A small puzzle party

 This past weekend we had a small (7 people) puzzle party at the house.  Covid restrictions are in place and all were respectful of our vaccination mandate. One can't be too careful these days.  Especially in Florida with its high number of hospitalizations and daily new cases.

This group of people are from South Florida and one lone temporarily transported from Kansas. All met on the Mechanical Puzzles Discord.  Given the close proximity of puzzlers, we thought it would be good to get together for a bit of puzzling fun. We all met at Puzzle Palace around 10 am and after a tour and George's post golf shower we headed to the museum.  The folks come from all walks of life and that is what I love about puzzlers. You have nothing in common, yet everything. I'm afraid I must apologize to our guests, I get long winded.  I believe the tour or Puzzle Palace was around 2 hours.  I just love this place and all the puzzles inside but even more so the stories that go with them and once I start with the stories, there is no telling how long something will take.

Needless to say, the chaps were impressed with what was on display and loved George's trip through the dormitory and storage attic. All 5 of our guess attempted the trick door, and surprisingly, the NPSO verbally told them how to open it.  Of course they didn't listen to her and it was hard not to laugh at them when George did his usual opening 'trick move'.  I'm not telling because it is just so much fun to watch people do everything except the solution. Bill said he bets playing hide and seek in this house would be super fun.  I hadn't thought about that, but the few children who have been up there sure go crazy crawling through the mouse door.  

Tevin brought over a box of puzzles that we took a look at and I finally got a chance to see ResQ.  I missed it when it was on sale, and I decided the last CubicDissection auction prices are just too high for me.  I'm glad I got a chance to play with it a bit, I don't feel as though I'm missing that much now.  Although there is always the joy of just being able to play again.  But I digress. I also got a chance to play with the Revomaze Mercury. It of course stumped me but that is expected.  

Each of the lads donated a puzzle or two to the Museum which is greatly appreciated.  I immediately added their names and donation date to the puzzle so they are now immortalized here. Bill and Scarlet donated 3 gravitese water mazes, Tevin gave a free the euro 4 and a puzzle box 4 by Constantin.  Chris gave up his newly purchased mighty pin which thrilled me as I keep missing out on those puzzles when they hit the stores.  I'm not as fast on the keyboard as these young people or maybe our internet speed is too slow.  All 6 puzzles can be seen and played with in the Puzzle Palace Museum. (Shameful plug: we will gladly take any of your castoffs.  Donations are not required to visit, but are greatly appreciated.)

After George finished his shower, we packed up and went to the museum for lunch and another tour.  This time it was George's turn to do the talking while I threw together some lunch. I kept saying play. Play. PLAY! And eventually they took me up on that.  Lunch was a simple affair, brats, grilled corn, shepherds pie, and a macaroni and shrimp salad (did I mention that I love to cook?) Bill brought a bottle of Prosecco and and some beer and all enjoyed the food. After a bit of chit-chat they settled down to playing with a few puzzles.  All were given a post-it placement and took off to look. Scarlet wasn't shy and dove right in to the boxes.  Chris commented that he was just so overwhelmed and was just taking it all in.  

Everyone signed the guestbook and after a few hours we returned to Puzzle Palace where they continued to puzzle.  It tickled me that by this time they all felt comfortable enough to grab a puzzle, plop on the floor or in a chair and just play.  I guess I can understand the early hesitation, I mean where do you start with so many puzzles around.  

Bill solved Tornado, Tevin worked on some packing puzzles and Chris got a kick out of a Rose dovetail.  Scarlet was like a butterfly hopping from one puzzle to the next.   They never stopped smiling and there was laughter all around.  Overall, I'd say it was a good day. 

I ordered dinner from the club and while Bill and I went to get it someone upstairs discovered the pool table.  We all enjoyed some simple overlarge sandwiches and thankfully I didn't need to twist their arms to have them take the leftovers home. When everyone left, we lead them to the treasure chest to get a puzzle of their choice.  When at the Museum the girls got theirs after working out how to open it first. No digging until you unlock it :)

(I have gratefully and shamelessly taken some of the photos Chris sent me for this post)

On to the weekly update.  This week our young man did not come over for the weekend photographs, and I'll be honest, I didn't get many taken yesterday myself.  George is plugging along with the installation of shelves, I finally 'finished' the jigsaw room and Alcoholics Anonymous (don't get any ideas, it's the Museum bar that has keychains around the walls.) We moved all of the perplexus puzzles to the museum and I've almost finished the transfer of wood from my office to the great room.  We have plans to go on a 6 month world cruise in December but is looking increasingly less likely to happen with each passing day.  Because of this, I've slowed down a bit and am starting to enjoy the process rather than rush through it like a dervish.  

I'm pleased to report that we are now only missing 204 of the 2320 official IPP exchanges.  Who knows how many exchanges were made before IPP 10 when it became a real thing. Our ultimate goal is to have a complete set.  There is a massive amount of puzzling history on that wall and it would be a shame to be missing any of it. Once I finish going through the disentanglement puzzles, I will post a list of the missing pieces in the hopes that someone will have them.

Because we are almost at a full set of IPP puzzles, I finally decided to shift the puzzles on the wall.  It is a disastrous mess right now.  This means labeling all the puzzles with an identifier, photographing them, and finally putting them in their new place on the wall. While it sounds like an easy task, I can only label 3 years worth of puzzles in a day. It takes me another day to photograph the same puzzles, A very slow process.  I've really shifted my attention to this task now.  If all the stars align and people start getting vaccinated, we will be hosting a puzzle party here in the next few months so I'd like to have at least this done. With the fools in Florida though, I'm not holding my breath.  

Which leaves me with a bit of advice: For heavens sake, go get vaccinated. End this Pandemic, it's time to go back to living and seeing our friends again.  We all miss our puzzle parties and while Allard and the guys at MPP do a great job with the zoom VMPP's, it's just not the same thing.  We want to invite everyone to come visit this wonderful resource, but have come to the decision that if I don't see a vaccination card you will not be invited.  While the museum is available for all to see and use, it is ultimately a private home and if you don't have the vaccine, don't bother asking for an invitation.  

Until next week, Happy puzzling all!

IPP Puzzles, the good, the bad, and the ugly

I've been attending IPP for the past 9 years.  George has been attending for 19 years.  We have all but a few puzzles from IPP19 onwards and have started to finish off our collection from the earlier IPP's.  Currently we have 1936 puzzles in this collection.  It should be fairly obvious that we haven't had time to play with all of the puzzles, but we have played with a fair few.  The post today will not discuss any specific puzzles, but rather the packaging and displaying of them.  

I'm going to start with the worst of the packaging and work my way to the best.  I believe I am 'qualified' to comment on this as I have opened every one of those 1936 puzzles, removed them from their packaging, and placed them on our IPP wall.  You may not agree with my opinion, and I will take no offense to opinions that differ from mine.  

The absolute worst form of packaging is shrink-wrap that has been sealed and needs cutting open.  This cannot be reclosed after it has been opened.  If the puzzle has a lot of small pieces, they can easily be lost. One is stuck trying to scrounge a bag to repackage the puzzle in.  There is now a rule in place because of my dear lover.  He started using this rubbish and when he was producing puzzles for many, he used it exclusively.  Thank goodness that rule has been added!  But the wrap is good for those giant fractal puzzles that I don't want touched. They hold up nicely for display.

Next up is cling wrap.  Come on people. The only thing cling wrap sticks to the second time around is itself.  It simply doesn't hold up to rewrapping.  So again if the puzzle is played with at IPP...It is another mad hunt for packaging to bring it home.

Rubberbands.  Don't use them.  They simply don't hold up to the test of time.  They get brittle and break if you are lucky.  If not, they stick to the puzzle.  Many of them that have color to them discolor the puzzles we are so eager to get.  Going back through our puzzle collection, I've realized that rubber bands begin to deteriorate after three years.  And don't even get me started on having rubber bands as a part of the puzzle.  

