Chess Mister

An unexpected and extremely satisfying hobby of late has been playing chess again (for the first time with any regularity since I was home for a summer from college and teaching Mike to play) with my work friend Alex, who decided to learn recently and has quickly gotten pretty good by reading chess books and playing on the internet. We've managed the last month or so to play a couple times a week during lunch breaks, situated at a newish coffee shop just a parking lot's walk away from the Press (actually, it's where the dear departed gelato shop used to be), which is classy and comfortable and features a very good cup of coffee. Our game yesterday was especially tightly matched; it's surprisingly easy to zone into a chess board for 50 minutes without feeling the time fly by. Makes one not want to return to the office, not to be uncareful about what one wishes for.

I bet the public chess matches make us look pretty intellectual, too, it being the Ivy League and all. Not that I'm generally aware of the outside world during these games.