The Peckinpaugh Preserve is a wooded preserve in the Spring area that merged two areas of donated land to form 25 acres of hiking trails and green space. The preserve is located across Spring Creek and adjacent to the Riley Fuzzel Road Bridge, which makes it a convenient hiking spot for many Spring residents.

The trails wind around the preserve in a maze-like manner that makes them very interesting for even the most experienced hiker, and the terrain varies between sand and dirt. Many different animals and bird species frequent the wooded areas around the trails, so bird watchers and nature lovers alike frequently visit the preserve to catch a glimpse of these creatures in their natural habitats. The creek also provides an opportunity for fishing and for launching canoes into its flowing waters.

To help navigate Peckinpaugh Preserve’s complicated series of trails, there are colorful maps available at the small visitor center building at the entrance to the preserve.

Peckinpaugh Preserve
1209 Old Riley Fuzzel Road
Spring, TX 77386
(281) 367-3977
www.springcreekgreenway.org
www.yelp.com/biz/peckinpaugh-preserve-spring

CC-BY-2.0/Flickr/Don DeBold

Kona Grill serves some stellar modern American cuisine along with an expansive menu of sushi. Indoor and outdoor seating and a bright ambiance add to the appeal of this popular local restaurant.

Happy Hour is a great time to visit to enjoy spectacular specials on food and drinks! Order a cocktail, beer or glass of wine and a sumptuous starter like Chicken Satay or Ahi Wonton Crisps. Flatbreads and salads are on Kona Grill's menu, along with a flavorful list of sandwiches. Offerings include a Turkey Burger, an Avocado Chicken Club, and a Big Kahuna Cheeseburger with applewood bacon. Sweet Chili Glazed Salmon with pork fried rice, Pan-Asian Noodles with beef tenderloin, and Miso Sake Sea Bass with ratatouille are among the entrees avilable here.

If you'd like to try it for yourself, Kona Grill is open every day in The Woodlands, Texas.

Kona Grill
3 Waterway Square
The Woodlands, TX 77380
(281) 466-4061
www.konagrill.com/restaurants/the-woodlands-tx.aspx
www.yelp.com/biz/kona-grill-the-woodlands-the-woodlands

CC-BY-SA-2.0/Flickr/Will Merydith

Playing chess against a computer opponent is fairly commonplace stuff today. But the development of computers able to play chess competitively led to many important milestones in artificial intelligence, culminating (at least for now) with Watson, the famous Jeopardy!-playing computer, and Siri, the iPhone virtual assistant.

If you're interested in learning more about the history of artificial intelligence, here are three important chess computers:

Kotok-McCarthy
The Kotok-McCarthy computer was was developed between the years of 1959 and 1962 by a group of students at MIT. Advanced for the time, it was very slow by today's standards: it took anywhere from five to twenty minutes to calculate a single move! This computer also participated in the very first chess match between two machines, losing to a slightly more advanced computer from the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics.

Deep Thought
Deep Thought was developed in a partnership between Carnegie Mellon University and IBM; it was named after a fictional computer in the book series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The computer won the North American Computer Chess Championship in 1988 and the World Computer Chess Championship in 1989. Deep Thought is perhaps most well known for losing two widely-publicized games to chess champion Gerry Kasparov.

Deep Blue
Deep Blue was developed as a successor to Deep Thought. In 1997, it beat Gerry Kasparov twice yet losing the match 4-2. The match was controversial, as Kasparov later accused technicians of making moves on Deep Blue's behalf. The match — and the controversy — later became the subject for a documentary called Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine.

CC-BY-SA-2.0/Flickr/soupboy