Heading Off To Congress

There are no images in this post because I am having trouble with Blogger.  Hopefully I can fix my issue soon, but I am going with just text this time.

I am looking forward to Go Congress in Boston this year.  I didn't attend last year in Austin, and definitely didn't want to miss another year.  I've only missed two years in a row once since my first Congress in 1997.  I didn't attend in 2010 or 2011.

While at Congress I don't track my activity because it is just a pain to do so.  I will give a report upon my return though. I may keep a journal while I am at Congress and post that when I return.

My main goal this year at Congress is to come out of it still being 9 kyu.  It is a struggle each year since 2012 to remain 9 kyu, or to pull myself back up from 10 kyu.  It's not easy riding that rail between DDK and SDK.  Some day I will get back to 8 kyu, which I was in 2012 for a brief moment in time.  

I also want to get through the Congress without consuming a vacation day from my Internet Go School account.  I intend to do my spaced repetition problems every day, preferably before I leave the room for breakfast.

I am up to 13 vacation days from a low of 3 days in the Internet Go School.  It has been quite a while since I consumed a vacation day by accident, and I have gotten my number of problems due per day down to about 30 on average with judicious use of the EASY button.

I didn't blog last week, so I am going to mention two weeks of go activity before I head out. In the absence of images, I'll just mention how many games I played. The last two weeks were light on activity with just four games played.

I should do better than that next week at the Go Congress. I will play at least the six rated games in the U.S. Open.  I won't be playing in the Die Hard on Wednesday since I will be participating in a tour of Harvard and MIT with a friend from BenKyo League and her husband.

Something special about the Congress this year is that my birthday will be happening during the event.  What better way to spend your birthday?