Well I’ve gone and thrown away another summer weekend on chess. It will be the second one in the last three weekends. The first one was the First Annual BC School Chess Championship that was being run by my friend Umang, and he recruited my help. It was a big event with over 210 kids from 110 schools competing, and of that number, about 130 of them had never played in a chess tournament before. So once each round began, the kids having trouble started putting up their hands for help from the Tournament Director (hereafter referred to as TD), in this case me, and I had to run over and solve the dispute. Sometimes there were half a dozen arms in the air and I was running around like a crazy person. All the while outside it was sunny and warm, perfect weather to go paddling or have a cold beer on the patio. Maybe there should be a chess ‘season’ that runs through the fall and winter so that no one suffers the angst of watching the days you’ve longed for go by outside without you. Which brings me to today. It is early morning, but later this afternoon I have to go TD another tournament that will run through the weekend. It is the exact opposite of the last one as this one is the BC Seniors Championship, open to players 50 years or older, so there won’t be many people panicking about tiny rules being broken and very few wrinkly arms in the air. Fun fact: if you went back in time the age of all 36 competitors combined, Jesus would still be in kindergarten.
School tournament: poor substitute for an outdoor life.
Anyway, my biggest apprehension about this tournament is the fact that I have to do some public speaking, which if you read my blog much, you know is my paralyzing fear. I only have to address the crowd for a minute or so before each round to make small announcements, and it’s pretty small as only 36 players are registered. Of that 36 I am on friendly speaking terms with about 25 of them, so it isn’t even strangers I have to speak to. Still I have been having dreams about it and spending my days worrying about it. At this point I imagine normal people would be rolling their eyes at my chicken behaviour, and I wouldn’t blame them.
Speaking of summer, this is already among the worst fire seasons on record and it is technically still spring! An area 1.5 times the size of Vancouver Island has already burnt up this year in Canada, and back east in the big cities you can hardly see the hand in front of your face in the thick smoke. The weird thing is the people who are denying this has any relation to climate change, or that the smoke is even harmful. Some lawyer from the coal industry was on TV saying this smoke was natural and no one ever dies from polluted air, even in badly polluted cities in Asia. Actually 4.4 million premature deaths in India and China last year that were attributed to unhealthy air. No doubt there has, or will be, some premature deaths across the eastern seaboard due to this, but sadly, not enough of those deaths will be coal industry lawyers.
Perfectly normal day in New York, no health implications at all.