Spring Break is Officially Here (for me)

Spring Break officially begins today ... for me at least.

MBA Update

I just emailed Snir my Safari case. It's all over now ... it's in the books ... not much I can do at this point. I'll get grades for negotiations and Excel modeling next week sometime.

I received the Summer schedule yesterday. I also got the tentative class listing for Fall 2006. I looked to see if the classes I wanted were offered ... they were. But the bad news is that the two classes I wanted to take in Mod A are on the same day! The other bad news is that the International Finance classes I wanted to take in the Summer are going to be taught by Davis.

So I had to re-work the whole schedule ... and here's the really bad news ... I won't finish all my classes until December. But, on the bright side, I'll only be taking one class in Mod A and one class in Mod B in the Fall. So, really, it won't be that bad. It will be like I'm done with school in August. Taking one class per mod is very easy and not at all stressful. This could end up being a good deal ... since I'll be able to focus on one class, I might get a couple of A's in the Fall.

I won't be taking both International Finance classes ... I'll just take one in the Fall. This means that I had to come up with a couple of different classes to take in the Summer. So, I'll be signing up for Security, Valuation & Selection and Database Design for Business Applications. I loved my database classes at BYU. But after taking this Excel modeling class, I'm a bit leary of the database class. The other two classes I wanted to take in the Summer are available and I will be able to register for them ... one's a leadership class and the other is a managing teams class.

So what does all of this mean for my chess schedule? That is the important question I'm sure everyone is dying to find out (silence ... crickets chirp).

It means that I'll be done with school (as I know it) in August. The workload will drop considerably from August on. I'll be able to spend more time playing chess and working on improving. If nothing else, I'll have at least 6 hours a week that is freed up since I won't be taking two classes. Today I will update my countdown to end on August 19. Starting August 20, I'll begin gearing up my chess studies.

And one last item that concerns my MBA ... or the graduation thereof ... my in-laws called last night with some excellent news. They formed an LLC a few years ago. All of their children are part of the LLC. The LLC owns a couple of time-shares. I've noted before, at the very beginning of the blog that we went to Hawaii. We stayed at one of the time-shares when we went to Hawaii. Since then, the in-laws have taken all the other kids to places like Mexico, Orlando and Hawaii. My wife and I are the only ones who haven't had a chance to go again. So my in-laws informed us last night that they're sending us to either Hawaii or Guatemala as a graduation gift! Of course I was really excited to hear that Guatemala was one of the options. I spent a couple of years there as a missionary. It looks like we'll be going there (just my wife and I) sometime around May of 2007 ... about 10 years to the month of when I was there last.

Quixote Update

I didn't read, again, last night. I worked on my paper and watched TV. I ended up watching "Let's Make a Deal" and "The Office."

Chess Update

I didn't play chess either last night. I did fire up CT-ART 3.0 and worked a few tactics. Tonight, there is a 100% probability I'll play between the hours of 7:30 and 9:30 Central Time.

The 3/3/06 chessgames.com puzzle is 18. ? The tough part of puzzles that are early in the game is that all the pieces are still on the board. There are so many options. This is what I see ... 18. Bxf6 Nxf6 19. Nxf7 Bxf7. Doesn't lead to much, but that was the first thing that came to mind. Another option 18. Ng6 fxg6 19. Bxg6+ ... not sure what that leads to either.

Well the answer is 18. Bxh7 {to open the way for Bxe8} Nxh7 19. f5 Bd7 {black cannot capture h4 or else the white queen would check the king and cause all sorts of trouble} 20. Bxe7 Kxe7 21. Nxd5+ {cxd5 and white goes up big time} Wow ... that is really cool!

That's all for today ...