A Walk to the Pond

On our walk to the pond recently we got to see several interesting creatures. I didn't get a photo of the teensy tiny tree frogs we saw along the way, but we did catch one of them and hold it for awhile.

At the pond we saw some beautiful swans. One of them hissed at Annie when she got too close. It kept moving away from her though. The other one came up to me in what I took to be a threatening manner. It did not back off—I did!

After the adventure with the swans we visited the goats.

On the way home we passed by some pretty gardens.

Another Walk with Crystal

This time I solved the white and dark green sides and moved most of the gray out of site. I thought it would be more colorful compared to the first walk.

Walk to the Corner

The kiddos and I took a walk down to the corner of the block right before lunch. This fence with the plant behind it suddenly looked different to me than ever before. Today it looked like a great place for a puzzle to pose for a picture. So later on I went back with the puzzle and iPad.

On the way back to the house Crystal wanted to rest in the semi-shade of a little plant we passed by.

Monkeying Around

Even the monkeys got into puzzling.

Summer 2015 Twisty Puzzle Progress

2x2x2 Cyclone Boys Cube
2x2x2 Hollow Ball
3x3x3 Zanchi 5 Cube
4x4x4 Cyclone Boys Cube
Crazy 4x4x4 II

2x3x3
Crazy 2x3x3 without the freaky move
2x3x4
3x3x1 Scramble
3x3x3 Magic Octahedron

3x3x3 Mixup Cube
F-Skewb
Pyraminx
Pyraminx Crystal
Pyraminx Trignis

Skewb
Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb (Curvy Rhombohedron)
Skewb Dodecahedron (Skewb Ultimate)
Skewb Tetrahedron (Jing's Pyraminx)
Curvy Copter with jumbling

Square-1
Megaminx
3x3x3 Circle Cube
3x3x3 Crazy Jupiter
3x3x3 Crazy2face B4 Jupiter

Gear Dodecahedron

Gear Mastermorphix

Dayan Gem V

Saturn Pentahedron

Playing at the Old Park

.Kiddos running, I am sitting at an elevated triangular picnic table in the shade with a nice breeze blowing. Ahhh, this is the good life. Thank You Jesus.

On the way here Annie found a snail shell. She called it a "schnek"—at least that is what it sounded like to me. Then we saw some kind of bird in a tree. I think it is some sort of jay. Similar but different from the jays at home.

One more 3-cycle and the puzzle is solved.

We saw an interesting bird while sitting at the table. It looked like a blackbird but hopped around like a robin. 

On the way home we saw lots of little bugs crawling around. 

Both coming and going we were greeted by friendly people in the neighborhood.

Earlier... When Annie saw this puzzle below she informed me it wasn't solved yet and showed me the two pairs of edges that needed swapped. I told her I could swap them both with one twist, and then did so. She wasn't impressed. She pointed out that now the corners were messed up. :)

Eventually I got it down to one 3-cycle (pictured above) and then solved it. Then she was impressed. :)

Saturn Pentahedron

Of the two Pentahedrons that I have this is my favorite to twist, so it got to come with me to CZ this summer. It has been a long time since I solved it, so I was surprised how quickly bits and pieces came back to me as I fiddled with it. Memories of working out a couple algorithms crept in as I looked up the solution guide I had made long ago. I am not content to be able to solve it using my guides—I want to be able to solve it without notes again.

Gear Fun

Raymond's kiddos enjoy the Gear puzzles so I have been having fun with them too this summer. I still haven't totally relearned all of the algorithms I figured out to solve them yet, but it shouldn't be long.

A Walk to the Park

A Walk to the Park — 12 photos

Square-1 Parity Fix

I do not have a set algorithm for the parity fix I use. Just go to 44 / 44, swap 3 pieces on top with 3 on bottom, go back to cube shape and resolve then finish solving the colors. I noticed one day though that sometimes when I get back to cube shape all the correct colors are on top, but usually not. So today I set out to discover and document how to fix parity with a minimum of damage to the solve. Found it. When you make the swap of 3 pieces make sure you move the same number of yellows down that you move up. For example:

/ (3,3) / (–1,–2) / (–2,4) / backtrack

goes from solved to

Summer 2015 Twisty Puzzle Progress

2x2x2 Cyclone Boys Cube
2x2x2 Hollow Ball
3x3x3 Zanchi 5 Cube
4x4x4 Cyclone Boys Cube
Crazy 4x4x4 II

