IPP Exchange, Puzzle Party and additional fun.

Saturday is the day we all wait for.  The exchange.  We woke up early in anticipation of the fun ahead.  This day is always a joy, not for the puzzles we are about to get, but for the friends we get to chat with from all over the world.  This day was no exception.  George and I both exchanged as usual, and we both had two green horns for our partners.  I had Rich and George had Tom.  Both were fantastic.  

Sadly, I didn't take the obligatory photo of the puzzles this year.  Packing one set up is hard enough.  Packing two sets is ..well, a packing puzzle.  Having learned from past experiences, we do not ship our exchange puzzles home.  We pack a suitcase in a suitcase and carry them all with us.  This year was no exception.  To further ensure we get at least one full set home, each set was packed in a different suitcase.

After the exchange, I headed up stairs to grab our computers for our lectures.  These were fantastic.  Not ours, but the lectures.  I really enjoyed Perry's talk on making his boxes but better still was Robert's talk on the boxes Perry has made over the years.

I gave an update on the WPC.  Sorry all, like you I was hoping to be finished by now but it is Italy after all and this is a massive project.  George was asked to do a talk on 3d printing and I think he pulled it off rather well.  We had sent a Bambu mini to our daughter and picked it up when we retrieved our car.  When we arrived in Houston, we used it to make a few puzzles, and to finish my exchanges.  That aside, the real purpose was to bring out the printer, set up a job and have it finish during George's talk.  

We had a few hiccups along the way, the worst being not being able to hook up to the hotel wifi.  Problem solved, I brought along our pocket wifi and it worked perfectly.  The printer was sitting on its box working away through the first 3 talks and finished in time for George's.  It was a rather wonky box and the printer wobbled away as it ran.  But the puzzle turned out to be just perfect!  

After the talk was over, we gave the printer to Louis who spent a bit of time with George trying to work out how to get it running.  The two of them called me in to help with the computer setup, but I was stumped and passed that on to Brett.  He was able to help Louis and the printer was up and running.  I can't wait to see what kinds of things he makes with it. 

After this, I ran off to Daiso over near Katy for a few shopping items.  I love that shop and we don't have any in Europe so I decided to take advantage of my location.  I also went to the Lego store to get my passport stamped and while I was there, I checked out Barnes & Noble, bought a few puzzles, and got the car charged all at the same time!  Success!

I returned in time for the banquet.  I hear there was a magician, but TBH I didn't really pay attention.  I made the mistake of having a glass of wine with dinner as I was a bit nervous about a thing I was about to do.  Big mistake.  I drank it all.  Only after it was gone did I realize I needed a drink for the thing.  So I had to buy another.  Now normally two drinks wouldn't be a bother for me, but these were the first two drinks I'd had in over a month.  To say they went to my head would be an understatement.  Oh well. I managed.

I spent the dinner talking to Leigh and Brian.  Played with a few puzzles, and really just enjoyed the evening.  

After the nights events, I ran upstairs to change again and then simply passed out.  It was another eventful day.

Sunday morning I awoke early, had a glass of milk and headed down to our table for the puzzle party.  After setting up, I had a bit of a wander around.  Purchased a puzzle from Perry and one from Jerry and was told by Nick to go back to my table.  Not once, but twice. 😅 

At 9 the doors opened and I took off in a hunt for puzzles.  George eventually came down and sat at our table.  I'm not sure if we sold anything, but we did have quite a few friends joining us to sell their wares.  In the end, I believe that George and I ended up giving all of our puzzles away to the Greenhorns who wanted one.  Note to future hosts, please send a final count of new people so we know how many extra puzzles to bring.  I'm sure not everyone got our exchanges.  And further note to self. ALWAYS leave a copy of our exchange at home.  For some silly reason, we never bring our own back with us. 

I ran around purchasing puzzles that would make good additions to the collection.  This year was not as expensive as past years have been.  Either I'm getting more selective in my purchases or we have started to catch up on missing items or I have been purchasing too many outside of the puzzle party.  Packing was much easier.  I brought it down to only 2 suitcases!  Yeah, I have room to shop when I get back to Florida.

Wait, No.  I skipped the lectures today and made my way to yet another two Daiso's and another Barnes and Noble.  Pay dirt!  I filled that empty carryon with kitchen gadgets that only the Japanese can make and quite a few mass produced puzzles, games, and books. So much for extra space.

When I returned, I took a walk down to the local grocer and bought some veggies and some more juice for the coming days.  At some point in the afternoon, Sue gifted me a beautiful pair of knitted socks which will be brilliant in the Italian winters.

The awards dinner was nice.  We enjoyed the company and another sit down meal.  It was quite funny because at around 8 we were basically ushered out as there was a little storm brewing and the staff wanted to get home.  George and I had planned on leaving in the morning, but we decided to ride out the storm and spend two more days in Houston.  Thankfully the hotel had vacancy and we were allowed to keep our room for the next two days. 

I spent a bit of time chatting with Nigel, but then returned to the room once again to make those videos you saw posted last week.

Monday saw the storm come in.  I enjoyed watching Hurricane Beryl from our window.  There was a bit of crashing as a light fixture was torn from the building, and the a/c units on the roof lost some of their trim.  But to me, other than that it was nothing.  I know, millions without power, flooding, all that other stuff...We were fortunate that our hotel is on the main hospital grid so we were just fine.  There was a last minute escape room put together that people enjoyed.  Sadly, I came down to late for it. I made more puzzle videos, spent a bit of time chatting with friends on the forth floor, played a bit of a pub quiz put together by our British friends, and just had a rather relaxing day. The hotel put on a great big buffet lunch for folks at the princely sum of $25!!  George and I retired to the room for our juice and veggies.  

We even managed to get in a game of Eurorails! Much to our amusement Bob & George bickered like a an old married couple.

We had dinner that night with a few friends and had a funny thing happen. The IPPer's at another table ordered this sushi boat which was delivered instead to us. We loaded up plates only to realize it wasn't ours so the food went back on the boat, we called the waitress over, explained the mistake and she picked it up.  Two seconds later she delivered it to the other table!  EEK!  Good thing we are all friends.

I'm afraid this IPP we were rather non communicative.  We were very sick after our cruise with OJ, and the lack of drinking and juicing rather than eating caused us to be in the room more than we were out of it.  My sincere apologies to those we wanted to chat with but didn't.  I just wasn't myself this year.  

Tuesday I got up, charged the car to 100% (Never do this except on long trips or in cases like this when power is out) and packed it in anticipation of leaving in the morning.  Another day of chatting with friends.  George did an escape room with the guys, and I spent some time studying for that damned driving test.  

Wednesday bright and early we were up and headed out.  We had a two day drive to Illinois to see my family and I wanted to get as far out of Texas as possible. We were chasing the storm and I wanted to be sure to get past the flooding and power outages before stopping for the night.  Sadly, the storm hit hard and we ended up stopping at a red roof in just to get out of the rain.  It was coming down so hard I was driving at 30 on the interstate and had to pull over.  The hotel was terrible, but we were out of the rain.  The next morning I was able to get up early, charge fully, get some more juice for us and be on our way. 

Next up, some puzzling in Illinois and a visit with a friend or two.

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!