Slow in here (aka Toho's Puzzles)

I know its getting to be nice weather out so it's going to slow down in here considerably. But you all are the only folks I talk very much to. I guess that's lifes way of telling me to stop hanging indoors and get out and do something other than my 3:00 AM trips  to the gym every other day.

I pop in usually a few times a day but between baseball season being underway and my rediscovered love of complex jigsaw puzzles I'm not on as much as I used to be.

Jigsaw puzzles , WOAH, ya better be careful bro, your livin' the wild life there ! LOL

Puzzles are great for your brain.

I used to do them a lot as a kid but stopped once I got cats. Then back in January when I visited my Mom in Florida and we visited my uncle I learned he does puzzles a lot. When I got back I looked on Amazon and found a "puzzle caddy" that lets me cover up a puzzle in progress and even transport it if I want to. So I'm now working on my 7th puzzle since I got back.

Putting jigsaw puzzles together is really pretty much the physical manifestation of what I do for a living. You get "clues" about how pieces fit together then have to actually fit them together to hopefully get a better "picture" of what's going on. Exactly what I do on a software level basis every day. I have to troubleshoot stuff reported from the field (clues), look at the existing data (the puzzle assembled so far), then try to figure out how the new pieces fit into the whole.

I keep telling my boss that she should ask prospective applicants for our team if they like doing puzzles. Or cryptograms. Or crossword puzzles...anything where you have "clues" and have to figure stuff out because that's essentially what we do every day. And 3 of the 6 members of my team currently enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles and (not so coincidentally) we're the ones who are good at this job.

BTW, the pictures of the puzzles I do are all over the place.

Sure, the one I'm currently working on is two kittens among a bunch of flowers and butterflies (and it's been challenging as hell!) but I also recently finished ones that featured a collage of classic album covers, a vintage Tales From The Crypt comic book cover featuring a werewolf and another puzzle of every single AC/DC album cover.

You are a very patient and talented man then, I could not do it

Or this one:

Tell me those aren't cool.  

I think next time I put those two puzzles together I'm going to glue and frame them.

And we're talking 1000 pieces here. I don't do no "easy puzzles"

Just ordered this one yesterday.  This is going to be hard as hell; I'm definitely glueing and framing it once I put it together:

Thats beautiful, Yea those would be all over my wall in frames. But, Alas it took me three days to do the 10 piece Papa Smurf Puzzle.

Seriously, I find putting puzzles together to be very therapeutic.  It forces me to take my mind off whatever has been going on at work or in my life and focus on the "problem" at hand.  And as I said before, it's great "brain training" for my real job.

BTW, sorry if I derailed your thread. 

NO NO NO, Im just happy to have someone to talk to . I find learning about people I consider my friends a very interesting thing.

I'll be sure to take a picture of that tiger puzzle - assuming I get it put together.  I already gave up on this one earlier this year:



That thing was IMPOSSIBLE!  As if the picture wasn't complicated enough it also had the weirdest shaped pieces I've ever seen.  I got most of the frame put together then got frustrated because it wasn't fun anymore.

Now that is the thing nightmares are made of.... but I'm oddly drawn to it LOL .

Toho, you got me into such puzzles as well, I do play some, online.

Its great to do puzzles which i was never good at my my grandson is which i think is great

My gramma used to make pieces fit that didnt fit.

Usually do puzzles more in the winter when the weather sucks outside. Toho, have you ever done the 3-D puzzles?

slow? was it ever busy in here?

I dont check here daily, as most of the time i dont have any ideas for convo starters, but i do check every other day

between work and personal life i get quite busy , raising a 4 year old autistic kiddo is not exactly easy

onebigfish wrote:

Usually do puzzles more in the winter when the weather sucks outside. Toho, have you ever done the 3-D puzzles?

Never tried a 3D puzzle and I've never tried a two-sided one either (even though I bought one of those; I'm afraid to try it for fear of ruining my current "puzzling" binge). 

I'm almost finished with my current one but the last 100 or so pieces are driving me crazy.  So far in my current puzzle binge this one and the Tales From The Crypt one have been the hardest ones that I'll be able to complete.  Forget The Thing puzzle; that one was impossible.

All this puzzle talk has me wanting to give it a try .

It's fun Panzer. 

It makes you work your brain and your eyes.  You have to look for "clues"; if it's not a discernible pattern then you have to look at the piece shapes and figure out what possible pieces might fit together. I'd say start slow; find a picture you really like and with 500 or less pieces.

Here's where my latest one stands:





I've got the cats, butterflies and most of the leaves assembled.  Now what I'm left with are big, white flowers and it's really difficult.

I can say my brain does not function on such an intricate level as that. My mind now that I am off of my meds races and things are but a blur. Patterns and shapes all just run together into a hodgepodge of regurgitated mulligan stew. My stress level from trying to overcome the obstacle of putting it together would be mind blowing. Yet I want to try it.

If it's going to cause you stress then don't bother; that defeats the whole purpose of putting puzzles together.  Puzzling is supposed to be a relaxing yet challenging stimulus for your brain so if it's going to stress you out or frustrate you then you won't enjoy it.

That's why I gave up on The Thing puzzle after about a week because I wasn't making any progress and it was pissing me off.

I like puzzles that are challenging but still doable with a little effort.  Like this one I'm working on now; it's a little frustrating but every time I work on it I make a little more progress so that encourages me to keep at it.

Yea, your probably right. I find my stress reduction in the gym or laying back listening to music on the bed.

tohostudios wrote:

It's fun Panzer. 

It makes you work your brain and your eyes.  You have to look for "clues"; if it's not a discernible pattern then you have to look at the piece shapes and figure out what possible pieces might fit together. I'd say start slow; find a picture you really like and with 500 or less pieces.

I always start with the edge (who doesn't?), then look for easily identifiable color patterns, then on to puzzle shapes with similar colors and tones.

https://www.jigsawplanet.com/

I am using today to pop in a few carbs and rest as much as possible for the Gym at 3:00 AM in the morning then I have an appointment I have to leave at 6:30 for in a town 20 miles away. This means I get home at five , gotta get a shower by six and leave at six thirty to get there at seven. To many this would be stressful but to me it is a challenge that I have to physically do and tax myself. I love it.