2x3x3
Crazy 2x3x3 without the freaky move
2x3x4
3x3x1 Scramble
3x3x3 Magic Octahedron

3x3x3 Mixup Cube
F-Skewb
Pyraminx
Pyraminx Crystal
Pyraminx Trignis

Skewb
Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb (Curvy Rhombohedron)
Skewb Dodecahedron (Skewb Ultimate)
Skewb Tetrahedron (Jing's Pyraminx)
Curvy Copter with jumbling

Square-1
Megaminx
3x3x3 Circle Cube
3x3x3 Crazy Jupiter
3x3x3 Crazy2face B4 Jupiter

Gear Dodecahedron

Crazy 2face B4

I know I know, less than two weeks ago I posted, "Basically I can't be bothered with anything that has alignment or sticker or bandaging issues right now. Been there done that. Just want some smooth simple fun." No bandaged puzzles huh? Well guess what has been calling my name lately.

June 22, 2015 I posted on Puzzle Photography:

I haven't played with the Crazy2face B4 Cube in a year and a half maybe. I didn't intend to play with it now. I was enjoying my smooth, simple puzzles that don't have any bandaging. But this started calling my name. So here it is. I'm not sure what it was even named in the past, if anything. It has one 0-face, two adjacent 2-faces, and three 1-faces lined up. And one pink piece. I have an idea that maybe Andy Chillingworth or Kevin Sadler introduced it but I'm not sure. I think it is supposed to be one of the easier configurations but I'm not sure. I'm not looking for hints on solving, but rather if it was given a name. Any ideas?

June 22, 2015
I've been fiddling with it. When I had no idea how to start I tried finding notes I had made previously somewhere, I tried looking at diagrams Burgo had prepared back when, but nothing helped. So I just started fiddling with it and found myself trying to reduce and solve the white edges. The white side is the 0-face. Next I figured I'd reduce and solve the white corners. And by that time figured I'd reduce the rest of the corners. This is where I am now.

June 22, 2015

The next logical step to me in my fiddling was to reduce the non-white edges. But the only way to reduce is on the white side / 0-face, so that means things got a bit muxed ip.

Here is a view of my cool, wet yard in the hot, dry land where I live.

And done. The 0-face and B4 bandage certainly added an extra challenge but once reduced it did not require any special algorithms to solve. Reducing did not require any special algorithms either, just a different technique that isn't needed in solving a normal 3x3x3.

Megaminx

I don't have many QJ puzzles but really like this Megaminx with thick tiles. It is the only Megaminx I have. I like to solve it from the bottom up using F2L type moves for inserting corner-edge pairs. Then on top use a familiar edge flipper to get all the edges face up, then a modified Sune to place them. Finally I get the corners in place with a commutator 3-cycle and twist any that need it using the same 3-cycle and twisters I use on a 3x3x3.

This is one more solve so far in the summer of 2015. Up to 22—

2x2x2 Cyclone Boys Cube
2x2x2 Hollow Ball
3x3x3 Zanchi 5 Cube
4x4x4 Cyclone Boys Cube
Crazy 4x4x4 II

2x3x3
Crazy 2x3x3 without the freaky move
2x3x4
3x3x1 Scramble
3x3x3 Magic Octahedron

3x3x3 Mixup Cube
F-Skewb
Pyraminx
Pyraminx Crystal
Pyraminx Trignis

Skewb
Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb (Curvy Rhombohedron)
Skewb Dodecahedron (Skewb Ultimate)
Skewb Tetrahedron (Jing's Pyraminx)
Curvy Copter with jumbling

Square-1
Megaminx

Square-1—Back to Cube Shape via Faces

On the Puzzle Photography page Burgo said regarding my blog post about the Square-1 from the past, "This was my favourite: Jig, Around, Over, Swap, Jiggle Joggle, Swap, Go Back, Go Back, Go Back :) I would use a photo or a diagram for a starting position, and then the notation."

Well, here is a compromise. I am not into mindless algorithms when getting the Square-1 back to cube shape, but here is a diagram that shows how I like to do it.

