My passport arrived safely...

India half way point…

Harry will come from NYC and Laura will most likely come from NYC too….all the rest of us come from New Zealand

The largest employer in the world …

is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people

 

Chess…

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

PIC: Initial position: first row: rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, and rook; second row: pawns

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

PIC;Ashtāpada, the uncheckered 8x8 board, sometimes with special marks, on which chaturanga was played

It is a fact that the first game of chess has been traced back to have originated in northern India. Like other 1,000+ year old games, it would have been played differently than today's rules. It's thought that today's rules have been around since sometime in the 1400′s A.D. Chess is believed to have originated in northwest India during the Gupta empire where its early form in the 6th century was known as chaturaṅga (Sanskrit: four divisions [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively).