Visitors and puzzle parties

 As usual, October has been a busy month for us.  We have had a string of impromptu visitors and another puzzle party.  

The first set of guests was a family of 7.  George and I met the husband on a train to Mainz when we were taking that cruise with Oskar and Josè.  We gave him a card and told him if he found himself in our neighborhood to stop by.  He did.  This couple had 3 children with them.  All of whom were very well behaved.  One even solved a Rubik's cube for us.  After a long tour of the property we had cakes and a drink.  A new friend has been made.  

Our next guests were friends of Bob Hearn.  He was to visit with us but sadly had a friend's mother pass away and needed to attend the funeral.  He had a friend coming by when he was here and George and I saw no reason to not have her come along even without Bob. Lisa and Zac arrived in time for lunch in the square.  Zac ordered a cappuccino which lead to a look I've never seen before.  This has turned into a joke now with the owner of the bar.  He offers me a cappuccino whenever I walk in along with that wonderful dirty look.  (Italians do NOT drink any coffee with milk after around 10 am.)

After that we did a tour of the finished part of the castle and hotel followed by the disassembly of a Berrocal.  They successfully disassembled and reassembled Romeo and Juliet (with the aid of the book).  

Success!

Zac had a pair of the meta glasses and we had to give it a try.  They might help George with translations, but I think my language is good enough now that they would only be a novelty for me.  It was a real pleasure meeting with them.  

The next group was 5 people that were renting an AB&B down the hill.  I overheard them discussing a place to have dinner and I couldn't help but send them in the direction of our wonderful local restaurants rather than the one an hour away that they found on google.  They thanked me and asked if I knew how many apartments were in the castle.  This of course was answered with a chuckle and disbelief by them when I replied that it was just my home.  I then offered them a tour and they got to see the full castle and the ground floor of the hotel.  It's best not to take the full tour if one is not really interested in puzzles.  They were more focused on the furniture and structure of the building.  The newly opened passage and the area that leads to the apartment next to the castle and the pigeon house were of particular interest to them.  

All of our guests were a pleasure to meet.  Living here is just wonderful.  Every day is a new adventure and we never know when we will be able to meet new people.  

October is also the month for the DCD.  We have been going for many years now and are not about to stop.  This time though it was a very quick in and out as we don't want to run afoul of that time limit outside of Italy for our permanent residency.  I discovered that we brought a memory foam mattress along with us that Kat used at uni and cut it to make a bed in the van.  This way George would be able to take his afternoon nap in comfort while I drove on.  We spent the first night out of home in Como as is our usual and then because George was sick, we stayed in Baden Baden for the second night.  We had actually planned to push through to Oskar's house or sleep in the van if I couldn't make it.  Sadly, we did not take the baths as I was exhausted from driving through heavy fog and rain.  

We arrived at OJ's around noon on Saturday.  We were greeted warmly as always and around 3 or so Geertz and his friend (I'm sorry, I forgot the name) came over as did Ivan from Prague.  We had pizza for dinner and lots of great conversations.  I really enjoy this time being able to talk to friends.  

Sunday was DCD in it's usual place.  We all arrived around 9 or so and while Oskar and Josè set up their table, I brought in puzzles for Dinar and George sat down to chat with Diogo.  I spent a few hours walking around looking at puzzles and talking to people.  At 1 we had the normal lunch of hotdogs, sandwiches, and soup.  

Given my recent fascination with Lego, we had to buy this one.

My favorite Twisty Puzzlers

After lunch, we attended Jack Krijnen's lecture on his new puzzle "Twinkle"  the largest move 18 piece burr (which of course I bought for George).  During the lecture he said no one had asked him for the burr tools file on it.  I dutifully did and he sent it over!  Thanks Jack, you saved George a lot of time. I then gave an update on the WPC and we were given permission to show the Puzzle Palace Movie.  For anyone interested, it is now being shown at DOCNY and you can buy tickets for $15 to view it online here.  Rob gave his annual wrap up of the IPP puzzles.  I think the Blue Bird puzzle should have been included with the Texas theme puzzles that will appear in the CFF magazine, but I'm old so....

Once DCD was over, we all headed out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner.  I like the soup and the shrimp chips are amazing.  The rest of the food is good too, but I favor those.  We had a great conversation with Diogo and Louis about puzzling and life in general.  It was a fun night had by all.  Sadly, George is getting a bit long in the tooth and he was out of sorts from his recent illness so we left early.  When we arrived at Oskar's, we chatted for a bit, but then George headed up to bed.  I lasted a bit longer, but as I had a long drive ahead of me the next day I too bid goodnight to our hosts.  

The next morning we awoke early and after a nice breakfast we headed out around 9.  I had a 10 hour drive ahead of me.  

The best part of these puzzle parties is not the puzzles we purchase, or the cities we visit, it's the people.  We adore our friends and treasure every minute of time we spend with them. 

Next post: Prague!

A visitor, two tables, and a ship

This past week, I had a visit request on Discord from a fellow twisty puzzler.  He's from out west and his girlfriend has a mother in Boca and he's in town for the weekend and wanted to visit, and boy does this sound familiar...We are always open to visitors to the Puzzle Palace from fellow puzzlers so I said sure.  Now, this isn't the first time it has happened that strangers request a visit. But why not.  We said sure, thinking if it's like the last time, the visitor in question will come up with some excuse and not show up.  No big deal, George played golf as usual and I did my normal Sunday puzzling.  We told him that before he was able to come into the (empty) museum he had to do the following: Please come to 7923 mandarin. Outside the front doors you will find 4 sided pyramid. Take it out of the box and rearrange it into a tetrahedron and put it back in the box. Only then can you ring the bell. Failure to do this will lead only lead to frustration and inability to see the museum.

