Wedding Feast at Cana: Day 13

The Wedding Feast at Cana - 9000pc after 13days of effort.

M and I took a couple days off of puzzling to go sailing but last night I managed to set down for an hour or so and work on more red. I will spend two more hours on red before calling the rest misfits and moving on to orange.

Yesterday was also new puzzle day! The Springbok 500pc Round Puzzle of a Puzzle showed up! This one looks like a lot of fun! The colosr are bright and has the traditional Springbok irregular cut and extremely tight fit. This should fulfill my puzzle of a puzzle fantasy!

This should be a challenge!

Great colors and shapes from this puzzle. Nice work Springbok

The Mighty Machu Picchu Crumbles

Boom! Done. This puzzle was very hard in the solidish color areas. There are only two shapes (standard 2 knob, 2 receptacle pieces in horizontal and vertical orientation) which makes the puzzle difficult. The pieces will readily interchange and I found myself back tracking to find my mistake at least a dozen times.

The grass section did not offer too much of a difficulty. Overall, I will have to rate this an 8 (A 10 would be 5000+ version of a Paitnik solid black with gloss finish).

Time to get back to Life!

Update: When going back to life, the pieces now feel like oversized kid puzzle pieces and it feels sooooo much easier to do! I highly recommend this puzzle now as a trainer. You have to look for minute details and it helps train your brain. Think of it as puzzle push ups!!

This 500 Piece puzzle is pretty damn difficult. Rub your eyeballs and get ready for some tedious puzzling.

The Retractable Puzzle Table and Machu Picchu is Kicking Our Ass

Our new puzzle table is large enough for
pretty much any puzzle we can throw at it.
Here is the section of life we are working on
all laid out for the first time. As you can see,
M is starting on the animals.

Today we finally built the puzzle table! It was not without its difficulties as apparently the builder of our place didn't give a shit about placing studs on any particular standard (I guess he was German and just decided 24 inches was good enough, but where it mattered to us, picked 21 cause apparently it was convenient...

Anyhow, the puzzle table is up and working. We may redo the top cause its not as sturdy as we were hoping for (flexes too much). We tried to make it as light as possible and still be strong.

In summary, we started with 1/8inch plywood (the same stuff our puzzle boards are made of) 84in x 48in and screwed in a frame of synthetic wood (1x2in). In the ceiling we found studs and inserted 4 hooks and hung 4 pulleys from them.

We drilled holes in the table, then lead ropes from each corner of the table, to their respective pulleys and led all the ropes through an eye hook (also in a stud) and down to a cleat (think sailboat).

The result is a table we can raise to the ceiling when not in use! We are so happy with it. We can puzzle in bed, work together facing each other and raise one side for seriously comfortable extended sessions!

In other news, we started on the mini 500 piece Machu Picchu and it just pegged our difficulty scale! This little 5 dollar puzzle will kick your ass! I had an entire section in the wrong place and I have never had to back track so many times while doing the cloud filled sky. Just assembling the border would send most people crying for their mother! If you are looking for a challenge, go for it!

Enjoy the pics and video!

Machu Picchu mini 500 puzzle piece shown with a piece of Life... It's a lot smaller!

I seriously almost gave up on this puzzle. It is so hard. Here you can see its no bigger than a sheet of paper! M did the border and the lower parts while I did the sky. Did I mention this puzzle is hard?

First thing is first, where the F is the stud... It is NOT where it should be.

Screwing the frame to the top

We put four hooks in the ceiling with pulleys.

You can see the frame, very simple. We are going to redo this with stronger wood eventually. We tried to make it as light as possible but turns out it warps too much. Once we get the final table, we will glue a completed puzzle to the bottom so when its up, we can see a puzzle!

After hooking up the lines to the end, we ran all the lines to the eye and down to a cleat.

We feed each line through a hole in the top and tied a double figure eight stopper knot to keep it from coming back through.

My amazing wife with our shiny new puzzle table in place! We can now puzzle and have sex in bed!

M is actually in the table. No, ok, just kidding. This is how its stored when we don't want to puzzle (which is not often)

This is my favorite part! Since each corner is on it's own rope, you can angle the table for serious puzzling! It feels so good to sit here!

So Yeah.... lets hope my drywall skills are as good as my puzzling. Seriously WTF is the stud?

Triple Play!

Today is my bday but if felt like xmas at the post office! Normally I would do huge write ups on each puzzle, but I will get to that later. Today I received two more BIG Boys and one very small boy. In fact its so small, it's the worlds smallest 500 piece puzzle according to Guinness. Anyhow, I really want to get to puzzling with M so I am going to wrap this up and keep it short!

Peru: Historic Sanctuary of Mache Picchu - 500pc, Tomax (World Heritage Series)
Gift from my amazing mother-in-law
Notes: Worlds Smallest 500pc jigsaw puzzle

New York - The City That Never Sleeps - 12,000pc, Ravensburger
Purchased from ebay for $50 on 6/12/2013

Peter van den Keere: Nova Totius Orbis Mappa. Ex Optiums Actoribus Desumta (Big World Map, 1611) - 9000pc, Ravensburger
Purchased from Amazon for $70.00 on 6/14/2013

Conchs, Cows on a Leash, and Beach Puzzles

This weekend we had some adventures. I went scuba diving for lobster and managed only to find a female "bug" carrying a huge sac of eggs so we had to put her back. I found instead a giant conch. I have been wanting to try conch since its a well loved local dish and better yet, I have wanted a conch horn for sometime!

My new conch

The first order of business with a conch if you want to extract the critter and keep the shell intact is to freeze the whole shell. This kills the critter and keeps the shell in tact. You can then just pull out the critter once you thaw him again and viola, a critterless conch shell. To my surprise, the critter inside is a bit disgusting looking (see below). Anyhow, from there it was soaking the shell overnight in bleach to clean out the extremely stinky remains of this poor guys former home.

The next day, with barely containable excitment, I headed over to my friend Paul's house and we took a grinder to chop off the end of the conch and then drill out the opening so that you have about a dime size apature to blow in (your lips need to be able to vibrate inside it).

Check out the video, its sounds awesome!

A frozen close up

These things are UGLY

How to dry out a phone:
Bake it in rice!

So this weekend we celebrated my birthday. It was an amzing party except M's iPhone ended up going for a swim somehow....... Anyhow, her awesome husband dove in the pool and fished it out, then placed in a bed of rice and baked it at 250 for a couple of hours. It still "works" but the screen is now dead. We are going to send it in and hopefully it will one day be attached at her hip (maybe we won't send it in....)

Finally, we decided to head to the beach and take in some sun and have a nice quite dinner. On the way, we found some interesting things. An abandoned campsite complete with spongebob decor and cows on a leash! Now, spongebob is odd, but a cow on a leash?

We ran into someone and inquired about the cows, indeed, this is how some people farm cows on the island. Since there are no pastures, the farmer ties up the cow up and down a road and the cows eat the grass. He drives around and waters them and moves them and provides  a much needed lawn mowing service and raises cattle without a stich of land. Pretty resourceful if you ask me!

Well at the beach, we decided to give puzzling a try. We brought the 500pc Mickey Montage Challenge puzzle from Mega puzzles. I had pretty low expectations. I don't like the picture and its Mega puzzles. I was plesently surprised. The pieces fit well, laid flat and since the puzzle only has about 8 piece shapes  that interchange and an image that repeats with variation, the puzzle gave a bit of initial challenge  The last half of the puzzle was easy (due to the piece count) and the puzzle itself is about a 5 on the difficulty scale. 

Odd decorations for sure!

M At the beach

We decided to try and puzzle at the beach

We didn't get very far before the sun went down

Is that a cow on a leash? Sure the hell is!

Now that is a lawn mower!

We had some left over lettuce so we stopped to check out our friend

I think he is saying, hey, I want to do a puzzle, come back!

We tackled the Mickey Challenge. Not much of a challenge but a neat puzzle nevertheless. 

Unicorn Complete

I finished up the Unicorn in Captivity, once again, all the pieces were there! We are getting seriously lucky!!!!

We added a little message for our friend  as a bonus once she complete it!

Unicorn In Captivity / Bridges Update

From the Metropolitan Museam of Art:

---

Date: 1495–1505
Culture: South Netherlandish
Dimensions: Overall: 144 7/8 x 99 in. (368 x 251.5 cm)

---

The seven individual hangings known as "The Unicorn Tapestries," are among the most beautiful and complex works of art from the late Middle Ages that survive. Luxuriously woven in fine wool and silk with silver and gilded threads, the tapestries vividly depict scenes associated with a hunt for the elusive, magical unicorn.

"The Unicorn in Captivity" may have been created as a single image rather than part of a series. In this instance, the unicorn probably represents the beloved tamed. He is tethered to a tree and constrained by a fence, but the chain is not secure and the fence is low enough to leap over: The unicorn could escape if he wished. Clearly, however, his confinement is a happy one, to which the ripe, seed-laden pomegranates in the tree—a medieval symbol of fertility and marriage—testify. The red stains on his flank do not appear to be blood, as there are no visible wounds like those in the hunting series; rather, they represent juice dripping from bursting pomegranates above. Many of the other plants represented here, such as wild orchid, bistort, and thistle, echo this theme of marriage and procreation: they were acclaimed in the Middle Ages as fertility aids for both men and women. Even the little frog, nestled among the violets at the lower right, was cited by medieval writers for its noisy mating.

We dont have a Goodwill here but the Humane Society runs a second hand store. People donate to the Human Society and they sell stuff to support the animals. We have bought a LOT of puzzles from them for $2 and yesterday I was browsing to see the new puzzles and I came across one that I passed on previously. The Unicorn in Captivity - 500+pc from Gallins Gallery, New York 10001.

If you remember, we have a friend doing some soft time for a tax issue down here, and she truly is a beautiful person; A unicorn in captivity. We recently visited her and took her a puzzle (amazingly, they allowed it), which really helped her spirits. I realized this had to be her next puzzle! I paid $1 ('cause it was half price day) and decided on the way home, to assemble it and write her a letter on the back of the puzzle. 

Well, its a beautiful puzzle, the pieces are beautifully cut and fit well, the colors are great for what is surely a 20-30 year old puzzle. I will actually be sad to let this one go.

I love puzzles with pieces like this. I am going to wish very hard for a large format puzzle with shapes like this (5000 or more pieces). I imagine the trouble lies in the dies needed to create such monsters.

Border almost done and unicorn and fence pieces sorted out.

The Box

Beautiful Unicorn

Our Unicorn in Captivity

Bridge of San Francsico - 1000pc is coming along nicely. M did the upper half, I did the border and the Bay Bridge. We should finish both of these puzzle tonight.

Effervesently Yours - A quick snack

While I was waiting for M so we could finish Rizzi yesterday, I fired up the Effervescently Yours puzzle (The one showing the Perrier bottle) that she picked up from the Thrift store. It is a springbox puzzle from 70s or 80s and it was a joy to put together! I was worried with all of the black pieces, but the Springbox cutting technique results in pieces with clear shape differentiation and I was able to assemble the entire puzzle without a mistake! I am glad to report that our perfect record at getting puzzles from thrift stores that have all the pieces has gone untarnished!

I really enjoy these Springbox puzzles and puzzles in general with the funky shapes that dont follow the grid patters of cutting. It makes for interesting puzzling! I just wish they would all go back to including a signature piece.

Without further delay: Effervescently Yours!

Effervescently Yours - 500pc, Springbok (Out of Print)
Thrift Store - Livonia, MI $2.00 2/12/2013
Started: 5/7/2013
Completed: 5/7/2013
Builders: Tom
Notes: Love the unique pieces and how tight they fit together. I picked up the puzzle by the edge and shook it to show  M how tight it was!!!

Beach Hammocks Completed

M blazed through our first Puzzle on the islands this morning! Nice work babe! I cant wait to start the next one. I had to work all day!

Beach Hammocks - Cozumel Mexico. This is the first puzzle assembled in our new home!

New Home - Puzzles started arriving - Thrift Shop Finds

We have moved into our new Virgin Island home and our puzzle collection has started to arrive! The 18,000 world maps was waiting for us when we got here, and now the first box of smaller puzzles has arrived.

Our first batch of puzzles shipped from Michigan arrived today! Finally, we have puzzles. We were getting a bit anxious yesterday but we got our fix at the local thrift shop. People donate their stuff to the Humane Society here and they sell it to support their efforts. We found 4 new puzzles:

Jolly Jellies - 500pc, Puzzlebug
Humane Society, St Thomas USVI - 4/6/2013 $2.00

Beach Hammocks Cozumel Mexico - 500pc, Big Ben
Humane Society, St Thomas USVI - 4/6/2013 $2.00

John Powell: UNKNOWN - 1500pc, Big Ben
Humane Society, St Thomas USVI - 4/6/2013 $2.00

Michael Glinski: Outside the Blue Holes - 1000pc,
Humane Society, St Thomas USVI - 4/6/2013 $2.00

Sissy comes to puzzle

M and her sis are finishing up Sour Gummies tonight and I am starting on the 1500pc purple sunset tree. The tree reminds us of our Joshua tree on highway 1!