Not Eating, Drinking, and Being Merry

OK. Now this whole chess thing is starting to hurt. Today marks the first day on my extended family's yearly pilgrimage to a ski resort up North. My clan had to give it a miss this year due to many factors, one of which was that the vacation fell right in the hot spot of the MDLM program. I was feeling real sorry for myself last night when I was slogging through chess problems instead of hitting the slopes. (OK, I could probably live without the skiing; it's really the "after ski" beer and dinner that's to die for).

People who are feeling sorry for themselves are fairly lousy tacticians. I seem not to be an exception to the rule.

To counteract this, this afternoon I plan to ski in the front garden of the my office during lunch. Since there is no snow and I don't own ski equipment, they might really call the men in the white coats this time. Better yet, at lunch I'm going to go buy some really awful shoes that hurt my feet. When I get home, I'll take them off. Should feel just like the real thing.

138 days down, 17 to go
946 problems down, 97 to go in Circle Three
Level 10: 96%, 44 sec/prob
Level 20: 93%, 79 sec/prob
Level 30: 78%, 114 sec/prob
Level 40: 70%, 141 sec/prob
Level 50: 65%, 148 sec/prob

PS Big shout to Sarah, Vanya, Anna, Olya, Sergey, and Sasha. We miss you guys!