About Me

One of my earliest childhood memories is of working a puzzle representation of the 48 states that comprised the United States (yes, I'm that old). I remember that the little puzzle had a border around it and that the other state-shaped pieces fit neatly inside the border. The size of each piece was based upon the state it represented, helping to offer a painless lesson in U.S. geography on the relative size of each of the states and the regions into which each state fit (major rivers were also included).  I worked that puzzle so many times before I reached aged four that I could name all 48 states and easily name the largest half-dozen states off the top of my head.  I wish I still had that puzzle, but it was burned along with all of my other toys after a visiting child contracted polio a few days after playing with me and the toys. "Better safe than sorry" was definitely the rule my parents followed during those horribly scary days before the polio vaccine.

I grew up in Southeast Texas, a place where those glorious school-day summers could be unbearable in the peak-heat hours of the day. My mother decided that jigsaw puzzles were just the thing to keep me and my brother quiet and busy when confined to the indoors, and over the years before I reached high school, I must have worked well over a hundred of them.  But by the time I was in high school, life took over and puzzles went by the wayside. It is only now, well into my second year of retirement that I'm getting back to them at all, and I find that I love and enjoy them just as much as ever.

I worked for over 40 years in the oil and gas industry, much of it spent based in Algeria and England while traveling and working in places like Paris, Morocco, Denmark, Spain, and Tunisia. Those were good years, and I enjoyed them immensely, but it's time to enjoy the world from closer at home...and the international community of puzzle-builders is going to be a big part of that.