John played Chess yesterday

My son John in the Navy serving as an OS on the USS Doyle in Mayport Florida went down to Daytona Beach yesterday to play in a Chess Tournament. My parents live a few miles away and went to see him. My Mom ( Johns Grandmother ) made him cookies to take back to base with him. Here are some pictures that they took yesterday.

John and his Grandfather ( My Father )

John and his Grandmother ( My Mother )

John and his Grandmother ( My Mother )

John ( standing ) playing Chess

John playing Chess against Russian player "Svetislav K Vanon". They had a draw in this game ( neither could win ). John offered to shake the guys hand after the game and Svetislav refused. My parents saw this game and were shocked. John thought it was really strange too. I guess Svetislav was a really bad sport and was mad that he didn't win the match.









FIDE Chess Rule.
Any player who does not shake hands with the opponent (or greets the opponent in a normal social manner in accordance with the conventional rules of their society) before the game starts in a FIDE tournament or during a FIDE match (and does not do it after being asked to do so by the arbiter) or deliberately insults his/her opponent or the officials of the event, will immediately and finally lose the relevant game.

John Played Chess In Daytona and our guest are leaving today.

Good morning all. We have been having a great time with Kara and Sheila. Sadly they are leaving today to go home. Kara made us dinner last night. She made Pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beens, and mac and cheese. It was really good. Thanks Kara.

I was able to fix Kara's computer that she brought with her. I backed everything up on to an External Hard Drive that I have and then formatted her hard drive and reinstalled the OS and drivers and restored her documents, pictures and so on. I also installed some software that she needs. I set up her e-mail in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and she was able to download her e-mail from here ( all 930 some messages ) LOL I put Firefox and CCleaner on her computer and told her how to use both. Once she gets some more memory for her computer it should be good for another two years.

John tied for 1st & 2nd Under 1600 at Daytona ( John on Right )

John on Right

John on Right

John on Right

John standing

John standing

My son John played Chess yesterday in Daytona Beach at a USCF tournament. Two guys from the Jacksonville Chess Club picked him up from Mayport Naval Base and drove him down to Daytona to play. John tied for first place and won some money. My parents that live in Port Orange, FL ( a suburb of Daytona ) went and saw him. My Mom made him all kinds of cookies and packed them in a big bag. It is a birthday bag. Mom said it was the only bag large enough to hold all the containers of cookies that she made. :) She also took some pictures of John playing chess. John beat the guy he is playing in the pictures. John took the guys that drove him to the tournament out for Pizza on their way back to the Navy Base.

Mom said in her e-mail to me:

"I baked cookies for John but the only bag I had was this birthday bag to put them in. I made pizzelle’s and he said I made enough for the whole ship. I don’t think so but they last a long time so he can have them for snacks for awhile.

Love, Mom"

My son John is playing Chess again

Old pictures of John playing Chess at a USCF tournament.

Good morning. I am still on my first pot of coffee this morning and it looks like it is going to shape up to be a nice sunny day.

My son John called last night from Mayport Florida. John went to the Jacksonville Chess Club to play chess last night. One of the guys from his ship took him. John has been playing Chess for several years now and is very good. He is in the USCF with a rating of 1198 (Based on 17 rated games). Last night he played in a USCF rated game and won against a person rated 1700, that will boost his rating. I'm not at all surprised. The only reason Johns rating is low is because he has not played in enough rated games. John is going to apply for the All Navy Chess Team next year after he gets his rating up. John was Captain of his Chess Team in High School, Lettered in Chess three years and got a Chess Scholarship that he used his first year of College. We're glad that he can play again while in the Navy and we are sure he will do well.

Link to Jacksonville Chess Events

Just a little side note. Two of the people that were on the Chess team from John's High School are now in the Navy ( that includes John ) the other is a Nuke now and she is doing well. Another guy is now in the Army and is in Iraq. There were several people on the Chess team back then but only a few actually went to the tournaments all three of these kids are now serving their country.

Awards Ceremony

We have an interesting evening ahead of us. Our son who is graduating high school next Saturday has an awards banquet tonight. We found out about this when we got a letter from the school inviting us. It says that he will be presented with an award tonight. We won't know what it is for until then. Last week he was presented with a Chess Scholarship from his school. I am very proud of him. So tonight we will be at the Chanute High School Awards Ceremony. Can't wait. :)

Chess & Online photo editing

My son John A. left at 6am to the KS State Championship at KU in Lawrence today. He has been an avid Chess player for four years now and has a USCF rating of 1195. I hope he does well today. :)

I added Subscribe buttons to this Blog today to make it easer for people to Subscribe using their RSS ( Really Simple Syndication ) readers. Hope this helps. I also added a guest book at the bottom of the page.

Here is a neat online photo editing place. It's called Pixoh.

Pixoh allows a user to upload a photo, or grab it from the web, and edit it online. Currently you can crop, resize and rotate. Then, when you are done, you can save it to your hard drive.

This service is relatively new and very cool. It works great and can be very handy when you don’t have (or don’t want to open) your photo editing software to do basic image edits.