Puzzled 2

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Gotta Love It

The Before pic shows how I left the puzzles in the morning when I left with Raymond. The After pic shows what state they were in when we got home. I don't think anyone over 4 years old touched them while we were gone.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The Gravel Pit

Ok, so actually it is a playground, and we did swing for a long time, but then...

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

To the Pond and Beyond!

(Above) Annie wanted to walk across the board. I said no.

The path beside the pond.

The pond.

Annie told me we could see the church (the Catholic Church in the village). I took a picture then zoomed in and took another.

Looking back on the path beside the pond.

Looking ahead beyond the pond.

(Below) Crossing the pasture beyond the pond. We eventually came to a road.

(Below) Beginning the walk back. The sidewalkless part of the trip on the road.

(Above) The winters are long and cold—you see lots of wood stacks like this.

Annie was leading the way as I had no clue where we were. I didn't remember this short road but later learned I had been there on a walk before.

The kiddos posed in front of these flowers for me. This is up the road not far from their house.

These flowers are in the neighbors' garden at the end of the driveway.

Hluboká Zoo 2015

I uploaded 71 photos to Flickr. Here are a few highlights:

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Fun at the Big Slide Playground after A Long Walk

After walking down the steps, and across the street, and up the road back to the Catholic Church, we stopped at the playground on our way home. It was fun. While Annie road the lion Alex checked our my Music library and chose a Steven Curtis Chapman song. They had fun on the slide together. Alex tried to climb the swing set pole while Annie was swinging. I brought three puzzles along to scramble—mission accomplished.

Winnie the Pooh and 4x4x4 too

Summer 2015 Catch Up

Blogging has been a way for me to document some of the things that are happening this summer, but I don't always get around to it. Maybe I can do some catching up with a hodge podge of photos that haven't been given their own post. They obviously are not in chronological order, but they are all from the last couple weeks.

I enjoyed watching Alex do a Jigsaw Puzzle one day.

They grow some interesting plants around here.

There are several cats that hang out around the driveway area in front of the building that houses the landlords' place and the kids' place. The black one is the friendliest.

I know there is a lot the same about the plant life here and at home, but I was surprised to see this thistle.

Puzzles. Gotta do puzzles.

Our flight from SF to London was on and hot and cramped but we survived. Then the flight from London to Prague was great! It was short and cool and roomy. I could revisit a fun puzzle, and I even ate some clotted cream!

Chillin' in the pool with a puzzle and the kiddos.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Panda Fun Park

Yesterday we went to Panda Funpark! It was fun and I took lots of photos and videos on the iPad. When I got home and tried to take one little picture it refused. Said there was no room. I tried turning iCloud on so it could be stored somewhere else. Didn't help. I tried deleting them after moving them to an external drive. Didn't help. Evidently when you trash things it doesn't really trash them. It doesn't free up space. What you have to do is figure out to to empty the trash, which I finally did. I also turned off iCloud since it doesn't really do me any good that I can tell. Now I have a decent amount of free space, but no photos on my iPad so I can't add photos directly from the iPad to the blog. Here are some photo highlights.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

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.

Rubik's Cube Books

I got my first Rubik's Cube in the early nineteen eighties. The only way I could solve it was to take it apart and put it back together solved. Until, that is, I got some little books that explained sequences of moves that could be used to put pieces where you want them without messing up what was already in place.

The Simple Solution To Rubik's Cube
by James G. Nourse
Notes on Rubik's Magic Cube
by David Singmaster
Solve That Crazy, Mixed-up Cube Puzzle
by Don Frederick.

I think I put together my own strategy using bits and pieces gleaned from all three books. Eventually I lost interest and forgot how to complete the cube, forgot I had those books, and lost track of the cubes.

Mark Jeays' Working Corner Method

http://jeays.net/rubiks.htm

In 2007 my interest in Rubik's Cube was rekindled when I watched the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. Marae found my 1980s cube for me and I tried to solve it. Huh-uh. I could do part of it, but not the last layer. Looking online I found various tutorials. Mark Jeays included YouTube videos with his Solution 2. This method worked for me and although I no longer use it in its entirety, nor could I, as I have forgotten the yellow edges sequences, I still find the basic working corner technique helpful, and use a slightly modified version of his corner twisting technique at times.

In the summer of 2014 we packed 30 or so puzzles and flew to visit Raymond and Fam in the Czech Republic. Breann, who had learned this method and no other, made some comment about bubururu or something like that, and it piqued my curiosity. What were those algorithms, and how similar are they to the EPS technique I use now when using a working corner? So I looked them up. Actually, the three algorithms were for dealing with the two last edges solved, which either needed to be swapped, or flipped, or swapped and flipped. The swapper is very similar to the one I have learned and used since, but I actually like it better in one sense, with a slight modification.

To swap UR and FR without flipping:

U' R U' R' U' R U' R' U'

To swap and flip UR and FR:

F' U' F U' F' U' F U2

To flip UR and FR:

F' U F U' R U' R' U

Will I actually learn and use these? Probably not. But I like them. :)

There is a slightly different implementation of the Working Corner Method. Arnaud van Galen calls it the Keyhole Method. I like his demonstration better than the one I originally learned. It just dawned on me why he is able to get away with doing it the way he does. He goes ahead and finishes the F2L before going to the last layer, unlike the way Jeays uses the working corner (keyhole) to also get the last layer. Since I no longer use the working corner to get the last layer, I should implement Arnaud's technique.

Jasmine's Scalable Method

http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/rubikscubesolution.html

This was the next method I learned. For awhile the idea of speed cubing appealed to me. This promised to be a good beginner's method for those that wanted to go on to faster method's later. Now that I know what I know, I wouldn't recommend this method if your goal is to be able to consistently solve the cube in less than 30 seconds. Rubik's Speedsolver Champion Leyan Lo presents a beginner's method that I like the looks of although I've never learned it. I have recently watched Arnaud van Galen's complete beginner's method video series and recommend them. Gilles Roux presents a beginners' method that is very close to one of my favorite ways of solving the cube. The simplicity and comprehensibility make this method a good place to start if you want to understand the Rubik's Cube. Also, if you are interested in speedcubing you should check out this YouTube video.

After trying for months to get under a minute with both Jasmine's Method and the Corner's First Method—and failing, I finally decided to quit trying and just enjoy cubing at a nice slow pace.

Don't get me wrong. Jasmine's Method has its merits. The sequences for orienting the last layer edges and corners, and permuting the last layer edges are still in my arsenal of useful algorithms.

Adam Cheyer's Corners First Method

Philip Marshall's Ultimate Solution

http://helm.lu/cube/MarshallPhilipp/
After learning to solve the cube corners first, what is next? An Edges First Method! This was a very difficult tutorial to follow, but once I got it, it was my favorite way to solve the cube for awhile. It uses only a few algorithms, and when you are finished solving the cube you feel like you've solved the puzzle, not just used memorized sequences to unscramble it.

Gilles Roux presents a beginners' method that could be used to solve the cube edges first. The simplicity and comprehensibility make this method a good place to start if you want to understand the Rubik's Cube. His technique is much easier to follow than Marshall's.