Puzzles I've solved in the last few weeks:

2x2x2 Cyclone Boys Cube
2x2x2 Hollow Ball
3x3x3 Zanchi 5 Cube
4x4x4 Cyclone Boys Cube
Crazy 4x4x4 II
2x3x3
Crazy 2x3x3 without the freaky move
2x3x4
3x3x1 Scramble
3x3x3 Magic Octahedron
3x3x3 Mixup Cube
F-Skewb
Pyraminx Crystal
Pyraminx Trignis
Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb
Skewb Dodecahedron
Curvy Copter with jumbling
Square-1

June 23, 2015
Today during a scramble I started trying to see how many little pieces I could get together. It wasn't too hard to get them all together. My first thought was, "Isn't this rline's method?" And then my second thought was, "Wow! It is really simple to get back to cube shape from here."

Square-1—How I Got Started

I got a shipment of twisty puzzles from Cubefans.com (Cube4You) on Monday, August 4, 2008. I’m not sure if I even touched the Square-1 on Monday, or if I waited until Tuesday. I think I started with the Megaminx. Sometime Monday or Tuesday I checked out the Square-1. Before putting on the stickers I scrambled it. It was quite a challenge to get it back into cube shape. I wasn’t sure how I did it, but it involved getting symmetrical shapes on each side. This was probably Tuesday.
I guess I put the stickers on it on Wednesday. After putting stickers on I wasn’t going to scramble it right away. I was going to do just a few moves at a time and then undo them to see what I could learn. That didn’t last more than a couple minutes. Before long it was thoroughly scrambled. No amount of fiddling and twiddling could even get it back into cube shape. I worked on it off and on for a couple days.

Finally on Friday I got out a pad of paper and started systematically recording starting positions, and results. After writing down 65 of them, I wanted to quit being so systematic and start following different trails as I came to them, and pretty soon I had 6 corners on one side which made a 6-pointed star, and on the other side an eye-shape, which was 1 corner, 3 edges, 1 corner, 3 edges. I had a feeling this had some potential. It was late though, so I went to bed.

Saturday morning it all quickly fell into place. The 6 + 1313 became 44 + 44 became 2 tops + 2 bottoms became 2 halves + 2 halves became a cube. Now all I had to do was figure out how to get the colors solved!

First I got the edges. I don’t know exactly how I did it and I wonder if it will always be that easy. Then I was able to get 3 of the 8 corners fairly easily. Somewhere along the line I realized that I was moving corners around without messing up the edges, so I looked up a notation for doing Square-1 moves and used it to write down some moves that move corners around without messing up edges. I also wrote down where the corners were both before and after, so I would be able to do something with it. What it does it swap the 2 front corners on top and the 2 corners on the bottom right. I used my corner swapping algorithm with setup moves to swap a blue on the bottom with a green on the top, so that I had 3 of the 4 blue corners on top, and, of course, 3 of the 4 green corners on the bottom. And they were all 6 in the correct places. So I just had to swap a top corner with a bottom corner to have the cube solved. I got all the blue corners on top and all the greens on bottom, and I had the bottom solved, but 2 blue corners needed to swap. I hadn’t had a situation in which I needed to do a 3-cycle, but was sure that I could use the double-swap algorithm twice with setup moves to do a 3-cycle. So to swap a pair of corners I could turn the top 90˚ which would make exactly 1 corner right and then I could use my algorithm to 3-cycle the other corners into place. The only problem would be, my 4 blue edges would all be out of place. And I didn’t know how to move edges without messing up corners.

After much experimenting, that resulted in having to practically solve it over again several times, I ended up with all the edges solved, but 2 green corners swapped. Somewhere along the line I had all the corners solved, but 2 edges swapped. I figured out how to swap edges without messing up corners, but I couldn’t use it to fix the 2 swapped corners after all. I could just use it to switch from 2 swapped corners to 2 swapped edges.

With most of the cube solved it was relatively easy to write down moves and their results and to come up with ways to swap pairs of corners, and to swap pairs of edges. This gives me a way to 3-cycle corners, and to 3-cycle edges. In the midst of all the experimenting there were times when I would mess up and have to use the moves learned so far to get back to one pair of swapped something. Sometimes it was quick and easy, sometimes it was difficult. Try as I might I couldn’t find a way to swap 2 edges, the very thing I needed to do. I figured I was facing some kind of parity issue. I still don’t understand exactly what parity is, but I figured to fix it I would have to back out of the cube configuration and come back to it. Finally I went to Jaaps page and read just enough to get me through. Here is the link to the page that I look forward to studying in depth some day, after I am convinced I can solve the Square-1 on my own.

http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/square1.htm#oddperm

And here is his paragraph that helped me figure out what I had to do.
“The quickest way to perform an odd permutation is to go to the scallop-scallop shape (3 twists), swap three corners from one layer with three from the other (1 twist), and return to the cube shape (3 twists) which takes 7 twists in total.”

