Patch, our new website, LA

There's a nice story about our chess team on Patch, a super-local AOL type new media website.

Thanks to Braden Bournival for helping us get a new website for the IS 318 team up and running. It's still being built -- we want to have individual pages for top players-- they design them themselves, choose the colors and the design, include their best game, best tactic, a recent win, favorite photo, maybe the page plays a theme song, then also a history of the team page, a program describing our alumni tutoring business, more content and photos, etc. -- but you can check it out here. Any suggestions for what else to add? Any links for easy ways to add playable boards?

I just put up a post about the most improved kids. I realized a few things when writing it. One is that the 8th graders don't improve much; there are a bunch of good reasons for that, but I still need to think about what I can do to help them more. later note: I went back to the post later, because it seemed like why shouldn't I use this as a teaching moment and so I use it to suggest (hopefully my kids read this) five concrete things a kid can do if she/he wants to improve.

I'm off to LA tomorrow with Justus (and Will Fisher, who is traveling with us) for a US Chess School with GM Melikset Khachiyan. I'm excited to look at chess-- I haven't seriously studied in a long time, and I'm hoping this coming week will reload my brain.

Jonathan left just now for a week in the Bahamas. It's strange to be alone in the house with nothing I have to do. Sunday is normally my only day off, but I always end up seeing my family or Jonathan's, or cleaning the house or preparing for the week, or something. The idea of 24 totally me hours is exciting and strange. I should probably clean the house.