Shira Chess Challenge: Portugal Class 2 Day 2

Hola! Regular followers know that my chess friend, Shira Evans, is currently visiting an orphanage in Portugal, teaching the children there so many amazing things! Shira has put up a new You Tube video showing some of the events surrounding Class 2 on Day 2. The joy of discovery (the Leapster devices) and the joy of discovering how to use the Leapster is evident in the face of each and every child as they work through the lessons Shira leads. Please follow along as the children learn how to express themselves by drawing a picture on a Leapster screen -- Shira is the founder and President of Computer Labs for Kids, a non-profit organization, that provides laptops and age-appropriate electronic tools, as well as lessons on how to use them, to indigent children around the world. Shira hasn't played "serious" chess for awhile, but a few years ago, she had a rating in excess of 1700 and was one of the highest-rated (maybe the highest-rated) female players in the state of Wyoming. And then, she made a decision to quit playing, except for an occasional pick-up game, as she focused on her career. That career led Shira to Chicago where she was involved in a program that provided computers to schools serving under-privileged children. Out of that experience grew Shira's desire to do more for kids in need. The same drive and determination that compelled Shira to excel in chess have been applied to the Computer Labs for Kids Foundation. Since January, 2009, Shira has visited orphanages in India (Agra), Israel (Ashkelon), and now she is in Portugal. At each of these places Shira has provided lessons to the children on how to care for and use the lap-top computers and Leapsters she has distributed to them, free of charge. Needless to say, the program has been a big hit with the children! You can read more about Shira's Foundation and how I first met Shira (and then reconnected with her after several years) by clicking on the labels for this post. By the way, that photo is of the Cheyenne Chess Club, 2005. Shira is the tall, fashionably attired chess femme wearing the checkerboard-patterned jeans on the right in the group photo. That year she finished in a solid 9th place (out of 19 players) in the 2nd Tri-State Championship with 2.0/4. Shira and I are going to play a three-game chess match - just for fun for ourselves, and also we hope to raise some money for Shira's Computer Labs for Kids. Please follow along as our chess match looms ever closer - I'm blogging about it.

Shira Chess Challenge: Update

Hola darlings! More news from Shira at the orphanage in Portugal: The Lessons Have Begun! Check out Shira's Day One video at You Tube. The kids are so cute! After successfully learning the parts of the Leapster, they each receive a Leapster of their own in a special ceremony. The final few seconds is very special - one of the older girls is showing a younger girl how to use the stylus. Here is Shira's Chesslabs for Kids' Facebook Cause site, where you can find the Day 1 Photo Album. Note - I got a script error message when I clicked on the Photo Album page, but after clicking on it a few times it went away and the photos showed up. I don't know if it's just this balky computer (it's practically an antique now, I got it in 2003). There are 14 of them, you can get a pretty good idea of the kids, the place where they are, and some of the caretakers. There are wee little babies, too. Training Update: I am in serious trouble in my end game with Soleil76. Crap! I am just so STOOPID sometimes. I overlook the most elementary moves that the other side can make to block all my best made plans. I have no strategic skills whatsoever. BIG SIGH. On a happier note, although I feel badly rejected by the no response from the third person I had earlier invited to a game (I conclude I wasn't enough of a challenge, heh!), I received a new invitation from another person who has been following the story here, at the blog! Yippee! So I am very happy to play, although this person will probably use me to wipe up the computer screen. Hey - practice is practice, right? LOL! My game with Frog Breath is totally out of my control. I just moved my Queenside rook (now I'm minus my Queen) to a center file in a bid to threaten suicide penetration. It seems we're in an end game and we didn't even get out of the beginning. I definitely think Frog Breath is Shirov. I think I may throw a little of my "Moro" at him and play something totally crazy. Well, on second thought, that won't work. I already play crazy as it is. Hmmm, back to the drawing board... Liz Vicary - do you read this blog? Can you HELP me??? You teach kids about chess. Surely you can take on a woman of a certain age (ahem) who has delusions of grandeur (me). Do I really need to study those blasted data bases Chessdaddy sent me??? Oh Goddess!

Shira Chess Challenge: Shira in Portugal

Shira has posted a brief video at You Tube showing some of the kids at the orphanage playing with their new computer thingies. I think they are called "Leapsters." Class on how to use these thingies starts on Monday. I hope the You Tube link works! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0rCSLmPfY Training Update: Mine is going crappy! I should have spent today studying the data bases Chessdaddy wants me to study. Oh well. I walked to the supermarket first, then after I relaxed from that trek (with several glasses of wine) I fired up the lawnmower and cut the front lawn. Then I relaxed again for several hours and had some more wine. Then I trimmed the front lawn all around the edges. Then I had some more wine. Then I watched some of my favorite decorating shows on television. Then I pulled the laptop outside and hoped it would rain (it hasn't). A few days ago I invited a new stranger at RedHotPawn.com to a game of chess but he or she decided not to accept, evidently, cuz I haven't received an answer back by way of a move. Oh well. My other two games there are, hmmmm, let's just say that I have no idea how to conduct an end game and I believe I have managed to eventually lose that particular game, I just haven't given up on it yet; my other game with Frog Breath (what an awful name!) is in early stages and I just gave up my queen in order to save a rook and two bishops. Guess you can tell which way that game is going, heh? LOL! Oh what the hell, it's for Shira's kids :)

Shira Chess Challenge!

