TWO WEEKS AND GREAT PATIENCE BUILDS A SKYLINE

HILDEN - Rufus McCallum of Hilden doesn't have to travel the world to see major landmarks; he's got most of them tucked away in his basement.
However, most of them are only about a foot tall.
Each one is a 3-D puzzle that took McCallum hours, sometimes weeks, to put together. He has a miniature of everything you can imagine, from London Bridge to the Millennium Falcon.
"I don't care much for the other (flat) puzzles now that I started doing these ones," said McCallum.
He started his first puzzle about seven years ago while he was recovering from surgery on both his ankles.
His daughter bought one for him because she thought her usually active father would need something challenging to work on during his recovery. It turns out he liked doing them so much he now has more than 30.
"Finding a place to put them, that's your biggest problem," he said.
But one model in particular has a place of honour in his collection.
The New York City skyline as a 3-D puzzle was taken off the market after 911 because it featured the two towers of the World Trade Center.
It's now sought by collectors and can be worth up to $500 online.
A neighbour commented that he wouldn't be able to finish the set in a year. It actually took him about two weeks.
"It's supposed to be one of the hardest ones they ever made," he said.
The challenge is what keeps him at it now, almost a decade since he fit his first two pieces together.
His family keeps trying to find him something that might take him a little longer to do. So every Christmas there's usually a couple of new sets under the tree.
"(They're) trying to keep dad occupied, I guess," he said.
On average, he spends about 45 minutes to an hour at a time picking away at the sets.
As he gets larger and larger pieces he starts setting them aside until most of the small bits are used up. Then he fits the larger parts together.
"I've got great patience, I tell ya," he said.