I did take a quick look through his diagrams to see what he meant by “scallop.” It is what I called the 44 in my analysis when I was trying to get it into a cube shape at the beginning.

All the above in this post was written in 2008 when I first got the Square-1. As it turns out I don't use any of the Corner Swappers and only 1 of the Edge Swappers routinely now. 

Square-1

I've been on a puzzle kick lately, solving puzzles that have been put away for awhile. Mostly it has been fun easy pleasant to play with puzzles. Anything with peeling stickers or alignment issues have been avoided. Then came the Curvy Copter adventure mentioned a couple days ago. Well I have a nice CT Square-1 that I haven't played with much since getting it last August. No time like the present.

The Square-1 was one of the first puzzles I got after the 3x3x3 years ago and I painstakingly worked out a strategy for solving it. The only help I needed was the parity issue at the end when solving the last edges. I found what I needed at Jaap's site. I've never taken the time and energy to learn my method well enough not to need notes after a prolonged absence. Maybe this time...

Curvy Copter Adventure

Yesterday we went to pick up the California grandkids to bring them home for a visit. I packed some puzzles for the car ride one of which was the Curvy Copter. I wanted to see if 11 year old Roark could make any interesting patterns on it. Eventually it ended up under almost 4 year old Roriana's control and by the time it got back to me it was in a state I don't remember ever seeing before.

By the time Roark was finished trying to get it back to cube shape it was the lumpiest Helicopter Cube I had ever seen. Now I am familiar with jumbling, but whenever I would jumble the cube, I would just use it to scramble petals so that they were out of orbit. Or to unscrambled said petals. It was never shape shifted for long.

I finally got it solved today, but it took a long time and turned out to be a great new adventure. Thanks grandkids. =D

If you are interested my method for the Curvy Copter is to solve the 6 edges, then all the petals in no particular order, then the corners.

Puzzles I've solved in the last few weeks:

2x2x2 Cyclone Boys Cube
2x2x2 Hollow Ball
3x3x3 Zanchi 5 Cube
4x4x4 Cyclone Boys Cube
Crazy 4x4x4 II
2x3x3
Crazy 2x3x3 without the freaky move
2x3x4
3x3x1 Scramble
3x3x3 Magic Octahedron
3x3x3 Mixup Cube
F-Skewb
Pyraminx Crystal
Pyraminx Trignis
Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb
Skewb Dodecahedron
Curvy Copter with jumbling

2015 Puzzling—Back after a long break

After months away from puzzling I'm back for awhile. Got back into it about 3 weeks ago. It is different this time though than it has ever been in the past.

Instead of feeling compelled to solve every puzzle, or better yet, without notes—
Instead of feeling compelled to take on a new challenge—
Instead of feeling compelled to remember or relearn the best method—

I just pulled out my boxes of puzzles, opened them up, and looked for a nice easy puzzle to solve. I didn't care if it was the best method I had ever come up with or picked up. Just have fun, see what flows. If I wanted to refer back to old notes, fine; if not, fine. If I didn't feel like messing with a certain puzzle at the time for some reason, fine. For example, the Pyramorphinx is the Mefferts brand and is not smooth and fun to play with. The good one I had that was smooth was stolen. So the Pyramorphinx got left in the box. The Fluctuation Angle Cube is just so spikey when scrambled. Don't feel like that now. The Gear Cube Extreme has some crazy long algorithm that I never can remember and just don't want to fuss with right now. Some of the Gear puzzles have bad stickers that I don't want to mess with now. Basically I can't be bothered with anything that has alignment or sticker or bandaging issues right now. Been there done that. Just want some smooth simple fun.

So what have I been enjoying?
Each of the following got at least one solve and I want to solve them again soon.

