Wrapping up the Marathon

The Army sent me to Naval Postgraduate School in January, 2006. I kept the family back in Olympia, Washington in order to help my sister overcome the harsh aftermath of our father's suicide back in Jamestown, Ohio--the third death in our immediate family and the second by suicide.

This is perhaps the best assignment in the Army--earning a Master's Degree on the Army's dime in Monterey, California. Those 18 months were very rewarding personally and professionally. I earned a Master of Science in Low Intensity Conflict while playing acoustic music downtown, sharpening my chess game at the NPS Chess Club (thanks Professor Arquilla!) and my public speaking skills with the NPS Toastmasters Club (Thanks Carl and Arnie!).

That 18 month "geographical bachelor" stint was followed by a two-year assignment with the 2nd Infantry Division in Uijeongbu, South Korea. Again, with the family remaining home to look after my sister. Another professionally rewarding assignment with the US Army in a great organization. Time to return to Olympia, Washington to resume duties with the Army's I Corps at Fort Lewis. Finally, I can come home from work and sleep in my own bed!

Tolle's GeoBio using Google Earth

Woohoo! Figured out how to add a Google Map with geotagged photos to my blog. Scroll to the bottom and check it out. I used www.trippermap.com to add this functionality to Google Earth. I geotag existing photos at www.flickr.com with precise locations where I took the picture, then post them to the map. My goal is to do this for all my photos. Imagine spinning the Google Earth globe and having a story that takes you from event to event in your life. Ties all those shoeboxes of photos together into an autobiography of sorts. Nice to share with friends and family.

Martin Kirwan's and Temperance Reel in Korea

Attempted this for the first time in Uday and Qusay's old palace in northern Mosul, Northern Iraq. It's a few days short of St. Patrick's Day here in South Korea so I thought I'd re-try it. It was a fav at the London Bridge Pub in Monterey, CA April '06 to June '07. :)

A Blackbelt in Taekwondo!

Just last month I tested and earned my blackbelt (chodan) in Korean Taekwondo at Camp Casey, Republic of Korea. That was on my "bucket list" :) I encourage young Soldiers to take advantages of all the opportunities available to them in a typical military tour in South Korea. This place is the cat's meow.

Uijeongbu, South Korea

Life is good in the Republic of Korea. I've been serving as the G9 (Civil Affairs Officer) for the 2nd Infantry Division since July 10, 2007. I'm rapidly approaching my 2-year mark and a happy return to Olympia, Washington and Fort Lewis. The two "extracurricular" things I'm taking away from the Land of the Morning Calm is (1) Taekwondo (earned my black belt last month) and (2) golf!

Blackbird Endgame

I played black today against f4. I don't see that too often as black, so the battle ensued to a King-Rook v. King-Rook-Pawn endgame. On such dastardly spare pawns hang the fate of the board:




An aggressive King across the Mason-Dixon Line (due to some disadvantageous exchanges by my opponent from India) figured prominently in the pawn push. "Git there the fustest with the mostest."

White's exchange at 70 proved fatal and ensured a safe corridor for my knight's pawn.

Endgame study is interesting and time well-spent!

ICC Blitz 17 Move Mate

This Sicilian came as a shock to both me and my 1660-rated opponent on the Internet Chess Club (ICC). Notice black's unhinging at 13...Nd4 (disregard the "#" as chesspublisher incorrectly thinks it's a checking move) and mate four moves later with the shifting of a single pawn:




What made this all the more interesting was the time constraint: 3 minute blitz. Thinking under pressure devolves into pattern recognition, and may the player with the most internalized patterns win!

ARGH!

Brian Anderson, United States Marine Corps, vs. Glenn Tolle, United States Army:




A nifty checkmate that served me right for permitting two consecutive forks. I will spend this week flagellating myself in preparation for the next match!

Competent Communicator

This Friday I gave my 10th and final speech out of the Toastmasters Basic Communication manual, earningn me the "CC" award. I've been working toward that goal since joining the Naval Postgraduate School Toastmasters Club in July '06.

