It wasn't so bad. Really. Adam and I were going to meet at the bowling alley for 11:30. When I got there the lot was packed. It turns out that the city tournament was going on. In this case it was a full house, so no lanes were available. I didn't have to ask, I could see. That and I heard some people asking at the desk as I walked in. I was a little disappointed, but that's the way it goes. Not much I can do about it. While I was there I noticed Cliff bowling. I had planned on meeting Cliff at around 5 to go to Chicopee and look at bowling balls. I watched him bowl for a few, then told him that I wasn't going to make it later. He said that worked better for him too, so we'll do it next weekend. So, no bowling but I freed up my day a little.
What next? Well, I had a few committments to take care of. First I went to show my mother how to pump gas. She's always went somewhere where they pump it for you, and that place just closed. After that my sister needed help trimming a tree. I know, it's hard to believe that I could be so handy. Truth be told, I was being used for my truck. That and its ability to bring a ladder from my mothers house. Not that I mind. It gave me a chance to stand in the sun and crinkle my head. What more could you ask for? Really I wasn't that helpful. I was mostly just holding the ladder and handing up the things that you trim the tree with. See that, I don't even know what you call them. I'm that lame.
Since it was only about 1:45 when we finished, I was still ahead of my schedule. Not that I had a fixed schedule, but certainly I wanted to get some things accomplished with my project. I decided that I'd stop by Forbes Library on my way home. I haven't been to the chessclub there, only going to Burger King later in the evening, so I thought it would be fun to check it out. When I got there and finally found the space that they play, I only saw Enrique and his daughter. It turns out nobody had shown up. It made me wonder, what are the odds? Of course I knew better, the odds were good. Enrique said he had been there for around an hour and Tom hadn't showed up. Tom manages the club, and has a box full of sets that he brings so a lot of people don't think to bring their own. Unfortunately today, as I learned later, Tom overslept. Overslept by a lot. Enrique's daughter wanted fries, so after we talked for a few minutes they were off. I sat around for a few more before finally leaving. Some things weren't meant to be.
On my way home I called Larry to ask him if he had any books on chess and computers. I need as much as I can find for my research paper due this coming Thursday. He wasn't home so I left a message. When I got home I decided that I'd try to implement the movelist functionality I wanted to add to it. It would allow me to do 3 things. One is from the console while I'm testing I'd be able to print out the entire movelist of the game, two is the ability to takeback moves, and three is the ability to save the game. Of course, I'd need to implement save functionality as well for that one, but at least it would be an option. This should have been easy to do. Really easy. But I was tired. What do you expect after a hard days work? By about 4:30 I'm pretty sure I fell asleep. I woke up, worked on it a little more, and went to the chess club at Burger King.
Burger King had many of the usual suspects, and some a bit unusual as well. Tom Smith, Larry Williams, Casey Dolan, Dave Hall, Paul Sarrazin, Enrique McDonald, Paul Spatarrella, Paul Budney, Richard Gold, and I are the ones that immediately come to mind. When I was walking in Paul Spatarrella was just arriving as well, so we decided to play a G/30. Paul is rated around 1200, but certainly improving quickly. At 1887 or so, I'm expected to win at least 9 out of 10. Actually, 9 out of 10 is the expected ratio if there were a 400 point difference between us. There's a 600+ point difference. Do you see where I'm going with this? Paul played a very nice game and won my Queen early on. I almost had some tactics at the end that pulled out a forced draw, but Paul found the only continuation that made me resign immediately. I missed that too. After that we played another game which I won. We didn't try another 8 to prove or disprove the theory. It just didn't seem necessary. I can only take so much in one day :). Larry had also brought me a bunch of books, so hopefully that gives me some material I can use for my paper.
So at around 9 I left the club and headed to Walmart. I picked up Aeon Flux since I noticed it was out and I really wanted to see it. Then I got home and worked on finishing up my movelist. But before I actually got to that Sean called me. His laptop wasn't booting, he was getting an error when he turned it on. A corrupt file (System registry hive). I'm not sure how long it took us, but we got it working.
After that I went to bed. That being the finishing up of the movelist.
And now we have another day. May it be better than the last!
Ed.
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