2x2x2 Cyclone Boys Cube
2x2x2 Hollow Ball
3x3x3 Zanchi 5 Cube
4x4x4 Cyclone Boys Cube
Crazy 4x4x4 II
2x3x3
Crazy 2x3x3 without the freaky move
2x3x4
3x3x1 Scramble
3x3x3 Magic Octahedron
3x3x3 Mixup Cube
F-Skewb
Pyraminx Crystal
Pyraminx Trignis
Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb
Skewb Dodecahedron

I solved the Pyraminx but don't really care if I solve it again for awhile. I enjoyed the Skewb but don't need to solve it again for awhile.

The Curvy Kite-ohedron Skewb (aka Curvy Rhombohedron although the faces are not rhombi) was scrambled in the box and yesterday it was calling out to be solved. It turned out to be fun so I also did the Skewb Dodecahedron (aka Skewb Ultimate). It was fun too. I solved them both much like I solve the Skewb, which is—

two opposite corners
the skew corners
the last 4 corners
3 cycle the centers

With the Skewb variants there are sometimes twisting and flipping that needs to be done too but it just flowed in nicely with the basic solve. I also solved the Skewb Pyraminx (aka Jing's Pyraminx), but don't want to solve it again soon. I don't like the way the stickers feel. So what I'm looking for here are puzzles that are pleasant to solve, pleasant to the touch,

What is next? Square-1 maybe. Or maybe I'll work through the ones in the list above again. Or maybe fiddle with the 2x3x4 Camouflage Cube that I have had a long time and have never solved.

LG optimus FIRE Contacts

The L34C also goes by optimus FIRE. Since this is an Android phone, that means it syncs easily with my Gmail accounts. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, that meant it gave me 400+ unwanted contacts. As far as I know they can be deleted one at a time off the phone. But I'm thinking that if I synced to Gmail again they would come back. And one at a time is unacceptable. Neither the online tutorial or the manual spelled out how to get rid of the hundreds of unwanted contacts, but somehow, praise the Lord, I figured it out.

Go to Gmail on the computer.
Open the Contacts Manager from the pulldown menu on the left that says Gmail.
Go down the left hand column until you find Other Contacts and click on it.
Click the box at the top of the checkbox column to select all.
Uncheck any you want to keep.
Open the More menu and choose Delete.

Go to the Settings on the phone.
Use Accounts & Sync to sync the phone Contacts with the newly cleaned out Gmail Contacts.

My First Android Device—LG L34C

For years I've been accumulating minutes on my tracfone. I had it to the point where the last year or so it cost less than $5 a month for cell phone service. But then this year I used up all my minutes, mainly because of a trip to Baton Rouge with Robert. I set up a family group and sent a lot of texts. So it came time to load up the phone with more minutes and another year of service. When I went to tracfone.com there they were—Smart phones! Tracfone now has Smart phones. I liked the look of the next to the bottom of the line, and found it at a local Kmart for only $50, so coupled with a years worth of service it averages out to less than $14 a month for the next year. The only thing is, will I need to buy more minutes or texts or data before the year is up? We'll see.

The quick start guide was good to get things going. The Service Manual that came with it took it a little further, but it seemed like it didn't really come close to explaining everything. Last night I found two online sources that might be helpful.

LG L34C Tutorials

And a manual that was downloadable. It is called 12_27_2013_LG L34C_UG_EN_Final.pdf.

Bishop's Pumpkin Farm 2014

Rory and Fam, and Raymond and Fam joined forces to get all our current grandchildren to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm last Sunday. What a fun time it was. It was quite a treat to see Annie and Roriana having fun together. And what a blessing it was to see Roark take Alex under his wing to show him a good time. Alex was reluctant to join in at first—notice on the first set of slide pictures he is not there. But it wasn't long before he was having fun with the rest of them. (I originally uploaded photos to Flickr and had a link here but it no longer works so I removed the link. Evidently I removed those photos from Flickr.

Astonished by Mike Erre #01

To sell Jesus on the basis of meeting felt needs is fine so long as we define how exactly He “meets” those needs. If meeting those needs means the removal of the sin, sorrow, and disappointment of human life, then we’ll be perpetually disappointed. If meeting those needs means that Jesus uses our unfulfilled desires to keep us dependent and reliant upon Him, then we’re getting close to the secret of the full life that Christ offers.

Dian Sheng 3x3x2

This was the cheapest one I could find, and it is a bit disappointing. It does not turn very well around the circle. I have attempted to loosen it up by adding lubricant, but it hasn't helped a lot. Maybe some. I think I will avoid this puzzle maker in the future.

