Monday, January 29, 2007

Despair, sadness, grief... is it heartache?

Despair, sadness, grief... even suicidal thoughts. Could it be heartache, that most despised, yet expected demon?

Not even close. Not heartache... Hard drive.

Yes, I had a terrible hard drive crash last week that had apparently devastated my all my data for the past four years. Documents, email, geneological research, chess games.... What a disaster.

I am now trying to recover from it. I talked to some drive recovery people at drivesavers.com, and they were very friendly and realyl a low-pressure sales approach, but the cost to recover was estimated approximately $2000. Ouch.

So I took it to a local guy here in New Jersey. Rey at Intertech was a good guy, who tried his best, but even he said the disk was so far gone that it needed the services of a full-time disk recovery company. We'll get the results in a few days, after their analysis.

For some funny stories about disk crashes, you can read this article in Time magazine.

So, watch and wait for the experts with their clean rooms, the men with their sales. Buffy reference - Season 4 finale... Sorry... Mind has been elsewhere this week.



So, sage wisdom... Back everything up - today. Don't wait.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

A pretty ending


(244) NN - Bernard,R (1402) [B06]
Metro Chess Club G/25+5 delay (3), 16.01.2007

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 c5 4.c3 d6 5.Bc4 Nf6 6.0-0? Dropping a pawn for nothing... 6...Nxe4 7.Bxf7+?! Morphy-wannabee 7...Kxf7 8.Ng5+? Just exchanging off this knight for nothing. 8...Nxg5 9.Bxg5 Rf8 10.Qf3+ Kg8 11.Qd5+ Kh8 12.Re1 Nc6? [ 12...Rf5 This wins a piece... For instance... 13.Qe4 Rxg5 14.Qxe7 Qxe7 15.Rxe7 Rf5 16.Re8+ Rf8] 13.Nd2?? Rf5 but now it comes a move later... 14.Qe4 Rxg5 15.Nf3 Rf5 16.d5 Ne5 17.Nxe5 Rxe5 18.Qf3 Bf5 19.Rxe5? Tranding pieces while down... not a good idea. [ To be considered would be 19.g4!? Bd7 20.Re3 Qf8 21.Qxf8+ Rxf8 22.h3-+] 19...Bxe5 20.Re1 Qf8 21.Rf1? Just bizarre 21...Bd7 22.Qxf8+ Rxf8 23.h3 Bb5 24.Re1 Bc4 25.b3 Bxd5 26.c4 Bc6 27.g3 Rf7 28.f4 Bd4+ 29.Kh2 g5 30.Re6 [ 30.fxg5 Rf2+ 31.Kg1 Rxa2+ 32.Kf1 Bg2#] 30...gxf4 31.g4 And here's where I saw it. I prayed he wouldn't resign, and he would play into it. 31...f3 32.g5 [ 32.Re1 Be5+ 33.Kg1 f2+ 34.Kf1 fxe1Q+ 35.Kxe1 Effective, but not nearly as pretty...] 32...f2 [ 32...Be5+ 33.Kg1 f2+ 34.Kf1 Bg2+ 35.Ke2 ( 35.Kxg2 f1Q#) 35...f1Q+ 36.Kd2 Rf2+ 37.Ke3 Qe2#] 33.g6 f1N# and he did! [ I should have played... 33...a6 34.gxf7 f1N#] 0-1