Form fitting cardboard boxes.  Yuck!  They look nice, but are almost impossible to get the puzzle out of the packaging without tearing the box.  

Cardboard boxes with an open round window are better.  But sometimes the pieces fall out that window.  Especially if the puzzle is one of those packing things.  

Cardboard boxes with cellophane windows are a step up.  But be warned, not all gluing is the same. Some of it falls off rather easily.  

The best type of cardboard box is one that has a removable lid or is solid on all sides without any viewing windows.  If a cardboard box is to be used, please err on the side of too large. Put your instruction sheet inside as additional packaging to fill out the space.  I'd rather the puzzle slide around a bit than have to destroy the box to get to the puzzle.  

Next up bags.  Lots of puzzles are placed into a bag of some sort to help keep the puzzles together. As with others, some are good, some are just plain ugly.  

One form of bad packaging is paper envelopes or bags.  We've had a few of these. OK. One was a joke.  A nice wooden box was put into a paper bag because packaging was necessary. Taped paper tears, sealed envelopes can never be closed again. And really, How much protection does an envelope have anyway?

This brings me to ziplock bags.  Great. Easy to open if you use the kind with sliders.  The 'normal' zips?  Not so good.  I'm one of the younger ones, and I find I have problems resealing these things.  How would that work with 80 year old gnarled hands?  And while I'm on the subject of ziplock bags, please quit making them form fitting to the puzzle.  Again, err on the large side.  A form fitting bag has to be torn apart, or if you can get the puzzle out of the bag, it's never going in again.  

There are three other types of bags that have been used to hold IPP puzzles: thin mesh bags, linen/canvas bags, flocked bags.  All three have drawstrings and are easy to open and close.  The worst of the bunch is the thin mesh bags. These often disintegrate in about three to four years.  The linen/canvas bags seem to last forever, but get hard over time.  The flocked bags are great because they are easy to print on, but the flocking comes off after around five years.  Linen/canvas bags and flocked bags are not see through so that becomes a disadvantage to me. 

The 'best' packaging? Plastic boxes.  I kid you not.  More expensive, but well worth the cost.  First we have the clear malleable 'clamshell' packaging.  These can be custom ordered for the size of your puzzle for a few cents each.  Then there are the stronger thicker plastic boxes.  These are often made of HDPE (High density polyethylene). Nice for holding puzzles, terrible for display.  

CD cases are great.  If you have a flat packing puzzle, why not give them a try.  The puzzle stays in the box, and it's perfect for display. 

My last thought on packaging is tape.  DO NOT USE IT.  All tape is not the same.  Scotch brand tape is restickable, but only if you peel it off carefully. Duck tape.  Forgetaboutit.  

Now on to the puzzles themselves.  No, I'm not going to tell you what a good puzzle is, but I will talk about the 'bad' ones.  

1) A puzzle that has been laser cut and the exchanger/producer is too lazy to take off the backing tape.  I don't want to do your job.  Do it yourself. This one infuriates me.  I just got a kickstarter puzzle set in and darned if all four puzzles have to have the backing tape removed.  

2) A puzzle that can only be solved by a computer.  How am I ever to have a chance to solve it?  

3) A puzzle with a piece that must be destroyed to complete the puzzle.  An example would be a puzzle that needs a ballon to be broken in order to solve the puzzle.

4) Magnets inside the puzzle.  Just my opinion.

5) Puzzles that are too tight. If the last piece has to be forced into place, it's not a good one for me.

6) Just another piece....Meaning a puzzle is exchanged, and yet one more piece is sold at the puzzle party the next day and adds another few puzzle challenges to the original.  

7) Puzzles that are too easy.  If I can sit down and solve it within a minute...

8) Puzzles that are without logic. They don't have to be mathematical or the traditional logic type puzzle, they just have to have some sort of order about them.  Not a randomness.  In other words, a puzzle with over 1000 solutions is not a good puzzle. 

