Send Money Please!

Mike Klein (above) is Harrison's chess coach and presently on sabbatical, which is fancy talk for being unemployed (yet not unemployable) and traveling around the globe for a year while the rest of us get to live vicariously through his exploits:

http://sendmoneyplease.livejournal.com/

Don't let the adult beverage, smokey-thing and angst-ridden inability to sit up straight fool you:
*1985 - Received first rating of 1398 (age five)
*1986 - Played Josh Waitzkin at the Nationals (creating a mention in the book "Searching for Bobby Fischer")
*1988 - National K-3 Champion
*1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 - North Carolina High School Champion
*1996 - Received National Master and Life Master titles
*1996 - World Open Under 2250 Champion
*1997 - North Carolina Open Champion
*2003 - Land of the Sky Open Section Champion (Largest open tournament in NC)
*2006 - Received FIDE Master title
*8-time member of the All-America Chess Team (inaugural member)
*Career national scholastic record: 61 wins, 10 losses, 13 draws

http://www.youngmasterchess.com/

Check out his itinerary. He's presently en route to Budapest and then to South Africa after the new year.

So far:
Sept. 08 - Amsterdam, Brussels, Bergerac, Bordeaux
Oct. 08 - Pyrenees, Barcelona, Granada, Morocco
Nov. 08 - Austria, Germany, Prague

Then:
Dec. 08 - Slovakia, Budapest, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia
Jan. 09 - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana
Feb. 09 - Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania
March 09 - Egypt, Israel, Jordan
April 09 - India, Nepal
May 09 - Thailand, Cambodia, Fiji

If you intersect his path of travels and have a clean couch (or spare room) please drop him an email. In return, he'll best you in a match of wits. How well you are likely to hold your own in said match of wits besting can be quickly estimated using what is otherwise known as the "Klein Formula":

[(Bn*Tz)/Dz)*(Bz+1)] = Mw%

Where:
Bn = #Beers consumed by Mike the last 6 hours
Tz = Time zones removed from Mike's last time zone
Dz = Days Mike has spent in present time zone
Bz = #Beers consumed by you the last 6 hours
Mw = % odds of getting your wits bested by Mike

If you cross paths with Mike please be sure to post your score in comments!

Safe travels, Mike.

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Username: Anarchytec

AU2008 BLIM BLAM BLOG

First of all - the weather is great. Nearly 70F during the day - which is around 10F higher than normal. That means people could actually hang out by the pool. That is if there were any people here. AU hasn't officially kicked off yet (most people fly in on Monday) and Vegas seems like a ghost town. The HNTB Architecture technology team had a fantastic meal together last night and the restaurant might have had four tables in use. The restaurant was a very fine selection by Katherine Meeder. And speaking of Katherine - she'll be traveling to Seoul, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur for a brief architectural study abroad program. And speaking of Singapore - Katherine is concentrating her thesis on the modernization and planning of Singapore.

So if you're from Singapore and you'll be at AU - please drop me an email. I'd like to introduce you to Katherine. Let's see if we can arrange for you two to meet and discuss all things architecture and technology while she's visiting in early January of next year.

Today: Design Computation Symposium. All day event. I'll get to see Matt Jezyk (Revit Mother Ship) and Neil Katz (SOM NY Mathematic Philosopher Design Guru Classical Clarinetist). Neil once described his design philosophy with the elegantly pejorative, "We don't make blobs. We make decisions". ;) Good times.

Hey Neil - can I buy you a couple of beers and then introduce you to Blackjack? :)

Finally - another year passes without Guy Robinson attending AU. Dude - wish you were here. Allow me to solace you thus.