"Life"; page 2 - Third and Fourth quarters
Sept. 13, 2007
Sept 23
Oct 1
Oct 21
Oct 27
Nov 8 - with another scaled shot.  
Almost 20 pieces were needed
to complete an itty bitty crab.
January 4, 2008 - I decided to take a break from
working on the puzzle.  There's only so long you
can look at pieces of fish and coral.  But here I am,
back at it.  The fish are coming right along. :)
Jan 13
Feb 3 - 3rd quarter done!  Yes!  18,000 down, and
only 6,000 more to go.  But I'm not looking forward
to the bottom section of the 4th quarter.  All that
water is going to be a pain in the butt. :)
Feb 13 - Well here I am finally.  The first picture for the
fourth quarter.  Big smiles!   I have all the edge pieces
connected, but I don't put up the bottom pieces of the
foam core until the top is done, so the bottom edge is the
strips on the side.  All the white pieces on the bottom are
more of the boats; I'm still working on those.  Then I will
be moving onto the planets, but you can see I have a few
done already.  The little one in between the boats is
Earth.  All of the 4th quarter pieces have been sorted into
about 9 groups, so that is helping a lot, even though it
was a little tedious sorting 6,000 pieces.  :)
Feb 16 - Okay, so I know it hasn't been a week yet since my
last picture went up, but I have been working on it every day
since I finished gluing the third quarter, so there was
enough that I could take a new picture.  I have also worked
on it since the picture was taken (a little after and Sunday's
work as well) so there will be another picture, I just don't
know when.  My current work is being done on the sky
section, then I will fill in the water between the boats.  The
sky is going to be a little tricky because there is a fish
jumping out of the water that I haven't gotten to yet, so I don't
know exactly how much space his pieces are going to take
up. But I know it is in between the boats.
Feb 21 - Well it's coming along.  I still have a little of the coral on the
side to finish, some of which has some of the small fish.  There are
also a few other dolphins I haven't done yet, but I will get to those
when I get to my last group of pieces, the blue ones.   It might be a
little while until I get my next picture up and I might even wait until I
finish.  It depends on how long the blue section takes.  So check
back in a week or so and I might have another one up.  :)
Feb 29, 2008 - Yay!!!!!!!!!!  It's done!!!!!!!!! (Well, except for gluing this last section,
but that will only take a couple days).  I set out all the sections so I could see
the whole thing.  It's a lot bigger than I imagined.  You don't realize how long 14
feet is until it's covering the floor.  :)  Unfortunately, I couldn't get up high enough
to get a picture of the whole thing, so until I figure out how to get a good picture,
this is the last one.  It's so exciting!  I was looking at it, amazed at how many
pieces this thing really was.  I can't believe it's finally finished.  :)
March 7 - So I finally got around to getting a complete picture.  Normally, I would have photoshopped
it so it isn't at an angle anymore, but that blurs it, so I wanted it as clear as possible.  It's very weird
having it done.  I still have the occasional urge to go downstairs and work on it.   I've been working
on it so long, I forgot how big our living room is.  :)  Oh, and you'll probably notice that you can see
where the sections break apart (they're glued on 30" by 40" foam core boards).  It's too hard to get
them together so they're not actually connected.
Just so you can get some perspective on just how big this
thing really is, I had my dad take this picture of me laying
beside it.  :)   I also discovered the website for this puzzle,
maintained by the artist and his family.  They have a hall of
fame with pictures and write-ups for those that have finished it
from around the world, so I contacted them and got my picture
up.  The addresses for those links are below.  I was the first
individual in CA to complete it.  :)