We also asked him three questions that are required for visitation: “WHAT..... is your name?", "WHAT..... is your quest?, "WHAT..... is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?" (George has a warped sense of humor.)  I'll hand it to Gage (our visitor); he played along and replied: Love it and my quest is to bear witness to the most epic puzzle collection known to man!!!

Well, much to my surprise, he did show up on Sunday along with his girlfriend and her mother. I was in the kitchen of the museum faffing about and allowed him a good 5 minutes to work on the puzzle at the entrance. To his credit, he did manage to get it out of the box, he did disassemble it, but he could not rearrange it. Given't he's a twisty puzzler, I said good job and let him in. Gage has the distinction to be the first puzzler to enter the museum and he therefore has his name first in the guest registry. I gave him a quick tour of what will be in about 3 months time, and dealt with a contractor in the garage. After locking up the doors, I had them follow me to Puzzle Palace. I gave an explanation of the driveway and the entrance mosaic, and welcomed them in. I got as far as the Berrocals in the entranceway when George came over and temporarily took over the tour while I put the groceries away. When I returned, I began speaking with the mother and quickly realized she was more interested in the architecture of the house than the puzzles so we went off on a different type of tour. In the mean time, George took the young couple on a puzzling tour of the house.

Solving Joe's head

Simple salads lunch

Through that silent language that only lovers have, we had mutually agreed to head off in different directions and end the tour in the mirror room. While in the kitchen, I offered Ingrid (the mother) a glass of wine because we had been discussing the difference between California and Old World wines along the way. I later offered wine to the younger ones and we sat and enjoyed the mirror room puzzles for a while. We gave Gage two puzzles to solve, Joe's head (a 2x2x2 of George's son) and the Advent calendar gingerbread house. He did both in no time at all.

Treasure chest diving

By this time, we had been touring for around 2 hours and I knew my lover must be starving so I did as I always do and invited them to have a simple lunch with us. Over lunch, George had me bring out Blockistry and they enjoyed solving a puzzle or two. All in all, we enjoyed a rather nice visit and would welcome them into our home again. I hope on their next visit to Boca the museum will be up and running. As always, when they left we had them open the treasure chest.

On to my puzzle of the week. This time I have chosen two puzzle tables that we have purchased. The first is a White Rhino that we purchased from Alibaba. This was a impulse buy and I'm glad I am so impulsive. It's such a cute little table. Easy to put together. I'm sure if I can do it, anyone can. The cost? $195. It looks adorable in the Library next to George's nap time bean bag chair.

Our next puzzle table was a kickstarter that I purchased sometime last year, to be delivered in January. Like many things during the pandemic, these were delayed and just arrived this past week. Cost? $158. Not bad for a table. I had originally planned to put it in the Puzzle Palace, but the place for it is now getting a custom table to be unveiled in October so this table now resides in the master bedroom at the Museum.

Big George Approves

And now onto a ship (and the weekly museum update). I've been watching the NYK Nebula for the last 20 days. On Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning, it left Halifax Canada on its way to Miami. The wait was killing me. I watch it go out into the ocean and then just poof! It's gone without the paid satellite subscription. Then the next day it shows up again near the coast. The wait was driving me crazy. And not for the reason you might think. Yes, I'm eager to get the shipment in, but I am also not ready for it. Friday morning it moored at Port Everglades. 1/2 hour south of here. The excitement is increasing. I keep looking at the container information waiting for it to be unloaded. It's foolish to try and anticipate the delivery date, but then, I've often been told I'm a fool.

Tesla had finished installing the solar panels, but the power walls are not hooked up and we are still fully on the grid. The guy putting down the epoxy floor was an oaf and there were bubbles all over the floor on Sunday last. He came over, sanded them down and applied a new coat of white epoxy. Well, the damned things bubbled again. Monday we had the man come to lay the decals but because of the bubbles, it couldn't be done. I had to leave because I was about to start screaming at someone. George came up with a solution. We will now have a stippled effect on the floor, the epoxy fool will sand the floor yet again and put down a clear layer that can't bubble on Tuesday, and on Wednesday the decal will be placed before putting down the final clear coat. I think this is going to end in disaster but I've my fingers crossed. (I'm writing this on Monday night-I'll edit later for an update.) As it turned out, our general contractor came up with the solution. We now have a blowtorch that we can attach to our propane tank. The solution was to melt the bubbles as soon as the epoxy is laid down. Problem solved. We managed to get the garage finished before the first container arrived. Both decals have been placed in the floor along with a small collection of coins from our travels.

So I guess it's time to announce the winners of the competition. First is Nick Baxter. In a phone call, he mentioned to George that we should look at some of the tessellations of Robert Reid. Eureka! Why hadn't we thought of that? George then set about designing the decal and we had it printed and mounted by a company here in Boca Raton. The second decal came from our shared love of the Big Bang Theory. I have the melting cube on a t-shirt, so we decided to have it printed and place it on the floor. This was done by a company in California because we wanted it to have an anamorphic illusion to it. This company was able to take the image from the t-shirt and a youtube video and made it a 2D decal for our floor.

The work inside the house goes on. The ceilings are being painted, the drywall holes are being patched, and the cabinets are being mounted in the bedrooms. Once the garage is finished there are another 20 or so Kallax's that will be mounted in there. We've got a new roof going over what one can only believe was intended to be an outdoor shower. Now it houses pool equipment and the recycling containers. I'm super chuffed by the work being done by Flipping Awesome and Chilly Inc. They are an amazing group of guys who have done some wonderful work for us.

And now we wait. When will customs release our toys? When will the first batch of 241 boxes of puzzles arrive? The waiting game is the worst. Today we place the shelving units in the garage and throw the hurricane bolts for good. The garage will no longer be a garage. It is now just an extension of the Museum. Until next week...Happy Puzzling all!