I have been tagged I don't know how many times by various people (usually my SIL or my wife's college roommate) and I never respond, evil blogger that I am. So when I saw this exercise on my wife's college roommate's blog I thought it was quite an interesting exercise and struggled with the one word format for some of the questions. Though I wasn't tagged, I hope this makes up for some of the times I never responded in the past. Only rule is one word answer to however you interpret the question - harder than you think - common acronyms acceptable right? Only having one word actually forced me to change my interpretation of the question for some. And harder yet to make them understandable without further explanation. I think I only stole one or two of her answers...
1. Where is your cell phone? hip
2. Your significant other? yang
3. Your hair? nonbalding
4. Worst bad habit? competitiveness
5. Favorite food? edible
6. Your favorite thing? running
7. Your dream last night? romantic
8. Your favorite drink? Dew
9. Your dream/goal? marathon
10.The room you're in? office
11. Your ex? past
12. Your fear? ineptitude
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Cruise
14. Where were you last night? cubs
15. What you're not? socialite
16. Muffins? blueberry
17. One of your wish list items? HDTV
18. Where you grew up? Deseret
19. The last thing you did? commute
20. What are you wearing? jeans
21. Your TV? cableless
22. Your pets? gecko
23. Your computer? laptops
24. Your life? enjoyable
25. Your mood? optimistic
26. Missing someone? Twin
27. Your car? functional
28. Something you're not wearing? hat
29. Favorite Store? electronics
30. Your summer? training
31. Love someone? multiple
32. When is the last time you laughed? breakfast
33. Last time you cried? movie
34. Who will/would re-post this? wife?
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Travel Time
One of the greatest things about my job change last May was that my travel went from roughly 60% to almost non-existent. It has been fantastic to not miss all those little things with the kids that I was depending on my wife to provide the parental face for. She definitely pulls more than her fair share of that still but I have been FAR more available to participate in my kids lives over the last 9 months. Before last week I think I had made a three day trip to New York, and 2 or 3 overnighters in that entire 9 month period. I think that is what is making last week and next week feel so painful.
Last week I spent Monday through Thursday in Greeneville, TN at a company safety conference. Very enjoyable, great hotel, learned quite a bit, but still much harder than a 4 day trip was just a year ago. Having got out of that routine, it was VERY hard not to come home to a wife and family every night. Combine that with a buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and the associated impact on the scale upon my return) and you have a depressing trip. I did have my highest mileage running week since my race last fall but that was not enough to offset the additional calories from an "I can resist anything but temptation" buffet table.
Next week I fly to Paris for a company meeting. Since this is a bit nicer location than Greeneville, TN, I am trying to stay on the positive side and focus on the experience. It will be very hard to enjoy the "experience" however, without my wife. Spouses are welcome to come along for this meeting and I invited mine but all with an air of reality that there are 4 little ones that we can't just dump on someone, during a school week, while I drag my wife to the other side of the world. I have done this kind of trip in the past, Hungary, Spain, England, without my wife but somehow Paris is different. I feel like my wife should be with me on my first trip there somehow. Nothing I can do about it now I guess, other than to promise her that someday she and I will visit these locations I enjoyed so much... plus others.
So this post has no real theme other than the joys and frustrations of travel, for business, not pleasure. It is most definitely not one and the same.
But for now, any of my French friends have suggestions as to what I should try and see on Monday the 3rd? I arrive late morning and will have the rest of that day to go sightseeing before my meetings the 4th through the 6th. So, if you only had one afternoon.... what would you go see? And don't say the Eiffel Tower, because that, I am saving for my wife...
Last week I spent Monday through Thursday in Greeneville, TN at a company safety conference. Very enjoyable, great hotel, learned quite a bit, but still much harder than a 4 day trip was just a year ago. Having got out of that routine, it was VERY hard not to come home to a wife and family every night. Combine that with a buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and the associated impact on the scale upon my return) and you have a depressing trip. I did have my highest mileage running week since my race last fall but that was not enough to offset the additional calories from an "I can resist anything but temptation" buffet table.
Next week I fly to Paris for a company meeting. Since this is a bit nicer location than Greeneville, TN, I am trying to stay on the positive side and focus on the experience. It will be very hard to enjoy the "experience" however, without my wife. Spouses are welcome to come along for this meeting and I invited mine but all with an air of reality that there are 4 little ones that we can't just dump on someone, during a school week, while I drag my wife to the other side of the world. I have done this kind of trip in the past, Hungary, Spain, England, without my wife but somehow Paris is different. I feel like my wife should be with me on my first trip there somehow. Nothing I can do about it now I guess, other than to promise her that someday she and I will visit these locations I enjoyed so much... plus others.