The entire Toastmasters program is perhaps equal to earning a Masters degree in Public Speaking. The amount of work required to reach "Distinguished Toastmaster" is considerable and should not be taken on half-heartedly. In fact, nothing worth doing in life should be done half-heartedly, right?

My 10th speech was entitled "Roads." I talked about key roads in my life, including US 35 South, leading away from Point Pleasant, WV. My '73 Pontiac Ventura caught fire on that road in the summer of '79. I made the front page of the Point Pleasant Register! Feels good to survive such things and look back years later from a comfortable vantage point.

Pirc Punishment

Alas, the Pirc (pronounced "peerts") Defence is worth studying. The final game today against David Book at the NPS Chess Club is a study in Goodwill donations of spare bishops:




Duh. Utterly blunderlicious. I'm convinced that the path to high ratings is littered with occasional wreckage such as this!

Back to the drawing board (here's a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirc_Defence

Cheers!
GT

Tolle vs. Arquilla, Round 3

My third crack at the NPS Chess Club Godfather, Prof. Arquilla, resulted in "Death by Caro-Kann (ECO B12--Caro-Kann, Advance Variation). Result=Tolle sleeps wit da fishes.




7. h3 gave my opponent a free pawn. Such freebies tend to haunt you in the end game, usually in the form of a renegade pawn racing to the back rank on the King side supported by a couple of rook goons. Also, 20. ...Ne3 proved to be an lasting thorn in my flesh until an ignomious concession before move 40. (The game actually lasted a few more moves than what is posted, but you don't have to drink the whole gallon to know that the milk is sour. Bleechh...)

I'll be better prepared for the next Caro-Kann!

--GT

Sneaky Little Checkmate

Here is a second interesting game played on the Internet Chess Club "Dos Hermanos VIII" blitz tournament. Some checkmates are easy to overlook---this one I pulled off while so low on materiel that I was resorting to the King for help:




A whole-board scan that answers the question, "is my King in immediate danger?" should be the mantra of every move. :)

"Get a Little Better Every Day!"

--GT

ICC Tournament "Dos Hermanos VIII"

The "Dos Hermanos VIII" tournament on ICC has drawn such luminaries as Magnus Carlsen, the boy wonder from Norway, and Alex Lenderman, of "Kings of New York" fame. I'm just a humble 1100 rated blitz player, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to passing flashes of semi-brilliance...

Here is a hard-fought game that earned the bitter ire of my 1700+ opponent after he stuck his knight in the wrong spot:




The surprise checkmate at the end earned me a stream of accusations of cheating that I found irritating yet amusing and complimentary. I was rated 600 points below him, so that might have precipitated the vitriol. Too bad some people don't "Win with grace and lose with dignity" as Susan Polgar so aptly puts it.

Chess Publisher: Tolle v. Kirpekar 1 Mar 07

This game is the NPS Chess Club debut of my new DGT Tourmanent Set. Fellow NPS student Ulhas Kirpekar sat down at my computerized setup and gave me a run for my money through move 25. Fritz 10 (dynamically rating the game as we played on the DGT board) registered an advantage for me at that point, namely, the opportunity to pin his rook to his king.

Being a restless blogger, I searched the net for a convenient way to display the game here on Blogspot (I will post significant wins AND losses here, lest this degenerate into unwarranted chest-thumping), and found a nifty blog-friendly Portable Game Notation (PGN) publisher called "Chess Publisher." The two best things about it are (1) it works and (2) it's free! Here is the game, complete with diagram:




Many thanks to my friend Ulhas for the game, and to the author of Chess Publisher!

DGT Tournament Set!

OOOoooooo baby! I just received my DGT Tournament Set (Rosewood USB board, Ebonized Professional Chessmen, DGT XL clock, black case) from the House of Staunton. The software loaded seamlessly with Windows XP, and I promptly lost a game to Fritz 10, who announced his moves in English from my dual core Dell Inspiron e1705 laptop. The pieces are feather light--almost like balsam wood, but the computer picks up the moves as soon as you can make them. If you make a mistake or overlook a check, Fritz will tell you emotionlessly to put your piece back to its original spot. I'll take the set to the Naval Postgraduate School Chess Club today to hook it up to a smart board and let the laptop record the moves. Ah, the wonders of digital electronics.

