As it happened (from my Journal archives)

November 20, 2003

8:58 pm - Shoulder situation continues to demand attention. Today was my last day of rehab as I was told that my shoulder needs a higher level of attention. I have an appointment with an osteopath next Tuesday. Sometime after that I presume I'll be scanned and a more informed diagnosis made. Meanwhile I'm still limited in what I can do, physically. I did cut about 40 more pieces for this month's auction puzzle. I messed up the signature piece, due to a lack of concentration, and will not complete the puzzle. I have one more print of The Inquisitive Owl, and will attempt to cut this one as the November auction puzzle in the coming week. This will be the last auction for quite a while, assuming I complete the puzzle.

November 21, 2003

6:31 pm - Spent this morning continuing to transfer files to my G5, and make "Application Creator Code" adjustments as needed as Mac OS 10.3 ("Panther") has a somewhat different approach to basic file handling than the older non-Unix Mac OS 9.

This afternoon I resumed work on The Inquisitive Owl. Earlier, I was still in a bit of a funk about my shoulder, when my mostly silent friend, The "mysterious enigmatic" Observer came by. She said, "You know, with your shoulder injury, your frontal profile is quite distorted when you try to raise your left arm. You have done a good job with the K. Chin puzzle so far; only your Signature Piece has a problem, a bit of a distortion, in fact. I think it is appropriate that you continue with the puzzle, and use the Signature Piece as a little monument to this period in your life". Now that was quite verbose for The Observer! I thought about it, and given the additional fact that I only have one more print of The Inquisitive Owl, and given that it is in a nice frame, and given that I'd like to keep it with the thought of obtaining the digital rights to the image for future puzzles, The Observer made good sense. So today, I cut about 60 pieces, really too much, as the shoulder remains problematic. I think I can finish the puzzle tomorrow, if I divide the work into two sessions with a long break in between. I have around 70-80 pieces to go. The puzzle is being cut in Swirl Curl with some Creative style pieces mixed in. Today I cut an elaborate "Mandatory" Creative piece; this is a "Gear Curl" which has seven smaller curls surrounding an inner curl, with each of the seven curls ending in the same orientation (the mandatory feature of this kind of piece). This piece and one neighbor are a bit delicate, I may ship these two pieces assembled.

November 22, 2003

6:50 pm - Today was a repeat of yesterday: in the morning I worked on transferring files to my G5, in the afternoon I spend several hours on The Inquisitive Owl, although this time I can say I completed it! There is quite a bit of Creative cutting in the puzzle, so rather than labelling the puzzle as "Swirl Curl with Creative", I'll label it "Swirl Curl and Creative". There is some excellent cutting in this puzzle; I'll have pictures tomorrow. I will start the auction on Monday.

Last night my shoulder was very, very painful; I woke up repeatedly during the night.

As darkness fell today, I went down to Harbor Drive to "check in" with The Puzzle Tree. All looks well. The twilight sky was super clear, the wind calm, the bay smooth, the air cool, the lights of the city beautiful. A couple sculptures down from The Puzzle Tree, "Solar Spaghetti with Meatball" was lit up with brilliant red LED lights, powered by solar charged batteries. So at night, when The Puzzle Tree and most others are in darkness, "Solar Spaghetti" steals the show!

November 23, 2003

2:05 pm - The auction for The Inquisitive Owl will start tomorrow afternoon.

Puzzle 486, pieces

There are two figurals, the "sympathetic Observer" and the almost mandatory "Twirl Star" (shows up in many of my K. Chin puzzles). There is no clc in the puzzle except around the two eyes and beak. The second row of pieces are "ordinary" Swirl Curl pieces, and on the third row fancier Creative Pieces. This will be the last auction I'll be holding until well into next year (due to shoulder injury).

Note: I had my shoulder operated on in June of 2004 for "full thickness rotator cuff tear"