Just another Sunday.

Today was a late breakfast meeting with Kim (WCA rep), Calvin (HK Nowstore), Uwe (Meffert's), and yours truly. We got to see a few up and coming puzzles from Meffert's (hint: one is an older idea finally come to life. I've lusted after it since I saw the first photo of it. And like Schultz, "I know nuting")

After a bit of play we started to talk business. Boring stuff really. Who is judging what competition, who is giving out what prize, where everyone sits, t shirt sizes, puzzle displays. Boring stuff.

Kim went off for an interview, Calvin and his wife went off for work and Uwe, Katherine, and I went for lunch and a bit of shopping.

At two I had an interview with a local paper and drug Uwe along. I mean why not? He's given me so many of the puzzles in my collection over the years it would have been rude not to. I talked for the better part of an hour and then handed the reporter over to Uwe. He explained the pillowing of his new pyramid (because I just told the reporter that the pyramid is one of my favorites-it really is) and then went on to talk about why HK and when he started. That sort of thing. While all that was going on Kim was working on solving my exchange puzzle!

We parted company around 3:30. Uwe went to get his hair tamed and Kim and I talked security for the exhibition.

Once again I leave you with photos of the day.

2 keys

Help please! I don't know what this is that I'm playing with. I bought it from puzzlemaster at IPP32 and it has no name on it.

The object of course is to take out the peg that holds the puzzle together. Once you do that the two pieces simply slide apart.

See this was a bit of a lark. I had a bunch of Canadian dollars left over from my trip there and I knew Puzzlemaster would take them. During the puzzle party I made a bealine for his table and picked up a few toys I wanted. Then I spent the rest of my Canadian. I showed him how much I had left, and he gave me puzzles to finish off the cash. (see Kevin, you really don't have a bad problem-the real problem is when you do things like that.)

So I've no idea the name and I've no idea the price. Fun little distraction though. It has two layers with different maze patterns so there's a bit of thought needed to solve it. At the end of the day though it's not a very difficult puzzle to solve. It might have taken 20 minutes while watching a movie.

Thanks to Canuck I now know he name of this one!

Another batch of interviews

I must say, this time the organizers have it all worked out. Three days of interviews now and another round closer to the event. They made tags for the puzzles so I didn't have to. They even had many of the questions written out beforehand. The only thing I would have liked...a bit of coffee. But then I'm an addict.

Poor Michael was there from 11:00 til 5:00. A long day but then I guess it's good for his business. Thankfully I didn't need to be in until 2:15 (farewell party at work the night before)

Today's interview was pretty cool. Oh it was the same old questions but the reporter for the second interview took an interest in my Gundam puzzles and promptly pulled out his phone to show me a model he had just finished. He then went on to tell me the names of my puzzles and gave me a brief overview of the series. Now how cool is that.

One of the questions I was asked was about the interesting (or not) people I meet while puzzling. I'm adding that reporter to my list.

They wanted a photo of me buying a puzzle and the only thing that came close was one of Stan Issacs buying a puzzle from me.  The deal was sealed with a kiss...

And for those of my 3 readers who are worried, Matt thinks as highly of Stan as I do.

One more day of it and it's back to puzzling as always.

And another thought that has come to me today. Kevin (aka puzzlemad) has recently mentioned that head a problem. Collecting too much, playing too much...you know the deal. Well when I was in Wellington I went to a museum there and as luck would have it they had a collection of glassware, not that the collection matters, but one little quote caught my eye.

This one's for you Kevin. Take comfort in knowing you aren't alone.