mcfarmer,

This is without a doubt post of the week..........post of 2019, so far in fact!!!

Thanks much. This is exactly what we need.

Here..........and in the rest of the country right now!

The photos are now huge. When I first posted they were fine. Does this forum not automatically resize ?

How do they look to you ?

Never mind, I fixed them.

I've been pulling snow from roofs with a snow rake today to try to reduce ice damming. We're supposed to have 20F temps. for a day or 2 that will melt snow on the black shingles so it runs off. They have 2"-4" more snow predicted then some -11F for a few days to bring March "in like a Lion" and then we may be turning the corner on Winter and be heading towards more Springlike temps. We can only hope. ;-)

Stay safe cliff, I’m sure you’ve seen the videos of such things going wrong.

I'm running a chess tournament that will have 200 K-12 kids competing in the "Sport for the Brain"

Been getting the kids signed up at the 5 schools that I coach chess at as well as a couple dozen other schools.

Getting the pizza ordered, trophies and so on as well as scheduling concession stand and set up people/volunteers.

That's one of the many nice things about doing 5 schools. We have 5 schools worth of volunteers.... there is no shortage of assistance at the event.......which is March 9th. 

mcfarmer,

You are very talented to be able to do all that stuff.  Looks like you made a nice small sized dog house? What kind of dog do you have?

Don't tell me that's the mailbox.  That thing has enough room for a months worth of  mail and a bunch of decent sized packages (-:

.... first off....... do not call me Shirley......

zits tits and armpits...

.... I am feelin' good about "MY" package....

“I'm running a chess tournament that will have 200 K-12 kids competing in the "Sport for the Brain"”

Good for you. I have been playing my 5 year old grandson in a game called “no stress chess”, ever heard of it ? We found it at the library, he loves playing it.

No stress chess

https://community.microsoftcasualgames.com/faqs/

Each day at midnight MicroSoft offers 5 different solitaire games with random levels of difficulty (easy, medium, hard and expert). 

Since I get up about 2:30 AM (PST), I do the games and check in with MF ... but wait, there's more !

Ever other day at 7:00 AM (EST), they hold a solitaire tournament with up to 30 puzzles of progressively more difficult games. There are usually over 400, 000 entries and the day I checked I came in 67,997 ... sounds awful, but I beat 4 out 5 entries. 

You also compete against a group of 100 who had been originally picked at  random. You can eliminate players whom you think are using a computer program … those who complete 30 games in less than an hour.

At the end of each tournament, I extract the player who came in one place ahead of me and put him into a "Friends" group, for additional competition.

Carl, interesting. I haven’t the mental fortitude for such things.

Candyland is our big favorite around here.

Mcfarmer,

Wow! This looks like a wonderful game to help the younger ones understand chess. I think I'll buy  it to check it out. I may want to buy a handful and send them home with kids at the beginning of the season. 

Thanks so much for sharing that. You never thought this thread would end up with you finding a great resource for a chess coach of 25 years!

But that's what happens sometimes when we are  sharing part of ourselves with others because others can ALWAYS learn something from everybody. Nobody knows everything and everybody knows something(s). 

Here's the link to our chess tournament:

http://scichess.org/tournament-calendar/

http://scichess.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/North-JH-Tournament.pdf

Carl,

Holy cow, why do you get up at 2:30am every morning?

What time do you go to bed?

This sounds very challenging/competitive. For sure a wonderful way to help  keep an 88.5 year old's mind active. Just another reminder of what an awesome time it is that we live in. 100 years ago, for instance................and going back thousands of years, what would guys like you be doing right now in their geriatric years?

Actually, none of us would be enjoying this conversation or know personally, too many people outside of those that we encountered face to face during our life.

We are also blessed with 1,000 times more opportunties to be entertained and educated via the internet. 

A computer and connection to the internet in today's world makes one a master of their universe!!!!!

Today I have been mostly,

Taking the Mrs. in for her implants.

"Holy cow, why do you get up at 2:30am every morning? What time do you go to bed?"

Mike, I usually watch "The Big Bang Theory" which ends at 8:00 PM ... unless I conk out sooner! (Once was Night People, getting by on 5 hours of sleep.) 

Thankfully, I wake up every couple of hours for the rest of the night, and just can't go back to sleep after 2 PM.

" ... and going back thousands of years, what would guys like you be doing right now in their geriatric years?"

Thanking God that they were still there. 

"Actually, none of us would be enjoying this conversation or know personally, too many people outside of those that we encountered face to face during our life."

A large benefit, I believe, is exposure to ideas and events that are not in our comfort zone or environment.

"Taking the Mrs. in for her implants."

Mcfarmer, you're a very lucky man, if you are not talking about teeth. 

"Taking the Mrs. in for her implants."

Mcfarmer, you're a very lucky man, if you are not talking about teeth. ”

Yeah, I confess, it’s teeth.

Although with the Valium and OxyContin it’s almost like our first date.

TIHBM, taking the kids to the local Family Fest.

All the local service and youth organizations put on a game day for the kids. Kind of an anti-cabin fever day.

Mike, how did the tournament go ?

Good on you that you take the time, along with the rest of the volunteers. Kids don’t forget those things.

Today I will be mostly sorting out the neighbor’s heating system. Got a call from their house monitoring folks that they have a low temperature alarm. Eighteen below and I’ll most likely have to start a tractor to move some snow to get in there.

If they are out of LP we may have problems.

Today I’ve been scooping out an ice fisherman. Seems he thought “Road Closed” “No Maintenance” didn’t apply to him.

As far as he got he’s lucky we didn’t get a bunch of snow last night. He would have been there a while. 

Thanks for asking, the tournament is coming up this Saturday. 

Things look good as long as the snow aimed north of here on Friday, doesn't surprise us and cancel school on Friday.

This would complicate things as we are using the Junior High School. Setting up on Friday. 

You sure got a blast of cold out there!

So you pulled his vehicle from being stuck in the snow mcfarmer?

That would have made some good pictures here!

I'm getting ready for a 4:30pm interview on Relevant Radio. 

https://relevantradio.com/listen/our-shows/the-drew-mariani-show/

Turns out, that what they(Drew Mariani) want to discuss is the study that you started a thread on last month mcfarmer:

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/23963/

They frequently have me on to discuss extreme weather, especially hurricanes but also climate change.

“So you pulled his vehicle from being stuck in the snow mcfarmer?”

Yeah, he was in pretty good. It was hard snow and once he got into it he didn’t have any traction.

So, trying to figure out how to get this down without making a YouTube sensation out of it.

Shoot it down ?

"So, trying to figure out how to get this down without making a YouTube sensation out of it."

Use this mcfarmer (-:

“Use this mcfarmer (-:”

I’ve held it up out there for an hour now, how long does it take to work ?

"I’ve held it up out there for an hour now, how long does it take to work ?"

Mcfarmer, it will only work in the day time.

"I’ve held it up out there for an hour now, how long does it take to work ?"

Mcfarmer, it will only work in the day time.

Good thinking, I’ll try again.