Free Flight, Free Speech

I've got two different things rolling in my life at the moment...

First, I'm finally feeling healthy enough to re-engage in another love of mine, chess and chess tournament directing. It's the scholastic tournament season, so I'll be away some weekends because of that. (Though I think I can and will be in the next tour segment.)

Second, I'm using a chunk of my inheritance to become certified as an EMT. It's a virtual class with in-person components, but I'm expecting this will be front and center of my free time between mid-February and sometime in June. (No job change, just doing it so I can volunteer as a medic and help people at a higher level of function than first aid alone.) I'm also a little busy now with the application process and required pre-class certifications and tests - I'm now certified in Basic Life Support (team CPR with mask or bag), for example.

As such, I won't be available for anything but the occasional short flight (and we'll see how much of that I can get in.) I'm going to halt my plane development work as well, or at least make it a distant third place. (With a passenger info display all but ready but some flight deck console/throttle stalk work to do on the -125 still.) And while I'll still pop up for controlling once in awhile it also packs away the ideas I had about opening up a regular controlling timeslot.

Good luck! Just drop in sometimes for a short hop then till you have more time again. And honestly, just the info you are feeling healthier again makes my day and I bet that of some others here too. The BAe-125 will not run away!

Yes i'm glad to hear about good health too. And remember: Real life first! Pursue the things you like to do irl and make real friends. Flightgear only gives you square screen eyes Good luck with your activities.

Kind regards, Vincent

It sounds you are going to be busy and have a lot of personal growth in this time KB7. I wish you the best on all those endeavors....


Now,
Not that I want to pull you back, but you said something that particularly sparked my interest:

KB7 wrote:I've got two different things rolling in my life at the moment...

First, I'm finally feeling healthy enough to re-engage in another love of mine, chess and chess tournament directing. It's the scholastic tournament season, so I'll be away some weekends because of that. (Though I think I can and will be in the next tour segment.)

I thought, maybe should we organize a "FlightGear Chess Tournament I / 2017" (?)

I know probably most of us don't have an Elo rating here, but we may actually sort a qualifying round or something to rank ourselves first, and then get "Tournament" mode.

Just throwing the idea out there: I think this would be fantastic. I know there are several chess software that would allow playing on-line and it will allow in addition to have clear and comprehensive annotations of the games too

That could be cool!!

I would be totally in for such Chess tournament, as a competitor. I am not even remotely a good player, but I can give a headache or two to a good player if I'm inspired.

A long time ago i used to win some chess games sometimes. But now i can't win one single game of the program on my phone. Let's say that i am completely out of practice

Kind regards, Vincent

well the fun about chess tournaments is that as the tournament progresses you get paired to people with some more similar skill level than you have.

In our case it would begin as random pairing. Winners meet winners. Loosers meet loosers. That way to more games you play (lets say 3 to 6 rounds) the more similar level your opponent trends to be and this means your chances to make a good game for you increases.
(off course not the "king-of-tournament" position. If you loose a couple of games at the beginning, recoverying that chance to score first is harder... but heck .... it's all about the fun!)

This above just reffers to swedish pairings off course, if happen to be so few that we do a round-ruban then yeah, you play all the other opponents, and thus you are expected to win some loose some and find your placement on the score table anyways. Be first, be last, or somewhere in the middle.

As soon as you know how to make your moves, a chess tournament does not require you to be able to beat a cell phone, deep blue or Fischer himself [Just try hard when you are put in front of KB7 I guess!]



(I am therefore here encouraging KL666 and Peter and all other FGers able to move a pawn to say, Heck why not? Challenge accepted )

OMG, it will be a massacre! But well, if you people want to organize a chess tournament, I try my best to be there.

Updating.... Chess season is still going through next weekend, and the EMT class is WAY much more work than I figured. Tonight was my first hop since the above, took the L-159 from Homey to KLAS and then just a little assist in controlling at OAK, and this is all the time I'll have for another block.

The class runs through July 7th. Hopefully I'll get little 1 hour breathers to do real short hops and check in here more frequently.

And THANKS EVERYONE for the well wishes with the class! OK, back to Airway Management.... the tracheal kind, not the ATC kind as Falcon suggested on Mumble.

A lot happens in three months. First, I haven't had one-hour breathers at all. If I do I fill it with study. And when I'm not studying I'm trying to pull down clinical hours in the Emergency Room or on an Ambulance - I've logged over 100 hours since April 1. The class still runs until final exams on July 7th, and then I'll still be studying to pass the state or national exams (not sure which one I'm taking yet. National is harder but I'm leaning towards that.)

Second, I decided that I'm loving what I'm doing so much..... that I've decided to take a course of action to change my career from healthcare admin to healthcare provider. While I'm not sure how I'm going to afford it yet, I've applied and been accepted to a local university's Bachelor Of Science in Nursing / 2nd Degree Advanced program. So, if my old brain and body can hack it.... I'm going to be a nurse! I'm really hoping that this will give me a little more free time for flight, actually. But the studies still have to come first.

And finally, the new laptop I was using died in the midst of this - new but out of warranty. I'm only just now installing FG and Mumble. So hopefully I'll see y'all on a tiny bit, but that's why I've been down and out for awhile.

Hopefully catch you all in July if not a little sooner!