On the plus side, as I was playing with it, not only was I able to remember how to solve it without looking at my notes from the past, but I also came up with a new and better way to solve the two edges that are adjacent to the corner.

Drat. I should have written it down immediately. Now I can't get it.

(Later) OK, I've come up with something but I don't think it is what I came up with this afternoon. But here it is. After getting the circles filled correctly locate the corner—on this puzzle it is the red, white, blue corner. With the white circle on bottom, use either setup moves or EPS to place the blue-white (or red-white) edge on top and across from where it needs to go. Spin the corner to the top so that the blue-white (or red-white) is directly across from its spot beside the corner. Do (M2 U2) x 2 to move it across. Move the corner and edge that are now paired up back around to the bottom.

I think this is easier than the former method I used, but probably not a whole lot. I think it is somewhat similar to what I came up with earlier today. It seemed so intuitive this afternoon.

August 20, 2014
After a number of scrambles and solves, the turning quality has improved enough that I am not quite so disappointed anymore.

CT Square-1

I have so enjoyed the Cubetwist Bandage Kit this summer that I decided to get a CT Square-1. Earlier in the summer I played around with the Super Square-1 enough to work out another "map" to getting back to cube shape, but the Super Square-1 is such a pain to align that it is not at all fun to play with, and if puzzling isn't fun, then what is the point? Yesterday I scrambled and solved the CT Square-1 several times and it is fun to play with.

In The Land of 52 there are several paths that you can run across.

If you come to 12 [121212] go to 32 [3212/3212].
If you come to 22, 24, or 36 go to 44 [44/44].

If you come to 23 go to 21 or 25. [52/2313 can go to either 52/2115 or 52/2511 in one twist.]
If you come to 21 or 25 go to 2H/44.

If you come to 14 [141111] go to 33 [3311/3113].
If you come to 13 go to House/33, then go to 2H/2T.

Once at 32 or 44, go to 2T/2B.
From all others, go to LH/RH.

Go to 2H/2H, and from there to Cube.

The above is not supposed to mean anything to anyone except me. If you can figure out what I am talking about, you have probably figured out how to solve the Square-1 without my help! :D

OK, if someone does run across this and cares, here you go. 52 means you have 5 adjacent big slices and 2 small slices on one side. 2313 means you have 2 bigs 3 littles 1 big 3 littles as you look clockwise and start with the most bigs. 21 means you have 2 bigs 1 little at least 1 big and who knows what. 2H means 2 Halves of a square that don't make a square, which according to my numerical scheme is 211211. 2T means the top half of 2H. 2B means the bottom half of 2H. LH means Left House, which according to my numerical scheme is 211112. Similarly RH is Right House and is 221111.

When I first started analyzing the Square-1 I was naming things according to the way it looked, but the deeper I got the more difficult it got to come up with unique descriptive names that I could remember, thus the numbering system.

New Puzzles from Cubezz.com

Awhile back our house was broken into and around 40 of my around 80 puzzles were stolen. During the summer I replaced the CT Bandage Kit and got tons of use out of it as indicated by previous blog posts. After we got back from our summer trip, I ordered 8 puzzles from Cubezz.com. Some are to replace stolen ones, some are new to me. Here is what I got.

• Lanlan Curvy Copter replaces the Curvy Copter and Helicopter Cubes that were stolen.
• CT Square-1 replaces the Square-1 that got stolen and the irritating Super Square-1 that I wish had. It is just the alignment thing with the stupid circle part. Now that I have a nice Square-1 perhaps I'll play with it enough to no longer need the notes I made way back when I first figured it out.
• Cyclone Boys 2x2 Cube and 4x4 Cube. These are colored plastic cubes, which I like a lot, and they seem to work well.
• DianSheng Crazy 3x3x2 replaces the 3x3x2 and Crazy 3x3x2 that were stolen. This one does not turn very well. Perhaps with some lubrication it will work better.
• Dino Skewb or F-Skewb is new to me but I think it is sort of like the Master Skewb that was stolen only simpler.
• QJ Fourleaf Clover Hollow Ball appears to be a very nice 2x2x2 puzzle. I hope Annie likes it.
• 2x3x4 Camoflage Cube is brand new to me. I've never had any of these before, or anything like it that I know of. Should be fun.