Hello, My name is Mike and I have a puzzle addiction.
I grew up as a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast. There was always a new jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table and my family was always working on it. My brother was especially talented putting jigsaw puzzles together and I spent hours trying to match his ability.
I had a few mechanical puzzles growing up, such as the famous horseshoe and ring puzzle and the 1987 Spin Out Puzzle. I worked on that Spin Out puzzle for so long that I could solve and put it back in under a minute. I didn’t know it at the time, but the solution is a standard Binary Code that was just intuitive for me. My brain just felt wired to solve it without really thinking.
I eventually found Stave Puzzles, which really revolutionized puzzling for me. If you aren’t familiar – Stave jigsaw puzzles are handmade out of high quality wood and usually include a ‘trick’ or some kind of story that required solving. My family fell in love with these puzzles and it became a bonding experience for us. My dad would often buy one of their story puzzles and bring it with us on vacation. Often we’d spend more hours working on the puzzle than whatever we went on vacation for.
Once I got through college and my life stabalized, I rediscovered my love for puzzles. I came across cubicdissection.com at some point and ordered one. I quickly became addicted and started spending way too much money on puzzles. I just couldn’t resist (and still can’t). I started this blog as an excuse to keep buying more puzzles. I figured that blogging would give me a reason to buy more and also, maybe one day, could possibly earn a little money. Well, I’m far too inconsistent with writing blogs to achieve that reality, but the blog still serves it’s original purpose.
In addition to puzzling, I have a career in Digital Media and eCommerce, I also have a wonderful wife and 2 kids. Work and Family come first, but when I get some rare free time, I write up a blog post. The puzzling never stops, but the blog writing is sporadic.
Thank you for taking the time to check out my posts. I hope someone out there is at least slightly entertained by my rambling, stream of conciousness excuse for a blog. Puzzle on!