So this post has no real theme other than the joys and frustrations of travel, for business, not pleasure. It is most definitely not one and the same.
But for now, any of my French friends have suggestions as to what I should try and see on Monday the 3rd? I arrive late morning and will have the rest of that day to go sightseeing before my meetings the 4th through the 6th. So, if you only had one afternoon.... what would you go see? And don't say the Eiffel Tower, because that, I am saving for my wife...
Friday, February 08, 2008
kodiak73
I once had a secretary that was fairly straight laced only to find out her email address was something like toohottohandle@asdfjkl.com. Have any of you ever wondered where my screen name came from? If not, stop now, if so, you may be more bored than you usually are to visit my blog. If you think it is because I am hairy enough to be mistaken for a bear, I am offended... I think. But you would be wrong.
The kodiak comes from one of the ferrets we owned when we lived in New Mexico. He was a big male that I thought had the best temperament of all the ferrets we owned. He love to be held but was not lazy and could be very playful. Most of our ferrets were either feisty (Laska, Snickers) or shy/lazy (Detmer, Sarah, Opal) but Kodiak seemed to have the best of both worlds. Also, kodiak is just a cool name that exudes masculinity (I know there are female brown bears but they are not what comes to mind when you say KODIAK!) The funny thing is that the first time I used this as my screen name for a website (remember the old go.com?) I misspelled it (kodiack) and my wife has used that unique spelling ever since, even though I corrected to the proper spelling after that first site.
The number 73 is just a throw back to my high school football days. At the time I was picking a number I thought that it was a good number for many reasons. It was the highest prime number I could think off the top of my head at the time (I know there are many, i.e. 79, very close to it but hey, I was still a kid!), also I like how many biblical references come in sevens or threes. I think seven or three are most people's luck number, why not have both? I'd probably just use the kodiak if I could, but as you can imagine, at most websites "kodiak" is already taken so I had to add a unique number to the end to use the name at all.
Now that you have wasted 3 minutes reading this mindless post, what are some of your screen names and how did you pick them? Inquiring minds want to know!
The kodiak comes from one of the ferrets we owned when we lived in New Mexico. He was a big male that I thought had the best temperament of all the ferrets we owned. He love to be held but was not lazy and could be very playful. Most of our ferrets were either feisty (Laska, Snickers) or shy/lazy (Detmer, Sarah, Opal) but Kodiak seemed to have the best of both worlds. Also, kodiak is just a cool name that exudes masculinity (I know there are female brown bears but they are not what comes to mind when you say KODIAK!) The funny thing is that the first time I used this as my screen name for a website (remember the old go.com?) I misspelled it (kodiack) and my wife has used that unique spelling ever since, even though I corrected to the proper spelling after that first site.
The number 73 is just a throw back to my high school football days. At the time I was picking a number I thought that it was a good number for many reasons. It was the highest prime number I could think off the top of my head at the time (I know there are many, i.e. 79, very close to it but hey, I was still a kid!), also I like how many biblical references come in sevens or threes. I think seven or three are most people's luck number, why not have both? I'd probably just use the kodiak if I could, but as you can imagine, at most websites "kodiak" is already taken so I had to add a unique number to the end to use the name at all.
Now that you have wasted 3 minutes reading this mindless post, what are some of your screen names and how did you pick them? Inquiring minds want to know!
UPDATE: Here is my Avatar for a few of the discussion boards I frequent - thought you might enjoy... or at least my wife thought you might enjoy.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
How do you Teach Chess?
Recently my 9-year-old son wanted to join the chess club at school. This is popular enough that the school limits it to 3rd through 5th graders and has a drawing from interested students to determine who actually gets to participate in the club that meets after school each Monday. As luck would have it, my son got in. This constitutes a larger problem. How do I best teach him how to play?
I’m not talking about the basics. I long ago taught him the basics such as how the board is set up, how each piece moves, the objective of the game, board etiquette, etc. But that is as far as anyone ever taught me… And really that is as much as I have taught him. In the past I would play him, toy with him for a while, string him along, and then of course crush him because I will NEVER voluntarily loose at chess! But now, he will be playing other people and I want him to at least be competitive if not realize my dream for him to be the next Bobby Fisher (without the hold the world in contempt and celebrate 9/11 wackiness of the original). As the youngest of 8 siblings I loved to play against them, even when they would fool’s checkmate me in 4 moves (Oliver, over, and over, and over…). It took me probably close to a year to learn how to recognize that and another one to learn how to take action to prevent it. It is one thing to loose repeatedly to family, I don’t want my son to loose at school and loose interest.