Blindfold Chess

How does one train for blindfold chess without a second party moving the pieces? Perhaps voice recognition software would be a step in the right direction, but so far, "Move Bravo 3, Capture Charlie Four" doesn't sound very appealing, unless you have lost the use of your limbs and that was your only means of playing computer chess.

The ability to visualize and track multiple positions without the benefit of the chessboard and pieces must be the product of tens of thousands of games and incredible mental discipline. I think the ability can be developed---one just isn't born with it. As with any skill, it's 10% talent and 90% hard work.

More on this later...

Sergeant@Arms Phone Blogging!

At today's NPS Toastmasters' Meeting, I tried phoneblogging from the lecturn, and it worked! Check it out.

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Now, on to videoblogging...

www.chessmaniac.com

Central California's Chessmaniac is an excellent correspondence chess site on par with the British Schemingmind chess site. One of the great features I like in Chessmaniac is that you know who is online, and you can instant message them to accelerate your games. This is especially helpful in quick tournaments. Getting little graphic medals beside your user name is a nifty motivator. (My user name on Chessmaniac is Dienekes--the main character in Stephen Pressfield's novelization of the Battle of Thermopylae. Getting wiped out was the theme there, and this theme unfortunately surfaces in my chess play as well!)

If you like chess, go there and check it out. If you have homework, don't go there. It will pull you in and your grades will suffer!

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GT's Mobile Blog!

Ok, I fell for it. Blogspot has a new Mobile Blogger service where you can blog straight from your camera-capable cell phone. I made a test post, and it works great! Now, if I could integrate that with my audioblogs, that would be sooooooo 2007....

District 4 Contest

No win this time! The competition on Saturday, November 18th was tough. But I have the satisfaction of knowing now what to expect in the next contest. A more detailed writeup by our NPS Toastmaster Emeritus Carl Thormeyer can be seen at the NPS club blog.

Pardon me while I get ready for the next one. :)

NPS Toastmasters Club

NPS Toastmasters Club

Our NPS club has its own blog now! We're soooo 2006 now.

Division A Toastmasters Contest

Yikes! Lightning struck thrice on my shiney noggin--I won again against increasingly tough competition. I'm now the Division representative for the District #4 Humorous Speech Contest on November 18th, the day before my 45th birthday.

Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of rhetoric! Grrrr bark!

Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest

The Toastmaster's Humorous Speech Contest at my local club (Naval Postgraduate School Toastmasters Club #2032) piqued my interest, so I participated on 18 August and surprised myself. Yesterday I proceeded to the Area-Level contest in Salinas, California where lightning struck twice on my shiny dome. Lo and Behold, I'll head to the District-level competition in Aptos, CA on 7 Oct. Thanks Carl, Arnie and Rachelle for the encouragement and seasoned critiques!

The contest yesterday was organized by a team of about 16 Toastmasters who pooled their collective energy and commitment to excellence and produced a very professional event! I was impressed. The level of effort surprised me--folks are really serious about doing well in Toastmasters International.

Several of the team met afterwards in the Ellis Restaurant in Salinas to do a military-like "After Action Review," to examine what worked and what didn't. No wonder they pulled off a quality event.

The Clap Dance / 69th St. Polkas

Adapted from the Lifescapes Celtic Fiddle CD, track #14

(http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/203)

The Clap Dance is also known as the Rattlin' Bog and the Sixty-Ninth Street Polka is also known as The Galway Belle or Tom McVicar's. Very session-friendly tunes in D and E Dorian, respectively. When strung together with "Britches Full of Stitches" in A, you have a pretty darn good polka set. If someone did the gypsy tamborine thing on 69th St., it would be soooooo cool...

My timing on this tune leaves room for improvement, but as with the other recordings, it is a quick mark on the wall before racing off to class. :)