Chessmaster Bode

Many many things are happening here at the McGuirk household. We decided to help do our part to stimulate the economy. Of course, we are not simply making money out of thin air and giving it to people, a la the government. Rather, we are spending some of our "petty cash" on home improvement. The first in a series of planned upgrades is a new front door. Since most of you have never been to our home (you don't like Dayton?), here is a before picture.
We didn't do the installation ourselves because 1) we are lazy, and 2) we did want to stimulate that economy. Thus, we paid someone to do it last week, and wouldn't you know the stock market went up. You can thank our little stimulus bill for that :-) Here are some after shots. Note the inside picture isn't very good due to all the light that now floods the entryway thanks to the new windows.
It really looks great. We still have to stain/paint the trim, but I have a gal that's good at those things. The only bad thing about the new door is we went from a double-door to a single. This means the baby-grand piano is now a permanent fixture in this house, as the only way out would be through a window. In the coming weeks, we plan to paint a couple interior rooms (we'll contract that out), and install new carpet (also contracted out), so look for the stock market to soar. Additionally, we will upgrade our 1/2 bathroom, but we might do that in-house depending on how the economy is doing ;-)

This week, I tried to teach Bode how to play chess. We did great, but he hasn't quite earned the nickname, Checkmate.
We started off well--note how his first move is with a pawn, albeit the queen-rook pawn, a horrible move in terms of strategy, but one step at a time. Unfortunately, he never placed his pawn anywhere. Instead, he grabbed my queen, a gross violation of the rules.At this point, he started to position all my pieces on the one side.
This is a very interesting strategy--take the opponents pieces and position them for him, and poorly at that. Certainly a new way of thinking. I'll have to contact Gary Kasparov and see what he thinks of Bode's method. Not sure if we have a prodigy on our hands. For now, he'll just have to be a cutie.
Freezing here today. High of 40, rain, and yuckiness. A good day to make some chili and read a book. Ashley is reading Brisinger (3rd book in the Eragon series, which she recommends) and I'm reading Needful Things, which I just started, so I can't yet give it a go/no go. Also, tonight on AMC is the TV show, Breaking Bad, which we give two hearty thumbs up.

Pleasant Sunday to all.