Monday
 |
| Bloggin' at 30,000 feet. |
…is a travel day –
we’re scheduled to fly from SAN to BOS, via JFK, but it becomes a bit more
adventurous: just after we wake up, Paulette calls to say that the
first leg of our journey has been delayed due to bad weather somewhere – which
puts the second leg in danger. This also rather puts our plan of a leisurely
breakfast before heading across to the airport in jeopardy and we find
ourselves meeting downstairs for a shuttle to the airport an hour earlier than
originally planned.
It turns out that
American Airlines have a brilliant self-service system and we manage to rebook
on an earlier flight via Dallas… which then gets delayed so we end up leaving
after our first flight was due to leave… stay with me here. We encounter some
of this weather en route and end up
flying in circles for a while before we’re allowed to try and land in Dallas…
about half an hour before our (already delayed) connecting flight is due to depart.
Thankfully it gets delayed even further and we arrive at our DFW departure gate
literally as they call our boarding group and we walk straight onto the plane.
In spite of all said
weather, the flight is reasonably calm and we arrive in BOS just after
midnight, and then crash at the Bobroffs’ somewhere around 3am – feels like
it’s been a long day.
Tuesday
We have a late start
in spite of the local jackhammer gang’s best attempts to wake us up at 7:30 –
we surface about 2 hours later and grab breakfast before Saul and I head across
town to see Jane and John Kostick.
Saul’s sat-nav gets
us close to Jane’s place, but he hasn’t got the house number so we find
ourselves cruising gently up the road until I spot an instantly recognisable
parabolic pergola in front of a house – that HAS to be it.
While we’re sorting
ourselves out in the car, Jane magically appears and we end up having a long
conversation on the kerb-side before heading down into the basement to see how
the Kostick Stars are made. Jane gives us a quick demo of the polishing process
before showing us how they get welded together.
From there we head
upstairs where I’m shown how to thread the wires for a six-axis star… turns out
I’m pretty slow and manage to make two errors on my first attempt, but Jane’s a
very patient teacher and I manage to get one produced properly at least.
Lunch is called and
we head into the kitchen for some of John’s pea soup and pesto bruschetta. Jane
shows me around upstairs where I get to admire her reclaimed cabinets containing
all manner of little treasures that I recognise from their website. We chat
about life, the universe and MOMATH while Jane gently reassembles a 3-foot
Tetraxis Toy on the floor in proper colour symmetric form.
Next on the grand
tour is the wood shop out back – Saul’s excited to get in there again. Jane
shows me a wonderfully enticing little magnetic sculpture that she and a friend
are using to chat to young children about shapes and their interactions.
She
then proceeds to walk me through the entire process of creating one of these
little assemblies from cutting the shapes through to drilling the holes for the
magnets, bevelling the edges and inserting the magnets – I get to try my hand
at some of the less lethal bits and she commandeers my camera so she can record
the evidence of me actually creating a little sawdust in her workshop. I manage
to mess up two of the pieces by getting the magnets’ polarity wrong and she
effortlessly whips up a couple more pieces to take their place in less time
than it’s taken me to ruin them.
Seeing the process
in action leaves me with even more respect for the amount of work entailed in
producing some of the stunning wooden creations I have of hers that I’ve managed
to acquire over the past few years… there’s a lot of thought and precision in
every single step of the process – nothing is left to chance.
We finish off the
assemblies with a little gel to lift out the grain a little before heading back
down into the basement to collect a couple of folding stars that I need to take
home – one for Michel and the rest to serve as Christmas decorations in the
Walker-household later this year. I collect a couple of puzzles that Jane’s
specially made for me for my 50th birthday before we say our hurried
goodbyes and head off to meet the girls at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner –
my choice!
We manage to get to
bed early for the first time in ages…
Wednesday
We arise a little
earlier than yesterday and head out toward Lexington to Stewart Coffin’s place.
