narrative

Guest Post: You always need a challenge

deadesq1 Comment

It started innocuously enough:  “Okay—since you always need a challenge…”, along with a video of Justin Bieber solving a Rubik’s cube in what seemed at the time to be a VERY fast solve.  I was intrigued by the commentary of my challenger (your blogmeister):  “Bieber is in the zone.  Look at his face.  He is absolutely focused.  Any way you look at it, 1:20 is incredibly fast.”  And so it began.

My Christmas stocking included a cube at my request, and a book by Dan Harris called “Speedsolving the Cube“.  I became anti-social during the holiday season as a result, tending to my familial obligations only as obligated, but always returning to the puzzle that is the Cube.  The algorithms were mind-boggling, Continue reading →

chutzpah?

Adventures in Cubing4 Comments

Since launching this blog a couple weeks ago, I’ve grown a bit more self-conscious about it.  Not so much because of the mockery – I can endure that, especially when dished by anonymous web denizens.  But more a fear that having a cubing-themed blog might project a self-deluded, misplaced belief that I’m actually pretty good at this whole cubing thing.  There’s a sort of hubris that attends launching a hobby blog, a sort of “look at me, and look what I can do.”  It requires a lot of chutzpah in the face of the dozens of other really good cubing blogs run by folks that can solve a cube 4 times faster than I can. Continue reading →

but why?

Adventures in Cubing4 Comments

Ridicule ( rid·i·cule/ˈridiˌkyo͞ol/)  The subjection of someone or something to mockery and derision.

Yes, ridicule. I expect it. To those who will mock, I respond, “Well deserved, but it is not to you that I owe an explanation.” Owed that explanation is my conscience and my wife. Hope you’re both reading.

I interpret “why” as relating to two things: (1) cubing and (2) documenting it. Continue reading →

find rabbit hole. jump in. document it.

Adventures in Cubing7 Comments

Against my better judgment — and fully anticipating ridicule, mockery, and outright bullying — we begin.  A blog is born.   It generally takes me over 100 hours to properly birth a blog.  I’m a perfectionist.  I fiddle with every pixel of spacing in CSS, get crazy with jquery and php switches, and tinker in Photoshop until my eyes glaze over.  Not this time.  This blog gestated for just over an hour.  Why the short shrift?  Mostly because I have time for this, and should be quartered by my bosses, wife, and children for even contemplating it.  But also because I’m not confident this will go anywhere.  So, a hosted blog, free theme, 20 lines of CSS, and we’re off…. Continue reading →