Mydree

^{July 27, 2006}

Current Status
My rating on Game Knot is 1368 (58th percentile), this puts me in Game Knot’s Intermediate ranking.

Current Record
W-L-D: 35-27-0 (62 total games).
Win percentage: 56%.

The Goal
I want to play regualarly and improve my rating at Game Knot to 1500 or above, this would put me in the Advanced ranking. I have been rated as high as 1389 so I think this is a realistic goal.

Secondary Goal
To play in the next Game Knot tournament (starts Sept. 5) and advance past the first round.

The Plan
To have several games going at once and to read about and study the game of chess.

Long-range Plan
Once my Game Knot rating improves I will play real-time matches on the Free Internet Chess Server .

^{July 17, 2006}

Another Postcard from Finland
I received this post card some time ago; I just forgot to post it here.

People in Finland must really like postcards because this is second one that I’ve gotten already.

About the Postcard
It’s from Kajaan Finland (pop. ~36,000), shown are the Town Hall (yellow building), Lutheran Church, memorial statue to former president Urho Kekkonen and water power plant.

^{July 17, 2006}

Postcard from Finland *
I received this post card some time ago; I just forgot to post it here.

About the Postcard*
It’s from Pori Finland and shows the town in the early 1900s.

The thyme plants have been outside since I got them.

^{July 14, 2006 – Bastille Day}

Why Learn French?
I want to learn a European language and here are the reasons that I settled on French.

1. French sounds cool. It can’t be as much fun to speak as Lao but it sounds real cool.

2. Food. I dabble in the kitchen and I really like Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook .

3. It’s widely spoken. According to Wikipedia there are 270 million French speakers, of which 120 million are native or fluent. It’s also spoken all across the world: Quebec, Southeast Asia, West Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. Italian, Portuguese or German just aren’t spoken as widely.

Next: My lesson plan.

^{July 14, 2006}
After transplanting the thyme plants it took them some time to get growing but now they are really doing well (see picture).

^{July 14, 2006}

Catastrophe Nipped in the Bud
Last week the basil plants looked real bad, all the leaves were wilting (you know, the part that I want to eat). I ‘fixed’ them by removing all of the flower buds. I guess the flowering part was feeding off of the leafy part. The basil seems to have recovered (see picture).

Stupid flowers, I can’t eat them. If I had wanted to look at flowers then I would have planted flowers.

Basil, get in my belly!