Down Time

0h h1

When I am done trying to get things done, or I just need a break, I'll fire up YouTube, unleash it on My Mix, and open a game of solitaire on a new tab. I have three games I play regularly, sometimes a fourth if the situation warrants. I play these games in order. It usually eats up about 30 minutes. It may go to an hour. First I'll play Netwalk at the Expert level. It takes about a minute. I don't have a strategy that I know of, I just start rotating pieces until everything is connected. It usually takes me about twice as many steps as the posted goal value. On occasion I have solved it in the same number of steps as the goal. If I am feeling fuzzy headed, it might take me four or five times as many steps as the goal.

Next I'll move on to 0h h1 (shown above).  It usually takes about three or four minutes. There are like three levels of play here. The object of the game is to fill in all of the squares, but you may not have more than two blocks of the same color next to each other. The first level is to fill in the obvious places. In places where you have two pieces of the same color next to each other, you know that on either end you must have pieces of the opposite color. Any place where you have two pieces of the same color separated by an empty space, that space needs to filled with a piece of the opposite color. Now if you are lucky, you may have some rows (or columns) that are almost entirely filled. Each row and column needs to be half of one color and half of the other. A count of the current pieces may reveal the color required in the the remaining places.

Now we need to think a bit. Look at a row and where all the current pieces are placed. Mentally try placing pieces in that row (or columns). It may be that there is pair of spaces that require one piece of each color, but then one space is left over, and a count of place pieces should reveal the color required for that last place. You may have several places like that, or you might have a situation where you need to place blue pieces in several places, but you end up with one extra spot, so that spot must be red.

Every once in a while, these basic techniques will be enough to solve the puzzle. More often, you will end up with several pairs of spaces that each require one piece of each color and the only way to determine which one is which is to compare the lines with the other completed lines in the puzzle and find one that matches all of the pieces placed so far. Then the solution is to reverse the colors of the two pieces that correspond to the empty slots. This is most annoying part of the game, and depending on my attitude I may not attempt it, but just use the game's 'eyeball' to identify the matching line. In those cases I count it a 'win' if I haven't overlooked any thing that I should have found using the basic techniques.

The third game is Spider Solitaire with two suits. This game usually takes about five to seven minutes and successful solutions are sporadic. So playing the first two games and then three hands of solitaire will take about half an hour.

I am writing this because I just got done shuffling some pdf files over to the City of Portland Building Department. It wasn't difficult or complicated, but good lord how I hated it. It's an obligation and man oh man, I did not want to do it and I don't really understand why I am so resistant. There are multiple reasons why I should resent this, but none of them have any real standing in this situation. Come on dude, suck it up and get it done. Jeez.