happy birthday to me

so, i am thirty now. not that i didnt remember that when i woke up, but facebook did an excellent job of a rude reminder by changing the ads (singles in twenties to "over thirty singles") - great :-)

woke up late as usual, and have to go for an eye test. what a start for the day.

something strange happened yesterday. a week back, i missed winning the US class championship (in my class of course) in houston, by a silly silly mistake and i was feeling very annoyed. there is a US open championship coming up in dallas but i dont know anybody there, and staying in a hotel for 5 days is a bit too expensive. so i kinda wrote that off. yesterday, one of my old colleagues and a good friend, suddenly mailed me that he's coming to dallas tomorrow for 3 months. call it simple coincidence, but i have this weird feeling of fate/god's will/ etc etc that i should go and play in the tourney now. i wouldnt say i am very well prepared, but going by my lifelong experience, one is never "fully" prepared for any exam/text/match (at least not me) - there is always something which u wish u wud have covered given more time. but thats ok. after all i am still playing under 1800, which even by my standards is a pretty low rating.

i went to this informal chess club which has started by one of the kids mother. i am thinking of teaching the beginners there on a regular basis - i always had this inclination towards teaching i guess. but right now the priority is the US open, if at all it happens for me. lets see.

this is the best page of the archives perhaps....

http://iimk.rediffblogs.com/2004_01_08_iimk_archive.html

nostalgia(?!)

to my horror, i realized the title contains the remarks in chess notation-but somehow it is appropriate. no, i wont tell you what ?! means. anyways, coming back to nostalgia i happened to go back to my old blog (iimk.rediffblogs.com) - and boy how much i used to write in those good old days (ok cut the good part out-i meant old days). most of my poems would be on those pages somewhere. i am wondering if there is some way to pull the content out of that and on blogspot - have to research on that.
lately, i got a bit of free time on my hands- and what else would i put it on-you guessed it-chess. i started winning small amounts in local tournaments-defeating some of the decent players here-and that gave me a boost to try for bigger things. so here i am - going to houston this saturday for a weekend one.
my life here in san anto. is -to quote an old friend-homely. i have a poolside apt which means i get a lot of free entertainment just by peeking out of the french windows.
abhinav pulled me for getting the new iphone last saturday. and it was a complete washout of a day - we stood (i-unwillingly) for 6 hours in the line just to get that stupid phone. despite all of abhi's claims for being a good planner-here he totally screwed up.
yes, and back to poems- i would copy some of them here before i find some better way-somehow i want to hold on to some of those lines. so here it goes:

i saw life,
passing me by,
sometime time,
watching me cry,

and felt pain,
not my own,
i've seen love,
come and gone,

silence and pause,
dying for a cause,
innocent smiles,
truth and lies,

putting up masks,
friends in casks,
death and birth,
joys and mirth,

hours of wait,
being late on a date,
sleepless nights,
and pointless fights,

selling the soul,
to reach to the goal,
settling the score,
and then some more,

new kids on the block,
or steady like a rock,
and evergreen few,
the old and the new,

some hard to find,
selfless and the kind,
and day after day,
the ego in play....

i just wish i could write more-and more importantly better.