Goertz Thoughts

Today is National Puzzle Day (apparently). Like most national days, it seems to be a relatively new celebration, most likely created to sell products. In honor of the celebration, I share with you my completion of Anatolian's 3000 piece Mystery Writers (#4918) Check out all its majesty! As I mentioned in my previous post, I got it from Goodwill so there was a chance of missing pieces. Look closely: two are not there. Since it is a 3000 piece puzzle, that means that 99.93% of the puzzle is present. However, I don't feel 99.93% satisfied with my completion. Don't get me wrong; I still feel massively successful (my last 3000 piece puzzle took me over a year (in part because I kept forgetting about it)). But I'd say I'm closer to a 98% feeling of success. My puzzle strategy: Edges first. I don't think I'm alone there. Major sub images. In this case, I did the clock, peacock, and ladder Sort remaining pieces by color. I have special puzzle sorting trays for this ...

 As I believe that I have mentioned before, I collect board games. Christmas and my birthday (in early January) are good times to get these. Here's a rundown of what I added. I haven't play them all yet (and maybe won't every. I collect more than I can possibly play). Goodwill Acquisitions: Purchasing games from Goodwill is dicey due to possible missing pieces. However, they're usually about 10% of the new cost. It's worth the risk. Q-bitz An easy, pretty fun puzzle game. It says it's supposed to improve your brain power Threads of Fate A very highly rated mystery game. It's a risk to get these used because pieces might be missing. I took a chance anyway since it had an envelope of replacement items for the pieces that get used up. Unfortunately, the previous owner wrote all over a bunch of the rest of the stuff as well. I think I can print new ones. 7 Wonders A well made classic Plunder: A Pirates Life Mixed reviews on this one. It's not hard enough for...

The New Year is an artificial construct. There's nothing special about it other than the meaning that we assign to it . It's not really even that close to the winter solstice (which would make sense). As such, I see no particular reason to celebrate it. In my house, we toasted New Year's Eve with sparkling cider at 9:00 and then went to bed. As arbitrary as the date is, it does provide a useful moment to pause, reflect, and reset. That means it's time to update and brush off my daily goals tracker. I'll follow it for about a month and then give up (probably). Mr. Goertz's Goal Tracker Here's what I like about this: I print it out weekly. That makes it physical. To me that's important to owning goals. I always tell students who are struggling with deadlines to get a physical planner. These aren't really SMART goals. Due to the number of things on the list, attaching times and completion dates would not be a good idea. There's no penalty for non-co...