Otis' visit

Through the wonder that is the internet, a year or so ago I 'met' a puzzler from Beijing.  He said he was coming to HK for a visit and would like to meet me.  Ok says I.  SmaZ's shop.  (well, you can't be too careful, you never know what kind of nutters you meet, and although I might be a tough cookie, physically I'm still a 'little girl') So meet we did and as it turns out, he's a nice chap.  Well mannered too.  His momma taught him right.

So last year I invited him over to see some of my toys.  He really seemed to enjoy it from his posts about the visit both on TP and on Mf8.  Since it is the Chinese New Year holiday and I knew Otis would be coming to HK to visit his family again, once more I invited him over.  Last year we looked under the bed. This year, I let him open a balcony cabinet.  He only managed to open 3 plastic boxes and two cardboard ones.  He also found a big blue bag full of wooden puzzles.

I had to laugh because when he opened the first box he began to pull out puzzles and kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to keep those on the balcony.  Mind, I understand that when you don't have something you desire and I just casually toss them all on the balcony it's a big deal.  In this case the big deal were 4 dogic's (yes, one was the Hungarian original and to please Otis, it is now in the house!), a logi-VIP, and a florescent stickered megaminx.  Ok, so I've had these all for quite some time, and simply don't care where they live as long as they live and I can pull them out every now and again.

The first box he reached into was full of odd shaped puzzles: dodecahedrons of varying types, pyramids, octahedrons...you name it, it was in there.  The next box was full of balls. The big blue bag was next, and that was later followed by boxes of puzzles from IPP.

Otis mentioned that he was more of a sequential twisty type person so I showed him a few nice ones that I managed to pick up this year.  And he took photos of probably everything he saw. Well, most everything.  There were still loads of IPP puzzles he didn't photograph.  And me being the good friend I am pulled out the light box and set it up so he could take some nice photos.

He very kindly gave us a CNY gift.  And bug just loved the Paul Frank gift he brought her!  Thank you so much Mr. Otis.


He also very nicely helped me to reassemble a puzzle that had gotten broken a while ago and I'm grateful.  It was a two person job!

As for the rest of you.  As long as you're willing to meet me at SmaZ's so I can suss out the safety concerns I always have....You are more than welcome to come visit my little puzzle mess.  Mind, you do have to pick up after yourself! (I made Otis put everything back the way he found it-minus one or two puzzles I decided I wanted to try!)  Next year?  We open another balcony cabinet!  There are still many many more puzzles he hasn't gotten into.