9) Jigsaws

These are my thoughts, they stem from opening, unboxing, un-bagging, de-rubber banding or un-taping and displaying 1936 IPP exchange puzzles.  Please share your thoughts with me.  Tell me I'm not completely bonkers.  

Thanksgiving

You know, one puzzle I don't have is a Turkey.  I guess I will have to rectify that problem.  Maybe I can go get a puzzle and glue some feathers and a waddle to it.  Now there's an idea, DIY turkey.  Come to think of it, I don't have a cornucopia or any of the other Thanksgiving fixings.

But I do have A LOT to be thankful for this year.  I still have Mr. Man and he's still putting up with my collecting obsession.  Bug is still not into puzzles, but always helps with the crystal puzzle assembly.

I've got some amazing friends who I adore. I get to see SmaZ and his new creations on a regular basis, I meet Uwe for dinner once a fortnight at least.

I get to go on around 5 or 6 puzzle trips a year.  I love IPP and the Guangzhou parties are just a blast.

I get to travel quite a bit for work and I usually manage to make a few puzzle purchases and a side trip to meet a fellow puzzler or two.

I accomplished a dream by mass producing my own puzzle.  (and if my luck holds, it will be at a local attraction in the spring.)

I get to read Allard's and Kevin's and Gabriel's and Jerry's and Brian's  and Neil's and Oli's blogs.  That keeps me looking for puzzles to purchase, and others to drool over.  All of them write so much better than I do, so if you haven't read their posts yet, go do so today!

Oh yes, and I got a few new puzzles this year....a few hundred that is!

Yep.  Life is good.  I have a lot to be thankful for.  I hope you take the time to sit back and think over your puzzle blessings.

Puzzle books/apps-Grabarchuk family puzzles

Every now and again I forget to put a puzzle in my bag but I've always got my iPad or phone with me. How sad that I've become so dependent on technology that I would write that?  What you see here are the games I have downloaded and the books that I have purchased. I'm writing about them because I met the Grabarchuk family at an IPP (I think it was Berlin but as usual can't remember.) and I thought they were very lovely gentlemen.  I purchased a puzzle book at the time on an 'honor system' i.e. I paid and hoped it would get mailed out before the end of the year. As luck would have it, I had the book rather quickly and enjoyed attempting some of the puzzles in it.

Last year, I saw they had posted on Facebook that they were giving away  the Christmas puzzles and I thought why not.  I downloaded it to see what it was all about.  I'm glad I did.  It was good fun and a nice way to get into work.  When Valentines day came along they again posted a free book and I again downloaded it.  Another nice fun bit for the train into work.  I later decided to do an internet search can see what else they had available and found a bunch over on Amazon. I started making purchases because I'm first and foremost addicted to all things puzzling.  But really, this was another attempt to get the bug interested in puzzles. I mean she loves books as much as I do and I thought she might want to have a go at these.  I was pretty pleased when I brought my iPad to Disney one day and she and her cousins spent all the ride wait time playing with the puzzles in the books. I loved it because the beginning of each of the books are easy enough for kids to work out, but become progressively more difficult as you work through the book.  So not only are these good fun for the kids, but I enjoyed them as well.  I don't own a Kindle, but I do have the kindle app on my iPhone and iPad and they work pretty well on both.  Heck, Bug has even downloaded some to her phone to play on the bus.  Can't go wrong when that happens.

As for the games, I've enjoyed them a lot as well. More puzzles, but these are made specially for the iPhone/iPad.  They play a bit nicer and are interactive.  Again, a nice bunch that started out as installing the lite versions then going all out and buying the real ones.  You can see that I still have a few lite's up there, I just haven't gotten around to purchasing the full version of the missing apps yet.  One of these days when I run out of other puzzles to play I will.  Same goes for the missing books.

In the mean time,I highly recommend these to any who are interested in a nice set of graded puzzles.