Hola! I still cannot believe that I am doing this. For details, please see "Shira Chess Challenge" at Chessville. I've already run into BIG problems. I am so frustrated, I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs (and drinking lots of wine). Of course that won't solve the issues. My volunteer trainer, Kelly Atkins, has sent me some stuff I'm supposed to use to study. Fine. I needed WinZip to download it. Fine. I had previously downloaded a trial version of WinZip to my laptop before Mr. Don and I left for New York in May. So I fired the laptop up tonight and turned on the program, and tried to download the files Kelly sent me. No go. Seems the trial program has expired. FINE. They wanted me to BUY the program to download the files. No frigging way! I email Kelly - I'm not going to BUY this program to open a few files. Kelly emails back you can download this and that for free. I hunt around on the internet and find that. I figure out how to download that to my computer. Fine. After I get this THING downloaded to my computer and showing on my desktop, I get an email from Kelly with a different thing attached. Here, he says, download this. No thank you darling. Except I cannot get the thing I downloaded to work. I keep getting strange Windows-type messages that may as well be written in ancient Greek, I do not understand them. In addition to not understanding any of the buttons inside this program (Chessbase Lite) and what they are supposed to do or what they mean, and clicking on all of them doesn't do anything except generate more error messages, I cannot find the files that I THOUGHT I had finally managed to download - I saw them go SOMEWHERE on my computer - from the email attachments Kelly had sent to me. So I'm stuck. This is NOT FINE. When things are NOT FINE like this, it's time to pull the plug. I can feel my blood pressure rising rapidly and my ears are burning (always a really bad sign, people). So I'm moving to Plan B. I'll play online chess until the Match Dates and cross my fingers and hope for the best. I was suspicious about being able to learn anything from a database anyway. I HATE databases. The way I learn things is by having a real live person walk me through stuff bit by bit - whether it be learning how to type, or learning how to draw, learning how to smoke (which I gave up in 1989) or learning how to use a comptuer and a mouse. I was the last one at the place I used to work to get an actual desktop computer, and the very last person to learn how to use a mouse - and I was dragged, kicking and screaming and biting, all the way. It was an extremely traumatic experience for all involved. I couldn't even bring myself to touch the mouse thing for weeks, and continued to create documents using DOS. I thought it was absolutely repellant. Whoever dreamed up the horrid name of MOUSE for a computer tool? UGH! I still don't like it. I don't like it so much I use my right hand to use it, because I do not want to touch it with my real hand (I'm left-handed). Yes, I know, that sounds psychotic. I feel somewhat psychotic at the moment. I cannot learn stuff by staring at words on a computer screen or moving chess pieces around on a computerized board. Nothing sinks in, I don't "get" it. I'm just not built that way. Even for Shira, I'm not going to go out and hire a face-to-face trainer!

Shira Evans and Her Amazing Foundation

Hola! Shira and I have been nattering back and forth via email. While Shira has not played rated chess for awhile (last update to her ELO information at USCF was January, 2006), she's become involved in the most amazing activities. This year Shira started a foundation called Computer Labs for Kids. Shira receives donated or buys laptop computers with donations and then gives them to needy children and provides training and orientation on how to use the laptops! Wow! Shira's first activity was to travel to Agra, India where she taught several girls who are residents of a girls' school there. This You Tube video follows their progress. Shira has just returned to the states from Ashkelon, Israel, and later this year she'll be going to Egypt. You can read more about Shira's foundation work and travels at her Facebook site. Here is a brief update from Shira: Dear Goddesschess Followers, I have a non-profit charity organization which gives laptops to children in areas of need around the world. I am writing this from Israel, having just visited Ashkelon which is right on the Gaza stripborder; an area frequently bombed. And as a chessplayer (ok I've been away from chess for a few years, but I am now inspired to get back into the game) I see something very chessish here. Do you know how psychological the game of chess is when you're sitting across from an opponent? You can be totally winning, get nervous and then lose. Or you can be losing, play a dubious but seemingly brilliant move, and win! It's an incredible rush. Well here in Ashkelon, I see a similar pattern. Here is the most beautiful beach front property, and really, right now there is peace and no sign of bombing or war. I went to the hospital here and spoke with a hospital representative who told stories of people living in terror, afraid to go 15 minutes away from their doorsteps because a bomb siren might go off, and they would have only 15 minutes to get to a safe house. But right now, here in this time, there is calmness, beauty and peace. What makes the area dangerous is that people are living in the past, afraid of what already happened. But right here and now, the area is calm. OK. I drove away from Ashkelon and when I talked to a man who inquired where I had been and I told him, he said, "Oh don't go to Ashkelon. You don't want to visit there." He was sending me mental pictures of war, destruction and dirty, polluted walkways -- the opposite of what Ashkelon really looks like here at this moment in time. So this is what I see.... You're playing a game of chess, and you get into a position where you always mess up (like the war torn Ashkelon), and you think, "Oh no, I'm done for." And there you go losing another game. What we need to do is see the city (or chess position) for how it really is right now at this moment in time. That is where the chess brilliance happens! Hopefully too, I can wake up the people of Israel to a brighter more brilliant future. Please join my charity cause on Facebook! http://apps.facebook.com/causes/245228?m=48fc3623. Happy chessplaying and thanks! Shira

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I'd love to see Shira get back into playing competitive chess, but I don't think she's going to have time! I will stay in touch with Shira. She's doing great work. I hope you'll consider making a donation to her foundation.