My all-time favorite Far Side cartoon.

Who says Chess isn't a sport?

Please return your persmission slip if you want to join the chess club and participate in the chess tournament.

Expert chess player? Yikes. Me? I don't think so. Well, perhaps against elementary school kids.

I remember vividly playing chess as a child with my Dad and at school. Sure I played a lot of other sports too, but chess stimulated my brain. By age ~10, I was able to beat my Dad regularly. It is a fond memory for me.

So far my kids haven't beat me yet, but they're getting close. I really have to pay attention a lot more these days and the chances I give are much fewer. Not that I'll mind when they do beat me at chess --- it will be a proud day for me when they do.

I believe that chess makes kids smart and that the games of chess has many parallels in life. It teaches patience, concentration, and thinking ahead of how to solve a problem. They learn self-motivation and how to devise creative solutions to put their plans into action.

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"A computer beat me in chess, but it was no match when it came to kick-boxing" -- Anonymous.

Minda Abair at Jazz Alley

Got sax?

My buddy T-Bone and I went on a road trip to see sensual Jazz sensation Mindi Abair play at Jazz Alley in Seattle last month. Wow! Hot! Sultry saxophone and smooth jazz/pop at it's best.



Seattle is a neat place. By chance, we stumbled upon the Experience Music Project. And the adjacent Science Fiction Museum. Waaaaay cool places, though we only had a few minutes to gawk in the gift shop. Definitely a future roadtrip in the making...

OLPC - One Laptop per Child

I find the potential of this fascinating…

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a new, non-profit association dedicated to research to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. The goal: to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves.

See: laptop.org or OLPC.

The Bad Dream

"The Bad Dream"... or so supposedly called, is a famous African painting, depicting an African hunter in a dilemma.

The hunter, scared by the lion, jumps up onto a rope to escape. In the process, the hunter drops his rifle. The hunter can't climb up the rope because of the snake. And can't jump back down because of the lion. And there is a rat chewing at the rope, so time is running out before the rope breaks and the hunter falls into the waiting jaws of a crocodile in the water.

What is the hunter to do???