Just Beautiful

Today is one of those days. The great outdoors calls you with blue skies and moderate temperatures..."Come to me!" Yes, yes, yes...in just a minute. Why wait? That is easily answered by the above photo. As there is beauty in the natural world, there is beauty in the chess world, in a game of chess. The board is a thing of beauty (just look at it, nice) with its 64 squares, 32 light color and 32 dark color. Did you know that a chess board has 8 ranks (which cross horizontally), 8 files (which cross vertically), and 26 diagonals (of which 13 are light squares and 13 are dark squares)? All this is beauty. The chessmen are beautiful. True works of art. Did you know that there are 32 chessmen to a set? Opposing armies that consist of 16 men each for the light and dark colors. Each army has a King, Queen, 2 Rooks, 2 Bishops, 2 Knights, and 8 pawns. How about the minds that move the chessmen into pleasing patterns? They create such beauty that I sit inside my castle and watch...even as Mother Nature has given me a most beautiful of days.