First timer...thanks for looking!

Well this is my first attempt at a blog. As you can probably tell, its main focus will be on my continuing education in the wonderful game of chess, although it will probably end up being a catch all for what ever I feel like posting up at the moment. I have to admit I have a lot of varied interest and sometimes I just need to get some thoughts down. What better place to try and organize myself!

I think I'll start with telling a little about myself. My real name is Steve S., aged 38, and I live in a mid sized community in the middle of Nebraska. Not a lot interesting goes on out here in the boonies, although we try to think of our little town as a very modern community. I changed jobs in the last year and am now a full fledged factory grunt. But the benefits and paycheck make it almost worth it. I live with my soul-mate Lisa and our 4 children, ages 17 all the way down to 3. I also have a granddaughter of 9 months who is in the house with us and is an interesting and unexpected addition to the family. We also share the house with Brutus, a 10 month old black lab. More on him in a later post.

I have played chess off and on since I was around 10 years old when the neighbor kid taught me to play. I always considered myself to be pretty good, but then the internet came along. That's when I realized what a patzer I was! But that was fine with me because chess was more of a distraction and something I didn't take very seriously. Well, about a year and a half ago I went through some life changing experiences (too much dirty laundry to put up on the net) and I found a need to get my mind going in a more constructive direction. I dabbled in guitar lessons and found some success, but due to the size of my family and the size of the house I never really had the quiet time (or ambition) to practice properly. Also its harder than you may think to find people to play with around here. That's when chess crept back into my life. I was able to find a local chess club here in town to get some OTB chess in and started to play more on the FICS. I was getting killed! I felt I had to do something. So I started to do some research on the net and found it to be full of patzers like me who were looking to improve their game.

So that leaves me where I'm at today. Struggling to improve and learn all I can. And balance family, job, house and everything else at the same time. I just ordered some books and Fritz 10, which I will be posting about later after I get them and go through them a bit.

Thanks for checking out my blog and check back often. Something tells me I have a lot to say!

L8R
Raths