After some quick hellos the girls leave us and head out in search of some
fibre shops ,and the boys settle down in the lounge to chat about life, the
universe and occasionally even about puzzles.
Stewart tells us
about his latest hobby – he’s decided that he hasn’t been contributing enough
to his local community so he’s taken on responsibility for rehabilitating an
acre of woodland, he’s bought a chainsaw and has been removing some pests that
have been hampering some of the older trees in the little parcel of land. He
proudly shows us the results of his handiwork and it looks great… he’s planning
on adopting another acre in the near future.
At 86 it’s clear
that this wonderful gent has tremendous love for life itself and doesn’t show
any signs of slowing down – his bike parked in the corner of the lounge is
clearly still in very regular use, whereas mine has been unused in the garage
for the past 8 years – I do feel a little ashamed.
There are a few new
puzzle designs he’s been working on lined up on his table next to the PC and
I’m invited to have a bash at one of them… I find a familiar sliding axis and
slide two halves apart and return them again, afraid it’s all going to come
apart in my paws and I’ll be left with bits I can’t reassemble.
During the
course of some further conversation I get a bit braver and end up with one of
the halves disassembled in my lap thinking
to myself “I’ve got this covered…” only for mild panic to overtake that
calm a few minutes later when I realise that the odd geometry is messing with
my head rather well and I’m struggling to put just the three pieces back
together in a way that will allow me to once again slide the two halves
together again… massive sign of relief when I finally get it back together and
gently replace it on the table.
I admire the lovely
black and white prints of stunning nature scenes dotted around the living room
– all Stewart’s own photography, mostly from canoeing trips out in the
wilderness… he’s lived a very full life – and written about some of it in the
three books he’s already published on bits of his life.
He tells us the
story of a recent chance meeting with an old family friend, bringing a tear to
his eye as he recounts the moment he realises the lady helping him replace a
watch strap is a dear friend he hasn’t seen in twenty years.
He gives us a quick
tour upstairs, showing us his neat boxes of a virtually complete collection of
his designs as well as a few boxes of his designs that others have made, and
the little photographic set-up to take the pictures he’s using in his latest
version of Ap-Art – he gives Saul and I each a copy of his very latest draft –
dated the day before.
He shows me a copy
of his Emperor Butterfly sliding tile puzzle and we find ourselves chatting
about the plastic laminating that he’s used on the puzzle and how he’s finished
off the various bits.
Next we head down to
the basement where he had a custom tarpaulin made up to cover the existing
carpet down there, keen not to damage it with any of his woodworking activities
down there. One corner has an area approximately 3m * 3m cordoned off with
plastic sheeting and a clever self-sealing door flap to contain all his
woodworking activities… “But the dust still gets out!” he complains. Inside
there’s a wonderfully compact little workshop that Stewart has been using to
produce his designs. He’s obviously got some ridiculously good jigs and
fixtures that make it possible to produce these horribly unforgiving designs on
a tiny table saw with a repurposed electric planer serving as a thicknesser
using a cunning little self-fabricated attachment. He shows us a really clever
little glueing jig made of four simple little pieces of square aluminium tubing
– perfect for aligning bits of Triumph and Vega and others using that geometry.
I leave a copy of my
exchange puzzle with Stewart safe in the knowledge that he’ll be giving it to
someone who’ll enjoy it…
Stewart drives us to
Wegmans to meet Gill & Paulette for lunch and we end up discussing Brexit and its
likely impact on the value of European equities. We find the girls already
there and have a wonderful lunch of fresh salads and cold meats – we’re eating
light because we know we’re going out for a big dinner this evening.
We get a pic of the
boys together at Wegmans before we say goodbye to Stewart, who asks Gill “Are
we on hugging terms yet?” – “Of course!” and she gets a big bear hug from the
puzzling god.
We grab some lovely
ice creams (bit of a theme going on here with the Bobroffs!) before heading back
toward town. We stop to browse at some stunning art at Mobilia – we’re just
browsing! The bank balance doesn’t entertain thoughts of purchasing any of the
high art on exhibition, but we’re with Saul and Paulette and we’re treated like
returning friends. Saul and I puzzle on a bench in the sidewalk while the girls
hit a yarn shop nearby – I’m still failing to solve the Cast Arrows Teddy’s
given me.
From Cambridge we
head to Brookline to visit David at Eureka. He has a super selection of games,
jigsaws and puzzles and whenever there’s a lull in the conversation he’s enthusiastically
showing us something he’s thinks is fun or cool… several of said items find
their way into my shopping basket – his enthusiasm is infectious.
Chris Morgan finds
us at Eureka and David gives us a tour of the basement – LOTS of stock! And several
sets of puzzle activity sets for parties – a new line in entertainment for Bar Mitzvahs
and birthdays…
We head into town
(via another yarn shop) and meet David and Chris at Aquitaine for a lovely
dinner, followed by a quick session of close-up magic from Chris and a long chat
about Lennart Green and his magic.
Gill and I manage to
spend a little time with an old friend from Cape Town who’s now living in
Boston, at a coffee shop across the road from Aquitaine before heading home via
a seemingly endless array of road-works and road closures on the way home –
well done Saul for actually getting us home that same night!
Thursday
…is Saul’s birthday –
Happy Birthday Saul! – and we’re having brunch with the Bobroffs’ neighbours
and a visiting friend from New York at the local diner in town. I get some
super pancakes for breakfast and on the walk back home I have nice chat with
Bill about forensic accounting, due diligence and Paul Manafort – all totally
unrelated of course!
We wander the block
and a half down to the beach and enjoy the breeze for a while because it is HOT!
Saul and I puzzle
for a while - I finally have an epiphany on the Cast Arrows when I think of the
right question to ask myself (!) and solve it in a couple of minutes from there…
I’m allowed a tour of Saul’s basement which is crammed with all manner of
woodworking machinery and hand tools for crafting wood, electrical work and
plumbing… as well as the largest
collection of bits of wood I have ever seen… “for the next couple of projects” –
I reckon he could build a few houses with the wood he’s got stockpiled in
there!
I give him a wotsit
and manage to get him to ponder it for a while.
Lunch is ice cream
from Downriver Ice Cream – they’re good, although they do have some unusual
names for their flavours: snail trails or kung fu grasshopper anyone?
After lunch there’s
more puzzling and Saul lays down the gauntlet with a copy of Tado Muroi’s
Threaded Dodecahedron… while I’m struggling with it Saul admits he’s only ever assembled
it once and it was way too fiddly to ever try again… I get it 97% assembled,
lacking a tiny bit of string for the last corner because I haven’t threaded the
first few sections sufficiently tightly – we agree I’ve beaten it and I
gleefully disassemble it again.
We wander into town
for some great burgers from A&B Burgers in Beverley.
I’m rather lucky. I have some very ingenious friends. Sometimes that leaves me rather puzzled. And that’s a really good thing.
At first blush, you have a cylindrical padlock with
a ring captured on the locking shaft and a push-fit plastic cap
protecting the keyhole from the elements, and puzzlers. 
Right, we’re definitely going to have to find a way
of getting the key in there – or it’s a fabulous bit of crimson fish.
Sticking with it for a while, and experimenting with various things, I
found I could occasionally get the key inserted
a bit, sometimes even fully – and I was reasonably happy with my
approach and even mentioned my technique to the tormentor-in-chief –
only to be roundly chided for not paying enough attention to the
puzzle’s name and finding the far more elegant method required.
There is. And it is. And that gets you past the very first step in the
process… only to be confronted by the next: great, so you have the key
inserted – now it won’t turn… and so it continues! 
Even when you think you’ve finally solved this
lock, he slams the door in your face – the lock is clearly unlocked at
one point, but still you’re unable to release the ring… he demands more. 
