As it happened (from my Journal archives)

September 5, 2004

5:45 pm - Intensely hot today, even along the coast it was into the 90's, 100's inland. The kind of day when the smell of baking street tar is strong by 10am.

Yesterday I cut the board for the Van Gogh puzzle and mounted it. This morning I designed the border (wavy) and decided on the figurals. I'll start cutting early tomorrow and plan to have the puzzle done by late Tuesday.

September 6, 2004

No journal entry regarding cutting this puzzle, I did do some cutting.

September 7, 2004

8:10 pm - I spent most of the day at the shop (interior temp 98 degrees at peak) trying to get the Van Gogh puzzle done. Cut for about seven hours, the longest session since surgery. Shoulder OK, but I'm very tired. I still have about four hours of cutting to do tomorrow. Haven't done any of the post-cutting inspection, cleaning, boxing for the other two puzzles. Have a lot to do before leaving super early Thursday morning for the puzzle conference. The Van Gogh puzzle is going OK, doing more clc than I normally do, not a "spectacular" Creative puzzle, maybe I'll change my mind once I get the sky done. Van Gogh's painting style camouflages most of the cutting.

September 8, 2004

Completed Van Gogh's "The Church Auvers". Sky turned out OK [actually excellent!]. The puzzle is not without problems and one of the things I have to do this evening is to inspect, clean all pieces of the three puzzles to be brought to West Concord, MA., count the pieces, box them, do labels, AND to do a detailed write up about "The Church Auvers" for the Auction to be held this Saturday at the puzzle meeting, AND make transportation frames for the puzzle, AND establish pricing, AND any / all promotional material to be prepared AND a whole lot more.

Today's final cutting took almost five hours.

September 18, 2004

A silent auction was held for Puzzle #552 at the AGPC event at West Concord, MA for puzzle featuring Van Gogh's The Church Auvers. The auction went well and the puzzle was sold for $650.00. All-in-all I was able to finance most of the trip with puzzle sales at the show.

The first few days were hectic for me as I got just five hours of sleep Wednesday night before I left; five hours Thursday night in Concord, MA, mostly due to jet lag; and then on Friday night I was cleaning up the back of the Van Gogh puzzle getting it ready for the auction to be held on Saturday..... and I was really curious how long it would take me to assemble the puzzle..... it was MUCH harder than I thought and in an almost deliriously tired state I finished it after about five hours of non-stop assembly, at 3 AM, getting just another five hours of sleep that night. I was SO tired Saturday I had to skip Bob Armstrong's "History Detectives" talk and part of a jigsaw puzzle history talk by Anne Williams to catch an hour nap after lunch!