I am temporarily out of commission due to hand surgery from a cat bite that nearly cost me my hand from infection. Sorry.

On the Bus

My Crazy Chess Team!  I luv em!

Got some Electric Kool-aide Acid Tests?

Ken Kesey once said you are either "On the Bus, or Off the Bus."  I think I am off the bus!  Our annual trek to the West Jordan Scholastic Chess Tournament began on Friday after a whirlwind of school. We had an early out with nearly 6 classes completed before noon!  Needless to say, I was a bit on edge to now endure a 5 1/2 hour ride with a bus of eleven students - I am getting on the bus.  Thankfully, the kids were great, but our trips are always adventures - we are on the bus!

Just past Timmerman Hill I was pulled over by a State Patroller that was concerned that I was transporting more kids than my license would allow (?) - I am definitely off the bus.  I and numerous other coaches have always driven the short bus without any snafus but according to a regulation that he showed me in a code  book, I could only transport eight kids with my type of license.  He took my phone number and allowed me to proceed, however.  About ten minutes later he called me and said to disregard what he said - I am back on the bus.  Some surreal music by Deadmau5 began playing in the background.

Next up was a classic school bus-train incident in Rupert.  I just turned left at a corner that immediately had railroad tracks running at an oblique angle to the road and I slammed on my breaks as the crossing lights began, just as I turned.  Oh sweet mother of god - I am off the bus forever!  The crossing bar was going to come down right on the bus.  There was a car behind me so I gunned it and went screaming across the railroad tracks - I am really off the bus!  The jeering from my students began in earnest. Our fried gizzard stop in Snowville was also a bust because they changed vendors - Can I please get back on the bus?  I hope this isn't a foreshadow of tomorrow's games!

After visiting our hotel to unload and eat, we proceeded to the Clark Planetarium in downtown Salt Lake City to view some 9 pm laser shows - we are all on the bus.  These are always a hit with the kids and it keeps them up late enough so they don't cause any trouble.  I dropped them off in the front of the building and left to park the bus.  I returned too late to go in myself - am I off the bus?  After I began wandering around the museum areas, I noticed one of my players standing in the lobby - he seems to be off the bus, too.  "That was a quick one," I said.  "I lost the group," was the reply - he is definitely off the bus.  How could this happen?  There is only 30 feet between where you buy the tickets and where the bus doors were!  Gradually, another one, then another, and another showed up where I was chastising the first student - we have a whole herd that is off the bus.

Lastly, Max showed up sporting a Rubiks cube.  Then they all purchased one.  I said save your money for the next show.  Three didn't, so I dipped into my wallet to make sure they got to see a laser show - they don't even know what the bus is.  I was excited because Led Zeppelin was the next show.  Very cool!  It turns out that 2 of the kids liked their Rubiks cubes more than the show and one said "Boring."  This is a very entitled generation and appreciation is a premium - they are under the bus.  But that's why teachers are now responsible for character education - we educate characters!

 

After a trip to show-off the Church of Latter Day Saints Temple, I was happy to get some sleep, albeit, without my pajamas because I left my bag at home!  Tomorrow, I am getting on the bus!  I will post some of the games and describe the tournament in the next post.  Cheers!

Tournaments

Tournament Schedule is updated.

Christmas Blitzkrieg and the Family Tournament

No Snow : (

_______________________

The holiday season did not provide any significant snow, but did produce some outstanding chess! The Christmas Blitzkrieg is an annual WRHS event and is

January Newsletter

Chess Places

I must go see this at the Paris Opera!

I am traveling to Paris, France this next week and came across this list of places to play chess.  I will be staying near the east side of Nanterre Park and I hope to find a cafe or park to enjoy a game.

2011 WRHS Bughouse Championship

Well it is about time I get back to posting and informing those interested folks in the happenings at the WRHS Chess Club.  There is too much news for only one post so I will start with the most recent and work

Another Website?

Yes it's true, I built another one for my travel club.

Costa Rica

2011 Winter Tournament

Santa Claus kicks off the Winter Tournament

Sleigh bells were jingling as eleven Blaine County School District students competed in the Winter Tournament.  It appears that our little tournament was also in competition with the numerous activities and holiday warm ups as many of our usual chess suspects were not available.  Despite the chilly turn out, the Winter Tournament attracted Santa Claus and some very interesting games.

A Master Description

Kurt Vonnegut's review of a chess book, "Grandmaster's of Chess," by Harold Schonberg.  Mr. Vonnegut elegantly describes chess folk:

"This charming history of modern chess will not be surpassed in our time....Mr. Schonberg has given us a playful,musical,haunting account of huge,often irresponsible,unsociable animals who have devoted their lives to thinking that is pure as snow" - Kurt Vonnegut

New Classroom Website Announced

Yo, Desmond had the household Skyrim tied up most of the weekend . . . so I revamped, rethought, and reinvented my classroom website.  My students really liked the new look and the better perks.  I fashioned  an icon system for faster navigation (like the smart phone aps), stream-lined each page for faster loading, and created a much better course organization.  Let me know what you think.

