An Extremely Ghetto Camera

It is a very ghetto camera. I mean, sure it's got the flip lens, so that you can take pictures of yourself, but the video is only, like, 5 seconds, and it doesn't have a mic.
Yes, I know this is a very bad picture, and I know it was taken in a mirror, but I needed something, and I didn't feel like taking a new picture, finding the cord, plugging it in, uploading the picture, and everything else. So I just went through my pictures already on the computer, and found this one.
This camera is actually from my dad's work. Apparently nobody used it, so he took it until somebody called for it. And they haven't yet. We've had it for about 6 or 7 months. i just really wanted a camera that was mine, and this was the closest I could get. I pretty much gave up on using it, though. It can't hold more than like 40 pictures.
Yesterday, I did a whole bunch of a puzzle that I'd started. It's only 500 pieces, so it wasn't that hard, but I think it's some ancient building reflected in a lake at sunset. So I got the sky finished. It's all pink, and somehow, when it's all one color, I don't find it very hard to put together.
I always have this image in my head of a guy who has never put in the wrong piece in a puzzle. That'd be so weird. Nobody is that good. It'd be cool though. You could finish a huge puzzle in a short time.
I went to the puzzle store in Concord Mills with my grandpa, and I saw this giant puzzle in a glass case. It's the biggest puzzle ever built. 24,000 pieces, and it's huge! I can't remember how big, but it was like 300 dollars! I don't think anybody has ever finished it. If they had, they would have to be really, really, really good.
10 minutes left. What should I write about? Oh. Haha. Have you ever really wanted the next day to come, because you were so excited, and no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't go to sleep? Or you kept on waking up? Well, that happened to me last night. Only I'm not really sure why. I didn't really have anything to be excited about. But I found that if I turned the fan off, because I was cold, and if I put my blanket on, I fell asleep. Sometimes all you need is a change in temperature.
Speaking of fans, I don't think I'll be able to get through this summer without them. It's going to be so hot, and I won't really have any need for a blanket. Just a sheet. But my problem is that whenever I have the fan on, I get really cold, and when I have a blanket on I get really hot, and my dad's motto is "One or the other!" Blanket/fan wise. And it's a lot easier when I have both. Then I'm not too hot, and not too cold. That's what I did in winters in Africa. It was really kind of warm in the winter too. Sometimes it got really cold, but not REALLY cold, you know? Like, it got pretty cold, but not so cold that you just couldn't stand it. I can always stand the cold anyway. I hate heat, and love cold. For some reason. Not to say that I'll go stand outside in the middle of winter wearing practically nothing. I'm not that stupid.
Time to go. I had fun. But I've got work to do. I wanna read my Little House book. I LOVE those books. We have a whole collection of them, except the first one, Little House in the Big Woods is missing. I don't know where it is. I think we left it in Africa. Oh well. Bye!

A 3-D Puzzle

You remember how I said how I love puzzles? Well, this is proof. Do you have any idea how long it took me to do this puzzle? A looong time. And on top of it all it's missing pieces. At least it's only two, and I'm allowed to send away to get them replaced. Heehee.
To do this puzzle I had to build each wall separately, and then I had to put them all together. Let me list out all the steps in building this one-of-a-kind puzzle.
First, I had to sort out the pieces from the junk. All the pieces were made squarish, and a lot of them aren't really supposed to be that shape. So the people who make it mark the junk with red dots, and you have to go through every piece and take out the red dot parts of it. It's hard work. And I had to do it twice because I missed some of the harder to find parts.
Next I had to sort out all the pieces according to their color. Trust me, with a puzzle this hard, that's something that you just automatically want to do. The groups I sorted out were brick pieces, textured brick pieces, brown pieces, red/pink pieces, dark blue pieces, white pieces, green/fall color pieces, weird design pieces, and then all the pieces that looked like they belonged on the top of a roof or tower. It made solving the puzzle so much easier.
After that I solved each group one by one, starting with the easiest stuff. The key thing for solving the hard group was the windows. That's how I solved it all. Windows. Each one has it's own unique shape and part that goes with it. Eventually they all end up joining together.
After I eventually got everything put together, I had to build the castle in 3-D, and that is a lot harder than it looks. First you want to build the back wall, but before you do that you have to have support for it, so you have to build the side wall too. Luckily for me I had a paper that showed me where everything goes. When my parents found out they called it cheating. Maybe next time THEY should have to build it. Lets see if they can figure it out! The hardest part about building it 3-D is that you end up having to take some stuff off. The walls are easy. Once you get to putting the roofs on, then it's tricky because you have to squeeze them into tight spaces, which isn't so good. But hey, I managed to do it. It took me about an hour though. I was watching Batman Begins when I started, and about 20 minutes after it ended, including credits, I was done. That's how long it took.
Now I just need to either send away or find those two pieces I'm missing. You can't see them in the picture because one is in the back and the other is in a tight corner on the side. Now how am I going to get those in place without dismantling the whole thing? Well, I did it before, I guess I'm gonna have to do it again.
Before I got this, I wanted the San Francisco puzzle, but it was hard to find. This puzzle is 1000 pieces, and most people would've said it was hard, but I found it way easier then I expected. 3-D puzzles are awesome, but they aren't for puzzle beginners, let me tell you.

It's a Puzzling World Out There...

You know what I like about puzzles? They force you to think. I'm not generally one for thinking, but at least puzzles are fun. A lot of people give up on puzzles when they can't get the first piece. That's probably because they haven't started out with easy ones, and then moved up.
I've been doing puzzles since I was a baby. I did those little ones where you take four pieces and put them in the right place. Now I'm doing 1000 piece ones. This one looks to be a 350 piece, but I'm not sure. I haven't really checked.
See, my family has a puzzle tradition. It's not really a tradition, but there are two specific rules we have to follow in order to say that we have actually done the puzzle: first, we CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT look at the box cover. I've seen a lot of people do that. It is CHEATING! What's the fun of a puzzle if you already know what it looks like? Isn't it all together more fun to find out what the picture is yourself? Oh, and then there's the fact that everyone who looks at the box ends up using it as a guideline. You know why the box is there? It's so you know what puzzle you're getting when you buy it at the store.
Second, you must assemble the edge first. I know this sounds crazy, but trust me, it makes everything a whole lot easier. I see a few people starting out by just shoving pieces together, and, sure, it works, but you don't really know what goes where. In the above picture, the outside is assembled, and the green is in place because the edge had some green in it.
I remember when I was in second grade, I was doing an easy puzzle with my friends in class, and they broke both of those rules, so obviously, being the insecure kid that I was, I got mad at them and refused to do it. I don't think they understood why I was so mad.
The summer before that, when I was 7, I went to the Outer Banks with my dad's side of the family. It was a reunion. At our house, we set up this lighthouse puzzle, and whenever anyone came in to visit, they'd put in a couple pieces. This ended up in the whole 1000 piece puzzle being put together in less than a week.
So if you're up for a challenge, try putting a puzzle together. If you want to get good, start putting together small puzzles and then move onto big ones. My grandma bought me a 3D puzzle on eBay, and I'll get it sometime this week. Those are really hard, and I never finished the last one she gave me.