While the light rain gently falls...

...and becomes something of a hard rain as I type this, but I digress...

Yesterday was not a total loss. For one thing, I learned that apparently, only some Starbucks locations are set up to accept Bitcoin as payment, as witness the following snippet of conversation between me and the Starbuckian behind the counter at the Barnes & Noble branch of said coffee emporium located at Bay Area and I-45:

"Do you accept payment in Bitcoin?"

"Umm... what's that?"

Game, set, and match. Nothing to see here... move along.

I had the fellow pour me a coffee anyway, paid with ordinary coin of the realm, and then went outside where what had been a thriving den of chessplay was winding down. I sat down to watch, whereupon a fellow walks up to me and asks, with no preamble, "So what do you think of the level of their play?"

I look up at the guy, who looks like a septuagenarian Gilligan minus hat but with white hair and sporting a pot belly, and say, "How am I supposed to know?" Whereupon, my tormentor turns and leaves before I can add, "Do I look like Shelby Lyman?"

(Trust me, you would have had to have been there.)

In any event, I found myself downwind of a rather portly gent who was smoking furiously while trying to manage a mediocre endgame. I thought it somewhat ironic that he was sitting directly on the other side of the glass and next to the Starbucks sign declaring the patio area and everything within 25 feet of the door to be a tobacco-free zone, but I didn't expect anyone to make any waves about the guy sitting there and smoking because he looked like he was taking a break from a hard morning of collecting vig from various small businesses in the neighborhood.

After losing the game, the guy says something about his opponent cheating (a surprise to me), picks up his smokes, heaves up his carcass, and wanders off into the parking lot area. The winner—who introduces himself as Ralph—invites me to sit down across the board from him. I accept his invitation, and while we set up the pieces, he wants to know where I'm from because he's having trouble placing my accent. New York, I say. His eyebrows go up, he says something about how practical New Yorkers are, and then pushes his e-pawn.

I did fairly well, for a while, but eventually lost. My secondary goal—to see how much of the game I could reconstruct from memory after returning home—was largely accomplished. If you're into this sort of thing, here's the score:

Ralph–AlexPGP
1.e4 Nf6 2.Nc3 {Avoiding the Alekhine Defense.} e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 {This has become a Four Knights.} 4.d4 Bb4 5.dxe5 Nxe4 6.Bd2 Nxd2 7.Qxd2 Be7 8.Bc4 Nxe5 9.Qe2 Nc4 10.Qc4 d6 11.Nd5 Be6 12.Nxe7+ Qxe7 13.Qb4 c6?? {13...c5?!} 14.Rxd6 Qc7 {I'm not entirely sure this was what I played, but it's the only move that makes sense, since I distinctly remember White's Rooks were doubled on the d file when the melée began.} 15.Rhd1 Rad8 16.Rxd8 Rxd8 17.Qxd8 Qxb7 (1-0) {I resigned because there was no way to avoid losing an additional pawn, and I'm not a fan of doggedly defending a losing endgame on a nice, sunny afternoon in front of Barnes & Noble.}

Cheers...

A pleasant surprise...

Looking over a copy of Failure Is Not an Option (by Gene Kranz) that I picked up at a church rummage sale yesterday, I notice that it is autographed by the author.

It is just that, his name written by hand, with no dedication or anything, and I suspect that probably something like half the copies of the book in this very local part of the world have a similar autograph by Kranz.

Still, it's a nice find for a dollar, as alas, sic transit gloria mundi.

Cheers...