Chess Rage Newsletter Resurrection

Using my level 10 Resurrection spell from Skyrim, I was able to conjure up a newsletter that I used to produce.  It was killed when I began putting all my websites together back in 2008 and I am now going to commit myself, my class, and my club to publishing again.  I will make the newsletters available at our club website in PDF format as it is a pain to do in blogger.  Here is our first official edition of the year to be released Monday at school.

Memory Chess and Exercising a Cognitive Skills

I read an article about Susan Polgar once and I remember reading that she can look at a chess board for 10 seconds and replicate where up to 32 pieces were on the board with nearly 100% accuracy.  Or, some such

5 Steps to Chess Viewer Deluxe

I discovered that Chess Viewer Deluxe opened much faster without any "Kill" page message from chrome when I created a whole new sister blog to The Chess Nut Blog.  This blog page now opens faster than it did before.  If I get rid of all the widgets, I bet this blog would be even faster, but it would lose its appeal.  I called the new sister site,  Chess Nut Games and it will house the game files so that you can view multiple games from each year.  Of course I posted a link to the Chess Nut Game blog from the home page of The Chess Nut Blog called Games.  You can spot this tab or button in the upper right side of the page menu.    Here are some other quirks that I did my best to work out in 5 steps.

Why is this cool?  Because you can display multiple games without using someone else's server to store game data, and it looks rather nice with an easy-to-use interface.  Flash PGN viewers (that I have found) only show one game at a time.  My favorite Flash viewer being ChessFlash PGN Viewer.

Blog Anchors and Internal Links

This is some documentation so I can remember how to create an internal link (a jump from one spot on a page to another spot on the page.  The example I provide is from the States page where I jump from the "N" to "Nebraska."

Here is the code where I want to jump to:
First, you should create the document and decide where you want your internal links to go. You label these using the anchor tag (a) with the name and id attributes. The name and id attributes should be identical.

e.g. <a name="anchor1" id="anchor1">Anchor text</a>

Here is the code where I want to jump from:
Then second, you create the link to the site using the anchor tag (a) and the href attribute. You indicate the named area with a pound-sign (#). 

e.g. <a href="site.html#anchor1">Anchor link</a>

The important thing is that href= (enter the page URL you want to create a jump).

(no spaces) Also, to write an example of code in a blogger post without it being interpreted use these instructions:
Replace all the < characters with  & l t;(no spaces) 
And all the > characters with & g t;(no spaces) 

Creepy Rooms and Monkey Chess at SIO

Jeff v. Caleb in an intense game with draw offers on the table.

The Southern Idaho Open 2011 was as entertaining as it was competitive on Saturday, November 12.     Desmond, me and two other Wood River Valley residents attended the one day, 4 Round G/60 event.  Des, Riley and I were slated for the U1400 Reserve Section, but Nick Bruck wanted to play in the Open Section.  I won 1st place (3.5 pts.) and my son, Des, won 2nd place (3.0 pts.).  Cash prizes were for placements while chess books from the library of the late Glen Buckendorf, 10-time Idaho State Champion, were donated to 3rd and 4th places for each section.

Brooklyn Castle

from IS 318 website

The Outreach Director of the documentary, Brooklyn Castle, contacted me about their project.  It was originally called Chess Movie, and it is about the IS 318 Chess Team.  Elizabeth Vicary and other scholastic chess celebrities organize and help run the chess club that is made up of junior high school students.  Ms. Vicary runs a blog that updates the world about politics, personal happenings, and the successes of the IS 318 Chess Team.  Now, the successes have attracted the attention of movie makers.

Support Veterans

Every year our high school chess club collects signatures and words of support for our troops abroad and we send our prayers along with chess boards.  Please think of everyone's veterans and soldiers around the world and pray that battles could be carried out on the chess board instead of with real bullets.

Idaho Chess Icon passes away

Glen W. Buckendorf
June 19, 1929 - September 12, 2011

Glen W. Buckendorf will be missed at chess tournaments and by his family and friends.  Glen passed away on September 12, 2011 at the age of 82 in his home.  Glen was a celebrity of sorts in the Idaho Chess community and was a tournament standard at the Idaho Closed for nearly 54 years!  In 2010, Glen was awarded lifelong supporter and Emeritus Trustee of the ICA (Idaho Chess Association).  He was 10 Idaho State Champion and was a contemporary of Dick Vandenberg, who recently passed away in 2010.  Without Glen's and Dick's avid support and efforts to enhance Idaho Chess, it would hardly be what it is today.  (Click here for the Times-News link).

Building websites is enjoyable

I made some nice changes to the WRHS Chess Club website.