I finally got my first official BLD solve yesterday after 27 failures (according to the WCA database, and not including an 0/2 multi-BLD attempt)! I'm now #3 on oldest BLD solvers list. See [post]104649[/post] for more info.
Congratulations, Bruce! I've been rooting for you to finally get one! Very very nice. Especially your rather spectacular down-to-the-wire time! Absolutely awesome!
Mike, I expected you would respond to my post. I hope to see you again next weekend! Yes, I seem to be getting a habit of finishing solves just in the nick of time.
I'll have to try and stop doing that. Besides I didn't event get a free T-shirt this time.
For other people's info, Mike made me aware that I could become the 2nd oldest BLD solver about a year ago. Well I missed my chance to be #2, but at least I made it onto the list at #3. And Mike, you're in danger of soon being bumped off the list (10 oldest).
During the solve, I got confused about what I needed to do for CO for the bottom layer. There were two corners twisted one way on the top, two twisted the other way on the bottom. I fixed one on the top layer while changing the twist of the other, Then fixed the 2nd while changing the twist of one on the bottom. Then I got confused on what I needed to do to fix the bottom layer, and lost a lot of time trying to decide what to do. I finally just decided I couldn't afford to spend more time thinking about it and just go with my instinct, and apparently it was right.
After completing everything except CP, I found that my recall for CP was initially a total blank. I knew I couldn't have much time left. So eventually I recalled that two pieces were already in place, so 6 pieces needed to move. Next I recalled the two fixed pieces were C & G, while the other pieces were a 4-cycle and 2-cycle. Thinking about what the 2-cycle must be, I came up with (HF). Now I just needed to come up with the order of the other four pieces (the 4-cycle). So thinking about the 4 remaining pieces, I came up with (DE BA). So I did (ADE), (ABH), (AFH), and then slammed the timer.
I thought I had probably messed up on the CO, plus I could hardly believe I could have had any time left on the timer, so the sudden applause at that instant, before I could get the blindfold off, surprised me. I got the blindfold off to look at the solved cube (and timer) to be sure of what the applause seemed to be telling me.
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