I went hunting for pictures from our 2009 trip to Brazil… Hours later I found a bunch. We visited Foz do Iguaçu, Rio, and Paraty. Here are some pictures from that trip.
Author Archives: Erik
Carnival Towel Animals
Couple of examples of Carnivals “famous” towel animals. Come for the cruise, stay for the towel animals. If you’ve ever done origami, the towel animals are basically the same idea with towels. You take a few basic patterns with different sized towels and you can create a variety of animals. These were from the Carnival Splendor, Mexican Riviera cruise in April 2011.
Fall by the Wayside
I’ve also picked up a number of wooden jigsaw puzzles by non-Stave crafters and artists. This puzzle entitled “Fall by the Wayside” was painted, designed, and cut by Andrea Farnham of Thingamajigsaw.
I have done a number of Andrea’s puzzles and she has both excellent artistic talent and a lot of smarts about how to design and cut a puzzle. My favorite puzzle ever is an Andrea Farnham, “Time Traveller”.
“Fall by the Wayside” is a a traditional puzzle with a circular shape and irregular pieces.
Photos around Paris
In 2011, I was fortunate enough to spend a fair bit of time in Paris, France. The food was of course outstanding. These are photos of a couple of well known places, Eiffel Tower, Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, and the Zero Point outside the Catherdral of Notre Dame.
Neck and Neck
This is a three-bolt trick puzzle from Stave. The catalog picture shows the wrong solution as do I here…
This to me was a trick puzzle that did not quite merit the three-bolt rank, at least by the time I received it, I found it easy to find the solution…
Custom Macchu Picchu Jigsaw
This is a very unique custom jigsaw puzzle made by Dee Rogers (Platinum Puzzles) from a photograph I took at Macchu Picchu. Dee took a huge print of my photograph and turned in into a multi-later, 3-Dee masterpiece:
What a Gem
This is to my mind the Stave teaser puzzle that was a precursor to the current line of troublemaker puzzles. This puzzle is entitled “What a Gem“. Putting it together reminded me a bit of playing Tetris. Skill at that, pluckiness, and some post it notes to hold pieces together while I worked helped this puzzle come together.
Golden Gate Bridge
These were taken with a film camera (Nikon film SLR) in 2000 of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Dachau Concentration Camp
Perhaps one of the saddest places I’ve ever visited. I am grateful that I visited with a good friend and colleague or the sadness would have been overwhelming. I visited Dachau roughly 8 years ago today (15 April 2004).
Monterey Bay Aquarium
A photo at the Monterey Bay Aquarium from December 2000.
Updated Patent Polisher – Javascript
Thanks to user KM’s input, I’ve updated the Javscript version of Patent Polisher with a small tweak to sort the reference numerals.
This means that all uses of the 100’s come before the 250’s, etc.
Also, I’ve made a white background version available. This eliminates my handsome mugshot and other WordPress paraphernalia from the results. This should make it easier to just print the results to PDF if sharing with a client or internally.
Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) Australia
From November 2004, a view of Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) from the dessert.
Disney Main Street Electric Parade
My clean out of my old photos continues. This January 2002 picture is of the Disney’s Main Street Electrical Parade (wikipedia entry) which was at the time not on Main Street, but in the (then) lagging Disney’s California Adventure park. There is something about the soundtrack that is strangely catchy…
Kilauea Volcano
More vacation memories, this time lava up close on Hawaii’s big island at Kilauea Volcano (2003).
Blog Comment Spam
It is impressive (and not in a good way) just how much blog comment spam is regularly attempted. Thank goodness for Akismet. In about of week of switching the site over to WordPress already have dozens of spam comments and very few legitimate once.
Makes me appreciate why many people who blog end up turning off commenting and/or switching to a system like Facebook comments…
Torres del Paine
Found this memory of our 2007 trip to South America and Cape Horn this morning, this photograph was taken in Torres del Paine National Park. It was quite beautiful there and I remember meeting several people who had returned because their previous visits had poor weather that prevented them from seeing the Paine’s.
More Stave Jigsaw Puzzles
Gallery
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Here are some more examples of Stave jigsaw puzzles I’ve worked on. These give a sense of why the puzzles are so mentally engaging. Shown are “State of Mind”, “Riding High”, “Hail Columbus”, and 1 of 4 configurations for “Cabbie … Continue reading
Updated Patent Polisher
I’ve added more instructions and some example output to the patent polisher page.
Also, I’ve provided some sample Visual Basic code for Visio to extract all of the strings from a Visio document. If you create your figures in Visio this is helpful for checking for reference numeral issues.
Stave Puzzles – Palace of Pranks
I’ve always loved jigsaw puzzles since I was a young kid. I first learned about Stave’s wooden jigsaw puzzles in 2004 by reading about Stave in a United’s Hemispheres magazine. Immediately the concept hooked me, when I landed, I checked the website and fell over looking at the price. I eventually got over the price thanks to a generous gift of my first Stave puzzle from my brother. That led me to realize just how fun a jigsaw puzzle targeted for adults could be. What with pieces that go together in all different ways… Some going in more than one place…
Fast forward to 2009 and Palace of Pranks became one of the first trick puzzles I would attempt. A trick puzzle is a puzzle where some pieces fit in multiple locations.
Let’s take a look at the catalog picture, you get a small sense of what it is in store:
Those “black” looking pieces are actually blue, see-through plastic that make a moat at the base of the castle. Because they are see-through, it is next to impossible to tell which side is up vs. down. Further you might notice that things like the worms are in the way of where the moat needs to be. Uh oh… That is a hint to the first trick.
When you get a Stave trick puzzle they come with a “biscuit”, or tableau, that explains the objective:
Spoilers Ahead
Note beyond this point I have “spoilers” about how to solve the puzzle. If you are planning to buy the puzzle and want it to be a surprise, stop reading now.
Most Stuff Back. Some with Improvements
Ok most of my old site is now back and functional, in particular I’ve redone my patent polisher tools in client-side Javascript.
These simple tools can avoid a lot of common patent mistakes that cost time and money to correct later in a patent’s life.