• Member Since: Apr 16, 2008
• Last Login: May 24, 2013
• Profile Views: 474
• Points: 86
• Homepage: www.marsalone.com
• Birthday: Apr 27, 1971
• Occupation: Civil/Structural Engineer
• USCF Rating 1365

Hello everybody, my name is Daniel. I am a 41 year old civil/structural engineer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. I've played chess off and on since college. I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and graduated from Lousiana State University with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. I was there during the Curley Hallman and Gerry Dinardo years, those were dry times, not like the Saban and Miles BCS Championship era but at least I would see Shaquille O'Neal in the math building when I would go to Calculus and Linear Algebra classes. He was the one athlete that I actually saw taking classes. I did see Paul Byrd, who would become a major league pitcher, in the quad once but he was more than likely just scoping out the SEC coeds.

Moved back to New Orleans after college in '95 and then moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 2005 after hurricane Katrina flooded my home, where I met my wife. We moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2010 after the economy tanked. We have two kids, a 5 month old daughter and a 4 year old son. I have to schedule my online games here around the crying and whining children. That usually means early in the morning before they get up or late at night after they've hit the hay.

As far as my other interests go, I play jazz, funk and rock piano, playing standards and jazz tunes at restaurants and bars either solo or in a trio format. Also play in a classic rock cover band playing Deep Purple, Black Keys type stuff and 80's tunes.

Also you can find me on the air on 10, 20, and 40 meters (also on 2m if you live in the Santa Fe area). I am a ham radio operator. My callsign is AE5XK. If we get a QSO going, I'd like to play a game a chess over HF. That was my one of my goals when I got in to ham radio. I can play in cold war style descriptive or algebraic for you progressive types. Another goal of mine is to play over CW so if you want to bust out your key or paddle, I'm game.

In the past, I participated in amateur bicycle racing (road) and amateur boxing.

Current tale of the tape: height 6'-0", weight 240 pounds, 72" reach, 470 pound bench one rep max, 34 reps 225 pounds combine style. Starting to get into cycling again and plan on riding the Santa Fe Century in May 2013. Last time I raced and rode serious was about 10 years ago before I started lifting and weighed about 182. Even 182 was heavy compared to the other cyclists but southeast Louisiana is flat. Now I am at 7200 feet here in Santa Fe with mountains everywhere and am going to have to lug and extra 50-60 pounds up every grade and incline.

Okay as for chess, I dig the games of my fellow New Orleanian and Who Dat, Paul Morphy. I'm sure he'd be a big Saints fan too. Haven't done much of that book learning but I do love the old stuff especially the stuff with descriptive notation. It is a much more elegant way to express a chess game.