Chesser

I don’t normally post much about Bryan on this blog.  He used to have his own blog, and for the most part, I don’t think that tales of computer programming are really my forte.

But I wanted to share that I’ve been excited and proud of him this year for really getting into playing chess.  He plays online extensively (he’s CuervoKing on chess.com if anyone out there is a chess player looking for a partner!)  He spent all day yesterday in Milwaukee playing in a tournament.  It’s his fifth tournament of the year.  I love knowing that despite a demanding job and a (perhaps more!) demanding set of kids, Bryan’s able to find time for a little recreation.  Actually, one of my goals for 2009 was to support him in expanding his leisure activities, and I’d say at least when it comes to chess, we have achieved success:)

Bryan won three of the four games he played yesterday, and the game he lost was to the guy who won the whole tournament, so he came home pretty happy.

Here’s a picture of him playing (back left).

You’ll have to try to ignore the young girl who’s staring irritably at the camera while kneeling on her pink sneakers.  Sometimes those little kids are just wicked-smart!

The chess folks also uploaded some videos of people playing chess at the tournament.  Here’s a clip of some champions at work:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9h8tG06ccU]

Somebody wrote up a blog post about the tournament.  It’s where I grabbed the photo, so if you’re interested, you can see more!

Ooo, I also just found a link to Bryan’s US Chess Federation profile page.  Honey, I’m doing research about you!  I also discovered that you have played 584 games on chess.com.  That’s a lot!!

In other news, Bryan has been doing a version of Extreme Workdays this past week.  He’s been coming home for dinner and the kids’ bedtimes and then working until close to midnight most evenings (we took off Friday night and caught up on Mad Men…finished season 1!).  Bryan went into work on Sunday morning, and as of 9pm, he’s still not home.

His office has an end-of-November (or maybe now it’s end-of-the-year) deadline, and there’s a mid-deadline on Monday, so my sweet guy is putting in 110%.  It doesn’t seem to get him down, though. He’s such a dedicated worker:)

It’s times like these, when things in his office kind of blow up that I’m especially glad that I don’t also have an out-of-the-home job.  When he needs to put in some extra hours, we both put in extra hours, and it works just fine.  If we were juggling two jobs, though, it would be trickier!

I leave you with a picture of my sweetie: