So I found out in the last month or so that I'm no longer in the top 100 in Florida on 3x3x3, the standard regular Rubik's cube. Also, I didn't get to sign up for a competition in June that I kind of wanted to go to because I was being distracted by life. But, competitions aren't really my everyday focus at this point. I think that I have more to say when I'm showing someone about cubing, and making it more accessible to them from an intellectual standpoint.
I managed to make it out to one of our local Mexican food places with the wife just the other night. We hadn't been out to dinner in a while, and I thought maybe I could do better than Taco Bell. They make guacamole right at the table. When he asked us if we wanted mild, medium, or spicy, we're joking about whether or not he means authentic medium or chardonnay-drinking-housewives-listening-to-Coldplay medium. We're seated outside, and it's warm enough out that we're enjoying the fact that we have both Mexican Coca-Cola and water to drink because we're sweating just sitting there. Some random guy showed up around the same time as our guacamole technician with a large Labrador and just wants to have it sit with someone while he goes in and gets alcoholic beverages. The people next to us who were just finishing seem to have enough room near them to accommodate the dog, and our guacamole tech commented about how the dog is being good. I turn my attention to the cube I have on the table for a moment, and since I was looking down I saw a person walking a dog on the other side of us, and predictably the Labrador was no longer just sitting there, but charted an intercept course to find the other dog. The Labrador reappeared, and then went to have a word with some people at the other tables about what it was that they were having for dinner. One of the servers had enough sense to bring the dog some water, and it sat back in its original spot, but now the people sitting there were really looking to go at this point - both because of the dog awkwardness and because they had been finished with their food for a bit already. Thankfully the gentleman whose dog it was reappeared, and talked with everyone again. He even asked how old our guacamole tech was, and said how proud he is of him for being a 16-year old with a job.
We went on to enjoy our guacamole and chips, ordered some tacos, and the couple watching the dog can now leave, and the servers went about the business of rearranging two tables so that a somewhat larger group could sit there. The group of six was an older man, and his wife, and a collection of twenty-something children and perhaps a girlfriend. or My wife and I enjoyed our meal, talked about how customer service is supposed to work, and talked about how we are both readjusting to how our jobs have changed over the last couple of months. It isn't until the check was done and we're about to leave, that the one person sitting in the group of six that can see (the presumed father of the family) that I have a cube at the table mentioned it to the person that's closest to me but has his back to me. So, I brought the cube over, and the father mentions that the person closes to me, a bearded college-age person, could solve it.
At this point, my focus went to the college age person. I asked him how long it takes him to solve it, and what method he uses. Since he does something that's between a beginner's method and what we now refer to as CFOP, and takes around a minute and a half, I showed him the 80's corners first method that I do. I talked through most of it, and I probably wasn't that fast. He was intrigued, but he wasn't exactly impressed that I could tell. I was concerned that I had flubbed my demonstration, but was ready for followup questions. I did not get to do followup questions, because the young woman diagonally opposite him at the table immediately reached for the cube to scramble it again. Perhaps I had impressed her more, or she had seen it less. I try to nonchalantly stand around while she's scrambling it and not watch her scramble it, but I'm still trying to stand close enough to listen to make sure that nobody's hand-twisting corners or popping the cube apart. Thankfully there were no shenanigans. So now, I usually for a second demo try to do CFOP, and show how it's different because of looking for more than one piece at a time during the first two layers. This solve went noticeably faster, even despite me talking through it. The young woman got to watch the solve up close this time, and the bearded young man was more impressed this time. Then, while I'm still standing at the far corner, I do a silly cube trick just as comic relief. All it is you do R2 U2 R2 U2 R2 U2 to a solved cube, and you will see that you have two pairs of edges swapped. If you grip the cube properly, and only are touching the unsolved edges, you can perform that same move again without letting go of the cube and so it goes from unsolved to solved and it seems like your hands are exactly where they started (but they aren't). She even had me do the silly cube trick again so she could video it. (No, I don't know where it ended up yet.) So as I'm walking back around the table, I turn the cube a few times in my and ask the bearded young man if he had heard of Steven Brundage, which he had. I showed him the scrambled cube in my hand, explained a little bit about what it was that Steven Brundage does, and using the cover of the high back chair next to him, I then was able to fix the cube quickly and produce it for the group solved again. So, now, I didn't have to worry if he was impressed or not because I think he definitely was by then. We definitely had to go at that point, because I can't really take questions after doing the Brundage trick.
I also got to do a little bit of a demo for my corner gas station/vape shop/convenience store the next day, and I think I learned from the night before not to end with the tricks, but I also had enough time to show off a Roux solve. So that one went 80's - CFOP - Roux - What is an Inverse?. I told them that there would be a quiz next time, but I think that's an idle threat unless they start selling cubes there.
This is what I like to do, though. I really enjoy doing these small demos for people. Honestly, I hope that the fact that I've been doing it is why I'm not in the top 100 in Florida any more. I hope that enough new people have gotten into cubing as a byproduct of people like me making it more accessible that the pool of people competing has grown in size.
In other cubing news, I finally purchased a Rubik's Tactile Cube which means I can now finally say that I've solved a cube without looking at it. I was very happy with the choice of shapes on the opposite sides. I was also very happy that even though it's the modern Rubik's mechanism that's harder to pop, it was set up just loose enough that it was a delight to turn the first time out of the package.
