Summer begins

Happy third day of summer! Tuesday's solstice marked the start of my favorite season of the year. To make things even better, we had a church league softball game on Tuesday. Warm weather, lots of light, softball ... you just can't beat it. Ellen was a little bit apprehensive about the arrival of summer since that often heralds extremely high temperatures, but she has been pleased to see high temperatures in the upper 60s these past couple days. Not even a rainy, Marchlike day can dampen my enthusiasm for this new season, though.

Speaking of Ellen, she departs on Saturday for a weeklong conference in New Mexico. At the conference, she will presenting a poster summarizing some of her recent work as well as attending sessions of interest and reconnecting with space physicists from other schools and labs. It's an annual conference and this is not the first year she has gone; she's looking forward to being back. I'm excited for her and proud of her, although I'm certainly going to miss her while she's out West.

On the chess front, I contested a match last weekend with Dave Carter, the top-rated player in Vermont. Although I am not the top-rated player in New Hampshire (I come in at #7), we met at a tournament a couple months ago and play for the same online correspondence chess team. Dave, who has been a master for twenty nine years, is an extremely genial fellow and a strong chessplayer to boot. I had to battle back from a disadvantageous position in game one, ultimately securing a draw, and in game two the roles were reversed, with me carrying a slight plus into the endgame. Then disaster struck, however, and I blundered away the game in heart-breaking fashion. Until next time!

Conan O'Brien delivered the Commencement Address at Dartmouth's 241st Commencement on June 12. His speech deftly mixed the humor you would expect from a famous comedian with profundity you might not, and Ellen and I enjoyed watching it (albeit later on Youtube later that day). Congratulations Class of 2011! And perhaps most meaningfully for me, Commencement of two weeks yore marked the two-year anniversary of this blog. Thank you for reading, and here's to years more!