certainly right to resign when he did. After my Bishop captured his Knight at 27.Bxc4 he was left with only a Rook against my Rook and Queen.
Our board at game's end is shown above, and our moce record below:
