High Speed

Well, not really. Not quite the T-1 I use at work, but compared to what I was getting with dialup, it's pretty good. It's the slowest package of Wildblue's satellite internet and the download transfer averages 65 kbps - roughly 20 to 30 times that of dialup. Uploads are much slower, tho. Still faster than dialup.

There is a slight latency with send signals (22,000 mile distance).

Long weekend can't get here fast enough

'nuff said.

Guilt

I've so much to do around here, for some reason I feel guilty for wanting to play chess. I miss playing and learning new things. But chess season is near & it won't be too long until I can hang & shoot the bull with the players at the club in Battle Creek.

Another

Checked in this morning at 200.5
:)
Weight loss at what they consider a healthy rate. No fast food. No soda-pop. Little or no candy. Eating reasonable portions & not stuffing myself silly 'cause damn it, I love to eat and tend to get carried away!

Of course, that'll like change this weekend because it's the annual SweetCornDays!

Crazy Graphic

That Warrior Chess title sign is kind of nutz, huh? Darned thing won't keep still. Click on it to see the full effect.

Anyway, I weighed 201.5 this morning! Yep, I broke the double digit weight loss barrier now up to 11.5 lbs of fat loss. Under 200 is the next goal. I guess if there's a good side to getting ill......

It seems to be a sinus infection, maybe a little upper respiratory, too. Getting better, tho.

Having to stay away from the wife & kids is hard 'cause I just want to squeeze them all the time. They need tickles & Daddytime.

Andrew Ooi, Web Developer, Programmer Extraordinaire

Andrew created Chess Publisher much to the appreciation of myself along with thousands of other chess bloggers around the world. He's done a great service to chess and the chess blogosphere - done for the game, not for the money.

Thanks, Andrew! Best wishes to you in your developing & online endeavors! And thank you for taking the time to comment here!

The new Chess Publisher is improved. One way is that you can see commentary between the moves.

The main difference as far a functionality goes, is that the site visitor must press the "[Replay Game]" just under the game heading before any moves can be cycled. It took me a while to figure that out. You know, instead of just hitting the buttons to cycle the moves.

Here's a game I played today -



An easy win, but black could've made it more difficult. White wins nicely after creating a positional advantage by doubling up black's pawns.

Sick again

I'm really tired of this. Sick again & missing more work. This really sucks.

It's the same thing as before. I guess the antibiotics never really knocked it out. It lingered & reared its ugly head on Sunday with a fever just after church. I went in to work on Monday knowing I'd have to check out & head to the doctor's office. So, again I got a seven day supply, only now I'm to take 4 pills/day.

It's one of those illnesses when the fever throws your sense of time off. I've sat here for almost an hour & it seems like I've been here most of the day.

Anyway, I should probably do something. I've rested some but still, I hate being idle & unproductive - especially on a missed work day.

New Poll

I weighed 203 this morning. That's an official double-digit loss of weighted mass.

Had to post a new poll because the changes in this blog rendered the old one inapplicable. Many thanks to those of you that participated in the previous poll. Please take part in this one.

Regarding the current poll, my feelings are towards the plain-colored board diagram because the file sizes are smaller, that's all. I like the look of all of them.

I was advised to checkout mychess.com's chess viewer. I did. I like it. The only downside is that hosting space is required as it's not blogger-friendly. I can temporarily set it up just to check it out but it cannot be permanent. So, until I find some free hosting space somewhere, I'll stick with Chess Publisher.

Thanks, Kurs for the tip!

'Bout time

'Bout time I played a game. Actually, I played two - won one, lost one that I should've won. Yep, they say the hardest thing to win is a won game. I was under time pressure, up a pawn in the endgame & blew it. Fritz awarded a tactic medal to both games. The first tactic was pretty easy -







White to move.

Find the shot.






I know that one is pretty easy for you chess players. The answer is Nxf7 (knight on e5 takes the pawn on f7, forking black's queen & bishop). I went on to win that game easily.

This next one is tougher. I was the black side against a good guest player (GuestFN). The game involved a lot of positional manoeuvring. Both of us were seeing eachother's tactical & calculated traps & ideas, which was pretty neat. We played very similar, it was like playing against myself. Anyway, here's the diagram -






BLACK to move.

Find the shot!







Things are pretty even here, with maybe a slight advantage in space for white. I played Nxe4+ thinking it put me up a pawn. It did and I played into a winning endgame but that was not the best move there. The best move is actually Nd3+! The other move, Nxe4+ did put me up a pawn and was answered by white's Be3 & the knight had to go back to c5.

The best move, Nd3+ actually wins & stops white from playing Be3 altogether.

Anyway, I dropped a two pawn endgame advantage & succumbed to a blunder. We both missed deep tactics. If you can spot the one white missed that would've completely won, you're a very good player! Comment this post if you can't find it & want me to give the answer. Here's the entire game if you're interested -

2o3point5

Yep, 203.5! That's 9 1/2 lbs since July 18 - roughly 4 weeks and that's just from a semi-conscious effort to resist sweets, soda pop, not stuffing myself silly when it's time to eat AND not eating late at night out of boredom. Also, smaller lunches that help me to avoid that "food coma" that can come from eating a lot at lunch time.

I still partake in some junk, tho. Two things of M&M's yesterday & one this morning. I can't help it. I need a snack or something an hour or two before lunch and and hour or two after lunch.

I've got to start playing chess again. I played the one game mentioned in another post. Other than that, I really haven't played much since winter. Jeff (my cousin & reigning Michigan Class E Champion) and I played 4 games Sunday night & I pretty much got outplayed in every game, losing 3 out of 4. Still, it's not just from me not playing much. I must credit Jeff, too, because he's a strong player and seems stronger every time we play.

Here's an interesting position from our first game after white's 19th move, f3. I'm playing the black side.







BLACK to move.









What's the best continuation?

Assessment: Material is even. He's ahead in development and space, he's got an advanced knight on e5, and two bishops aiming at my kingside. My knight on e4 is being threatened and must move.

All of this favors white. Being the patzer that I am, I spot the knight move to f2 - forking the two rooks and that's the move I played.

In hindsight, I realize that if his two bishops weren't beaming fire to my king's corner, that might be a good move. But in this particular position, I think both of those bishops are more valuable (or potentially deadlier) than either of his rooks so it would've been better at this point in the game to swap out one of his bishops instead of going for the rook fork.

Fritz said the play should've continued from the diagram with ....Ba3+ (opening the e-file for black's rook and pressuring white's king). White then moves Kb1 (the only move) and THEN black swaps out the knight for white's bishop and from there the position is assessed by the computer as totally equal, although black still has his hands full - considering the eventual white expansion & pawnstorm on the kingside.

Yes, there are times when a bishop is more valuable than a rook. I believe this to be one of those situations. What do you think?

I ended up losing on time in what the computer says is an equal position. My anti-computer sense tells me white should have a plus here.

Here's the game -

Honey

The best doggie in the world. Always with one ear up, one ear down, she still played like a puppy even in her old age.

Chess Publisher

Here is a different way to publish a game of chess. I think it's better than what I was doing, because you can cycle the moves and add in your own variations and then hit the "R" button - reverting back or resetting the position. I don't care for the white background, tho, and the browser must have Javascript enabled. The guy is 90% done with a new version but it's been 8 months in the making so I don't think it'll be available anytime soon.

The animated graphics I was making are original and you don't see those on other chess sites or blogs. I'll miss the "Check, sucker" and things like that when viewing them.

This particular game below (which I have no idea why I'm actually posting it), I lost in spectacular fashion. At some point, the phone rang. I answered it. It was the hospital & I went into a deep conversation about my hospital stay. I believe this to be around White's 32nd move because that's when I started moving like I never played the game before.

Yes. This is evidence that I cannot play chess online & talk on the phone at the same time. Jeff, my opponent, was gracious in obliging my sacrifices. I went from an easily won game to an embarrassing loss. Funny, I can just imagine what was going thru his mind after my moves 32 & 35.



I resigned at move 63. Anyone can see Black has a checkmate in 13 moves.

Just kidding. Fritz pointed that out to me.

Close game

White to move and win.








Click on the graphic to see the animated continuation.

This was an online game I played back in 2002. If the checkmate wasn't there, I'd be in serious trouble.

Skateboards = obsessed, sweaty kids with skinned knees, scratches, cuts, bruises, & scrapes. I must applaud them because they always wear their helmets & they get back on & try again.

Penny Lane is one of those tunes that makes it fun to play bass guitar. It makes the entire thing what it is. Not anything like the other instruments in the tune, it's doing its own thing far apart from them. So different. Which is why it's so unique. All the instruments are playing from the same book but on different pages & they beautifully coincide. The theoretical structure suggests a simple bass line, but McCartney makes it almost complex with many subtleties that render the tune such a masterful production. They must've spent some time on it.

Well, I should get off my ass & finish the trailer because the grass is getting long after all the rain we've had and the garden needs some tending to.