I didn’t want to start too complicated, somehow I don’t think training him in the Spasky Defense is the right approach… yet. So, I boiled down the game to what I thought were three key concepts and rules for success. I will walk you through each one. Tell me if I hit the right ones. By "right" I mean most fundamental and likely to lead to success both immediately and down the road. Tell me if you have other ideas or suggestions. These are not in any particular order other than my son now refers to these collectively as CTP: Center of the Board, Trade-up, and Protection.
Center of the Board – There is an area of 16 squares 4x4 in the middle of the board that is fundamental to the strategic positioning of the game. The more of this area that you control the better off you are. It will be easier to generate angles, extend your defense, solidly probe on offence and give you the breathing room to move your back line around. This is accomplished by pushing middle pawns out aggressively, bringing the knights out early, and can then be supported by bringing the bishops out to generate more angles.
Trade-up – This is nothing more than assigning value to the pieces and following the general rule of sacrificing a piece if it means you can capture one of greater value. My value scale goes pawn-knight-bishop-rook-queen-king. I know people switch the bishop and knight. I have no problem with that, it really goes to your tendencies and ability to use each effectively. Teaching my son that trading a rook for a pawn is not a good idea has proven to be harder than you would think…
Protection – This is probably the most basic element of the game but probably the most widely overlooked aspect of beginners. I think instinct works on the base level of "am I going to get killed by moving here" but beyond that, the concept of protection must be learned. By protection I mean who is guarding who? Who is and isn’t guarded? Who is this piece guarding that may or may not be guarded if I move? How many pieces are guarding a particular square? As you advance it becomes "where is the opponent lacking protection?" and "how can I get around or breakdown their protection."
There are other concepts such as forking, opening moves, trading once you have a lead, end-game, avoiding or playing for stalemate, trading-down or trading-even for position, etc., that are all important to improving your game, but I thought these three laid the best foundation. What do you think?
As for initial results, he had his first club meeting and played three games. He won 2 out of the 3. I’ll take that, …for now. Of course it probably has more to do with his analytical abilities than my coaching, but don’t tell him that!
I’m not talking about the basics. I long ago taught him the basics such as how the board is set up, how each piece moves, the objective of the game, board etiquette, etc. But that is as far as anyone ever taught me… And really that is as much as I have taught him. In the past I would play him, toy with him for a while, string him along, and then of course crush him because I will NEVER voluntarily loose at chess! But now, he will be playing other people and I want him to at least be competitive if not realize my dream for him to be the next Bobby Fisher (without the hold the world in contempt and celebrate 9/11 wackiness of the original). As the youngest of 8 siblings I loved to play against them, even when they would fool’s checkmate me in 4 moves (Oliver, over, and over, and over…). It took me probably close to a year to learn how to recognize that and another one to learn how to take action to prevent it. It is one thing to loose repeatedly to family, I don’t want my son to loose at school and loose interest.
I didn’t want to start too complicated, somehow I don’t think training him in the Spasky Defense is the right approach… yet. So, I boiled down the game to what I thought were three key concepts and rules for success. I will walk you through each one. Tell me if I hit the right ones. By "right" I mean most fundamental and likely to lead to success both immediately and down the road. Tell me if you have other ideas or suggestions. These are not in any particular order other than my son now refers to these collectively as CTP: Center of the Board, Trade-up, and Protection.
Center of the Board – There is an area of 16 squares 4x4 in the middle of the board that is fundamental to the strategic positioning of the game. The more of this area that you control the better off you are. It will be easier to generate angles, extend your defense, solidly probe on offence and give you the breathing room to move your back line around. This is accomplished by pushing middle pawns out aggressively, bringing the knights out early, and can then be supported by bringing the bishops out to generate more angles.
Trade-up – This is nothing more than assigning value to the pieces and following the general rule of sacrificing a piece if it means you can capture one of greater value. My value scale goes pawn-knight-bishop-rook-queen-king. I know people switch the bishop and knight. I have no problem with that, it really goes to your tendencies and ability to use each effectively. Teaching my son that trading a rook for a pawn is not a good idea has proven to be harder than you would think…
Protection – This is probably the most basic element of the game but probably the most widely overlooked aspect of beginners. I think instinct works on the base level of "am I going to get killed by moving here" but beyond that, the concept of protection must be learned. By protection I mean who is guarding who? Who is and isn’t guarded? Who is this piece guarding that may or may not be guarded if I move? How many pieces are guarding a particular square? As you advance it becomes "where is the opponent lacking protection?" and "how can I get around or breakdown their protection."
There are other concepts such as forking, opening moves, trading once you have a lead, end-game, avoiding or playing for stalemate, trading-down or trading-even for position, etc., that are all important to improving your game, but I thought these three laid the best foundation. What do you think?
As for initial results, he had his first club meeting and played three games. He won 2 out of the 3. I’ll take that, …for now. Of course it probably has more to do with his analytical abilities than my coaching, but don’t tell him that!
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