2007 WMCA Club Championship

2007 WMCA Club Championship 15
Originally uploaded by firstfret

We begin at the end. The 2007 WMCA Champions. It was a fun event, though participation was light. Better yet, I got away from WOW for a day. How often does that happen?

How did I play? I'll be putting up a few more posts with my games from the rounds. So I'll save the details. But overall our entire team did well.

Ed.

The Improbability Drive

I'm going to play chess today. It's 6:00am and I'm actually out of bed. Wow! No, not that WOW! It's at Fitchburg State College and my ride picks me up at 7. So I should get moving. I was originally going to go myself but a few challenges mysteriously appeared. I found last night that I had a bit of an issue. My drivers license had expired this past Tuesday. Ouch!

I'll post a bit about the tournament later. Enjoy your Saturday!

Ed.

Addicted to ya baby!

http://health.yahoo.com/news/176635

I can see it happening. Addiction. I was there, I know. I didn't go over the top like some people do, but I definitely walked a fine line. It overtook my life. It was amazing! Since I hit level 70 on my main, it has subsided a bit. I didn't want it to. But hey, life goes on.

Assuming I can get Kip to cover for me tomorrow I'm planning to play chess in the 2007 WMCA Western MA Intra Club Championship at Fitchburg State College. I haven't played chess seriously since last year. There was this WOW thing... I've been studying tactics a little bit over the past few weeks, so hopefully I've sharpened up a little bit.

If for some reason I don't go, you can guess what I'll be doing!

Enjoy your Friday, Ed.

The Strangest Dream

Last night I had the strangest dream... and it made me wonder, "what's wrong with me?". What was this dream about? Chess! If you're familiar with the last 5 months of my life, there's only one thing that I dream about: World of Warcraft. In this dream LW was explaining to me his new chess strategy. It was pretty cool.

Hmm... I might play a game of chess today. Stranger things have happened. But for now, back to bed!

Ed.

The Things

I was looking at shoes tonight. I ordered some shoes at JCPenney a few weeks ago and messed that up. I didn't think I needed to buy wide. We won't go into the details of that one. Anyway, I'm finally getting around to buying some new shoes and decide to do a quick yahoo search before going back to my usual JCPenney. If you know me, perhaps you can imagine my surprise when I came across the following possible selections:

Foot Undies
Foot Thong

I'd share pictures with you, but I have to say that just looking at the words is far too disturbing for me.

-Ed.

The best day of my life

Imagine that you were given another chance. What would you do differently? Now ask yourself, why aren't you doing it? Life can only wait so long before it's gone. Is this the way you really want it to be?

There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the wheel of time. But it was a beginning.

Or, as Garth Brooks might just say...

Don't just stand upon the shoreline
and say you're satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
and dare to dance that tide

Today is Wednesday, May 30, 2007. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Let's make the best of it.

Ed.

Spring Cleaning

undated_tournament
Originally uploaded by firstfret.

I've been slowly working on cleaning up a lot of old papers in the house. Boxes of stuff that are just wasting space. Once in a while I come across something and the memories just start flooding back. Here is one of those things. It was a chess tournament played years ago at the PVCC. Back when Sean was still around and chess was the game of the day.

Looking back at some of these initials, I wish I can say that I remember who they all are. I remember a bunch but I'm sure Sean will know them all! I'm also just as sure that I'll hit my head with embarrassment as soon as Sean points out who they are.

EB: Ed Borowski
ST: Sean Tobin
MA:
JR: John Reinhart
DH: Dave Hall
JB: Judge Bean?
SF: Scott Farhatt
AL: Antonio Laudati
CW:
EM: Enrique McDonald

Sean... any chance you recall what year this might have been?

Be safe, be well, and thank you for the memories! That's what life is all about.

Ed.

Things Change

Life. It just blows me away sometimes. Here's this absolutely enormous, unimaginably complex world of unlimited possibilities. A place where anything is possible and all one has to do is dream. Then here I am. Totally clueless. What are the odds of that?

I've been feeling pretty terrible again this weekend. It's almost like a resurgence of the flu that I think I had a little while back. Mainly in my head. That constant dizzy feeling where, occasionally, I think I just might lose it. I'm getting by, but it's no fun. As some of you might know, I've been completely addicted to World of Warcraft this year. It's all I do when I have free time. Because of it I've been putting in all nighters on Friday and Saturday nights. It's crazy. Yesterday I probably only played for 4 hours. You know I've got issues!

I slept through the afternoon yesterday. When I finally got up at around 6-7pm I was still feeling a bit shaky. I figured I needed to stay away from World of Warcraft and do something different. I decided to go to the chess club! Back in December I was really at the top of my game. It was the best that I've ever been playing chess. After really not playing much for the last 6 months I can assure you that I'm rusty. Regardless of the results, you don't play much for 6 months and you're going to lose some of it.

Now that I've set you up with my list of excuses, I'm sure you're wondering how I did. I have to say that overall I was pleased. I definitely felt a little out of sorts, especially with my tactics. But I wound up playing 4 5-minute blitz games against Larry Williams. Larry and I were pretty close back in December, though I would have given a slight edge to me at that time.

Game 1: I had black and managed to get into an interesting ending. I lost on time. In the post-mortem we found that it was a draw. Ah well, I can't complain with a loss on time.

Game 2: I had white and we drew the game. It was another exciting endgame.

Game 3: I had black and Larry crushed me like a pig. No Post-Mortem necessary!

Game 4: I had white and won! In the post-mortem we found that there were some drawing chances for Black.

Still, it was 5-minute chess. But given my absense, I was very pleased with the result. Hopefully it will motivate me to increase my chess activity and get back to something else in addition to World of Warcraft. I don't think I've ever been so addicted to anything in my life! Though it might be close to the early days of chess. When Sean and I used to stay up until 4 or 5 in the morning at his parents house playing blitz games over and over again. Those were the days!

Speaking of Sean, if you still happen to read this from time to time, Paul Sarrazin says hi!

Wish you all the best!

Ed.

The Solitary Way

So much to do...

I bowled tonight. I didn't beat my last score of a few weeks back, but given my year I was pleased nevertheless. 630'ish.

Then I decided to take a few minutes to refamiliarlize myself with some of the lyrics to "Run Around" by Blues Traveler.

But I want more than a touch I want you to reach me
And show me all the things no one else can see
So what you feel becomes mine as well
And soon if we're lucky we'd be unable to tell
What's yours and mine the finishings fine
And it doesn't have to rhyme so don't feed me a line

And even more amazing - I didn't play WOW tonight. That was my goal. I knew that if I started I'd get nothing done. I still got nothing done.

So it goes.

Ed.

The 700 Club

I've been so busy lately that all of my normal hobbies are suffering. My chess game has been horrendous. Seriously. And my bowling, not much better. My average this year, of which I'm not proud, is a 180. Last week I bowled 3 150's. Ouch. On the flip side, work is crazy but going well and World of Warcraft rocks!

So I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Imagine my surprise this Monday when I was thinking about how much I wanted to be home playing World of Warcraft. Instead I was bowling. League night.

Game 1: 258
Game 2: 213
Game 3: 258
Total: 729

My first 700 series! Since it was in a league, I get a jacket for it. Nice!

Enjoy your Friday.

Ed.