meeting another puzzler

Around 4 years ago I had received a private message from a young puzzler asking if I might show his creations to my friend Uwe in the hopes that they would become mass produced.  Being the nice lady I am, I of course said yes and the puzzles were on their way to me.

A little while later another puzzler sent me another copy of one of the puzzles and I was ready to head to the manufacturers.

I'll be honest, while they are lovely puzzles, I knew when I looked at them that they would not be made. Too many parts, not appealing to the mass market, to small and to make it big enough would be to make it huge....I could hear Uwe already and I hadn't even shown him.  But I was duty bound and I took it over.  Sure enough, That's what he told me.

I didn't give up hope though and took the puzzle on to Mf8 and CubeTwist.  Both said similar things. Well, I boxed up the puzzles then and sent them back to the designer.  A few months after I saw the other puzzler at IPP in Berlin and hand delivered his.

To my surprise, when I got back from IPP I had another package from the young puzzler.  I opened it right away and inside were the two puzzles I just sent him.  Not delivered, return to sender.  I took the puzzles out of the box, put them on my shelf and forgot about them.  I showed them to a few other manufactures that year, but then....

Fast forward to last month.  I got yet another private message from that same young man stating that he was in Singapore and would be in HK soon.  Would you care to meet up Rox.  Well heck yes!  Why not?

I was thrilled, but he didn't send me a date. Well, he did.  But I missed it.  What a debacle.  I had to work, then had a dinner and totally messed up.  To compensate, I ran to the airport as he was leaving so I could deliver his toys and finally meet him. We met up, had a drink and a nice-although short-conversation.  Tanner is a very nice young man.  I'm glad I had the chance to meet him.  The puzzle he designed was brilliant for the age he was at the time.

I've never shown these to anyone outside the designers, and I now have his permission to do so. If anyone is interested, contact Steryne over on Twisty Puzzles.  I'm sure he'd be thrilled to hear from you about them.