I weighed 205 again this morning. That means I'm about to drop another pound or two.

Question: Does coffee contain any calories? Someone told me it does.

Queen Sacrifice

White to move.








White should easily win this position regardless of the nice tactic.

Click on the graphic to see the animated continuation.

205

Ha! 205 poundaroos dee iss mo nin, baby!

Not too bad

Today I weight 206. Less than I expected but still not considered progress. I don't expect tomorrow to be any better. I wasn't as bad, but still not as disciplined as before. So, I just gotta step it up.

I haven't started the P90x thing yet, either. Lazy? That may be part of it. I'll try go get going on that this weekend. Yeah, I know ....you've heard it before. : )

The problem with the car was indeed the alternator. After having it towed to the shop, I paid $160 for the alternator to be rebuilt and a new belt put on. Not too bad, I guess. Except for the $95.00 towing bill, and even then - from south Marshall to Litchfield was a long way to tow for $95. That put an unexpected dent in the budget. I hate those.

Had about enough of this heat & humidity yet? Geez, I just walk outside somewhere & come in the house all damp, sweaty, & stuff. I imagine it's a little worser down south.

Garuns

A picture of Flappy devouring a cricket from Nathanael's hand. He still talks about that bird.

Garuns - I'll gain another pound. Yep, I was 207 this morning and didn't hold anything back today. That included a Snickers, a small bag of Doritos, some Oreos & about 1/2 a can of Pringles. For the record, I did spread all that out throughout the entire day, but still.

Hey, I had a light lunch & only a salad for dinner so it's all right. :)

Nah, gotta get back to the discipline I had not too long ago. Starting tomorrow. :)

Something's bothering me & I don't know what it is. Does that ever happen to you, when you just can't exactly point it out?

Oh, yeah, now I remember. My car took a shit today. Something electrical. Hopefully something as simple as a new alternator but it completely failed on the way home from work. Lost power, everything. It started on the way to work this morning, just the battery light on the dash came on, then the ABS light, then the brake light, then the radio quit, then it wanted to stall at a stop sign, then it wouldn't start after I pulled into work. That happened to me once before when a belt broke on another vehicle. But I still had power steering so it couldn't be a broken belt.

It did start after work & got me about 1/2 way home. Before it quit altogether, the instrument panel was going nuts, like you'd see in a scary freak movie. I'd be doing zero then it'd shoot up to 100 mph, then back to zero then back to 50 then zero, etc, etc. As if I was in the presence of some alien force (not to be confused with an alien work force) and it was taking over. Really, it was taking a shit right then. Because it never worked again.

So, with no air moving I sat there & waited 40 minutes for Jill and then we waited 40 minutes on a tow truck. That's $95 bucks right there. Two cars passed by doing about 70. It was peaceful, tho, in a remote area of the county & it was in the shade. It was towed to Shaw's in Litchfield. I do trust those guys.

Didn't sleep much at all last night - maybe an hour & a half. I'm thinking it was the anxiety of returning to work with all I've got to do & after such an absence, knowing that I've got no more paid time off left. Plenty of unpaid, tho. So, if we're to keep straight on finances, I basically can't miss another day of work till New Years. I should be sleeping right now.

So, it's the big truck tomorrow. Yeah, the one who's MPG is in the single digits. Damn hotrod.

Weekend's over

Ok. It's been quite a ride. My illness was pretty much completely gone by Saturday afternoon. Seems strange considering the high degree of fever from Thursday night & Friday hovering around 101. But on Saturday afternoon I felt well enough to play basketball or work on normal stuff.

Got this crazy program from www.e-sword.net. It's the Bible in almost EVERY version with graphics, dictionaries, concordances, maps, & commentaries. TONS o' stuff. More than I can possibly take in. Did I mention is was free? There are some versions of stuff that you can purchase but there's more free stuff than most anyone can handle.

Church was cool. We went on to the Michigan Whitetail Museum & fed the deer & turkeys and checked out all those crazy racks & mounts in there.

Me, Nathan, Shyanna, & Jacob took apart my Mom's trailer. I hope to finish it sometime this week & will post photos.

I probably gained weight since Saturday. Not too much, I hope.

Finally, I played a game of chess. I haven't played in a long while. It was a blitz game & felt good to play but I wasn't very aggressive. I played mostly passive against an attacking opponent that seemed to be roughly my strength. The game was long (25 minutes) & I was in a lot of time trouble, probably 90% of my moves were just trying to defend my position - making defensive moves that offered some hope of an offense at the same time.

I played Black. He gave up an exchange for an attack & I had to give it back later just to save myself. He finally wore down while trying to force things & I ended up better.

In chess, there are times when the position calls for subtle moves. Knowing when & how to recognize that is real good knowledge that can only be acquired with experience. He probably should've won that game had he known when to slow down & not let the position get out of hand. My big mistake is usually NOT bustin' out the whoop-ass when I should. That's been my downfall. Just sitting back & playing solid instead of going after the guy doesn't cut it against a very good chess player. But it works much of the time against average competition.

That's always been my thing. Just wait for the opponent to make a mistake & make him pay for it. The best chess players simply pick you apart if you wait for anything. That's something I've got to get better at.

Anyway, here's the end of the game. He resigned before I could checkmate him on the next move.






Black to move.

Which move knocks him completely out?

(This is NOT an animated graphic.)

Poll

Added a new poll about chess content. You may want to check out the two previous posts before answering.

Feeling a little better today. I still weigh 205.5 and the fever is just about gone. The throat is still very sore, tho. I'll be going to Dave's big bash today. I don't really feel up to it but I've got to dig in & find some strength. I've layed around resting this thing away.

Funny, as I sit here & watch the kids play in the driveway, I realize it's not just a driveway. It's like a playground. They have absolutely no reservations about getting out there in their bibbideez. Little Pottimus gets his legs going so fast on his tricycle, Punkin' thinks he can really work that skateboard.

Rooks belong on open or semi-open files!

Sorry if it seems choppy. There's no audio. I'm tailoring this stuff to my slow-ass dialup connection.
:(
I added the highlights & arrows to bring special attention to those areas for attack, defense or just ideas.

Mate by force!

I was losing this game until....








If you click on the picture, it will animate in a new window and you can see the continuation.

Woe is me

....for I've entered into a sickness. I stayed home from work today. I hope nobody there gets ill from me because I've basically had the virus all week. It's just now getting me.

I left work at 10:45 yesterday to go to the Dr. He prescribed an antibiotic that I hope works.

The worst of it is the sore throat & fatigue. It's extremely painful to swallow. Ice cream really helped yesterday. I had some 4 times! I put on a half pound probably just from that.

Yep. I weighed 205.5 this morning.

I guess the other worst part is the fever. I took two Tylenol PM's as I went to bed & I still got up once an hour to address fever issues with either Tylenol, Motrin or both. At 3 am it peaked at 103.4 and I felt like I was freezing. I awoke at 4 am & it was 102.2. At 6 am it was 99.7 & it's there again now (8:14 am).

Gotta rest today. I've missed enough work & I don't want this shit to spoil my weekend. It's kept me from Jill & the kids & that's difficult to deal with. Jill says that after 48 hours, it's' not contagious anymore. She's an excellent wife & mother & has always taken good care of me & the kids. I'm truly blessed.

205 with a sore throat

Makana had a sore throat with a 104 degree fever on Monday morning. He said it had bothered him Sunday, too, but he didn't have a fever then. So, Jill gives him some Motrin at about 5:30 am, he sleeps until 10:00 am, he gets up & he's all better. That's it. His temp ran about 99 the rest of the day but he was basically better & now he's back to normal. Praise God for that!

Me? I'm down with whatever he had. Just a slight fever, sore throat, fatigue, etc. I'm still at work, but might have to check out, tho.

:)

Anyway, I got up this morning & weighed 205! That must be from my efforts to limit calorie intake yesterday.

Check this out -



These things are freaky. I found three of them on my tomato plants yesterday. They can be difficult to spot.


The "horned tomato worm".

I found a few about 3 weeks ago & got rid of them before they could do any damage. This time, they did do a little bit of damage because I haven't been out there in about 3 days. Nothing major, tho. They're nasty to kill, too. Bunch of green goopy slimy stuff. So, I buried two & stepped on the dirt real hard. And the other one I threw against the ground real hard. Yep, it splattered some. But the neat thing was that the ants pretty much had him gone in no time.

They're eating machines that quickly devour its food. Tomato worms turn into these things when they grow up -

207

I'm hovering at 207. I think I'll be around there until I start some sort of consistent activity.

Today I plan on getting Makana to help me tear apart a trailer I'd like to modify. I'll get some before & after pictures for that project. It should be interesting.

The best time for me to exercise is right before bed, or within a couple of hours of that, anyway. That allows me to be serious about it. What do you think? The only adverse effects I've read about is that it can some negative effect on sleep.