A Few Puzzles in
Brooklyn, USA
March 2008 (aka, Menehune Do Not Mess Around in Crosswordia)


If you have read this blog before, I hope that you can sense that I believe writing about one's life must be done with scrupulous avoidance of braggadocio. Scruples are a must-have. For a bloggist, at least.

With humility I therefore begin my tale of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 2008. Actually really short compared to some other blogs out there in cyber-Crosswordland.


Yeah, so they moved the tournament from Stamford, Conn. to the world class city of Brooklyn this year. This is a cool place.







I even know some people who live here. Kate, last seen in these annals beach-knitting; Sam, previously enjoying Clif blocks; and Jeannine, who is an outstanding cruciverbalist, willing to tackle the hardest grid I could find on a Curacao beach. In the above photo is of course Official Awesome Breathing Partner of Your Humble Bloggist, who was very brave to venture into the cold northeast on this ridiculous try at redeeming a horrendous 70.3 Hawaii triathlon in 2007. (Not sure why they would have anything at all to do with each other, but I wanted redemption somehow. I mean, something like that can't go unredeemed, eh? Otherwise the menehune win.)
Did I ever tell you my theory of ordering Thai food?





Probably not. I ALWAYS order pad thai, because every time I have ordered something else, I have ruefully concluded "Should have gotten the pad thai." Yeah. Maybe you didn't find that interesting, but at least it was short.





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How did I become interested in such a thing as American-style crosswords, you say? (Yes, I know you didn't say that, but falsely attributing thoughts to you is all part of blog-writing for me, so roll with it willya?) Well, I'm glad you asked (ahem), because I can mention the Official Crossword Inspiration of Your Humble Bloggist herein. See, Tom likes to do a grid at work. And there were times that occasionally, infrequently, I could help add a few letters to his effort. One time he mentioned the nightly online crossword race-apalooza at the NY Times website and it was on. Oh yeah, it was way on.



Tom is better at many things than I am. Observe him showing off his clear superiority to me at index finger extension. We are all good at something.



My preparation for the big weekend included extreme-weather solving. I think that helped.





Right, so there's this big room and among the participants is the very cool filmmaker, Patrick Creadon, who did Wordplay, the documentary of the 2005 ACPT, which showed Tyler Hinman winning his first of now four in a row. I'm going to try to embed a video of Tyler doing a puzzle in 2 minutes down there. Cross your fingers.

(random html gobbledygook was here, ed.)

Well, that doesn't look like it's going to work to me. I have failed at embedding. If you really want to see it just go here.

There you have me with Patrick, who can solve with the best of them.



Wait a sec! Old Will Shortz, the Puzzlemaster himself, doesn't mind taking a picture with a rank newbie sporting his new good luck shirt.




How did I do? Well, you have to realize that six months of training is probably not enough to be competitive. They score these things on speed and accuracy, and I bobbled a little on both accounts. One of the seven puzzles was a really good one for me, though, and it happened to be puzzle 5, the trickiest of them. I tied for the 15th best score on that one. Still not good enough to turn a lot of heads, but maybe next year. My new best friend is David Kahn who constructed puzzle 5.



The finals were amazing, and hinged on an error by a veteran former champion. The final 3 were doing a puzzle on big dry erase boards while like 1000 or so spectators bit their nails. Trip Payne, the vet, finished in about 9 minutes but put "injects" instead of "invests" for one answer. It wasn't great to see him declare "Done" and watch him spin around to the audience smiling, expecting a big cheer, and only getting a loud groan. We are all human.















This allowed Tyler to win, AGAIN. It took him a very long time (in Tyler minutes) to finish it. 13 minutes or so. The great Howard Barkin never did finish before the 20 minute time limit. Super-tough grid by Bob Klahn, who seriously broke my heart with the hardest puzzle I have ever done, December 29, 2007.

It will be fun to be back in the fray next year, moving up a division to tougher competition. I know those who finished ahead of me and those who finished behind me will all be trying to get faster too. And now I close in order to go find what exactly a besom is, since the tres elegant Paula Gamache (it was neat to see the faces behind the names of frequent constructors) put that in her NYT puzzle today. Besom. Hmm. You can learn some cool words doing this. Like zax. Love that word...

Sternapalooza 2008


We Miss You, Doug Stern


Last year Doug Stern spoke proudly of a "family" that had formed under his leadership in response to a crisis for one of the members. In that spirit, and with a vast amount of work from Kate the Great and others, we assembled at that place he loved so much to do justice to the "Keep Moving" motto of Doug Stern, to come together to laugh and "play in the water", to grieve together a little, and to reconnect in the awesome surroundings of the paradise he had found for us.













Remember, as always, that if you want to go look at exploding Pepsi bottles on YouTube instead, I will not take it personally. The trailer for Juno is also really good. So is the movie. In fact, you really probably would be better off going to see a good movie than reading my ridiculous bloggage.


Not a Great Start
Yeah so there I was all set to meet some of my favorite people in Miami and fly to the island together on Friday night. Rum punches and such, you know. Only problem was a really twitchy plane in Dallas kept setting the alarms off, so we never got out of there in time and I got stuck in Miami overnight. Did you know Don Shula has a hotel? This was a surprise to me and (alarmingly) the Super Shuttle driver, who had several refugees from the wacky Dallas-Miami sickeningly delayed flight stuck in his van with no real idea how to get there. At least I was better off than the honeymooning couple who was supposed to be at an all-inclusive in Aruba and got to ride the Super Shuttle with Ramon and me to Don Shula's instead.


I knew I had to take an appropriate photo to commemorate this experience, so here it is.







I did not ever think I would be at Don Shula's hotel flipping through basic cable TV and landing on women's WWF wrestling, but there you have it. So not a great start to the trip or to the blog entry for that matter. I might edit this out. Really I probably should.


Remembering Doug Stern

Your Humble Bloggist arrived safely Saturday and felt the greetings from all of the Sternians to be perhaps just a touch more warm than ever. None of us knew that last year was the last time we would see Doug Stern there. So hello my friends, it's even more important that I show you how happy I am to see you.



We had planned a short session on the beach of talking about Doug Stern, and this was led off by the Official Famous Author Friend of the blog as eloquently as ever.





Is it appropriate to have beer during such a ceremony? I didn't know, but I think Doug Stern wouldn't have minded. To counteract the salt water taste, you know. I put it in my bike bottle as a compromise to the solemnity of the occasion. But Doug Stern was not a solemn person! You probably think that's kind of weird and you might be right.






Your Humble Bloggist was very happy to see the Famous Author running around with the youngsters, with a sense of high merriment, trying the new things our new fearless leaders had to show us.









A riotous escapade to the Ostrich Farm for ostrich dinner with said Famous Author gave us enough time to discuss unusual physiologic responses to being at uncomfortable heights, indoor 20,000 volt lights, Madame DeFarge and her resonance to beach knitters (not really!I'm joking! We love our beach knitters!), the curious resemblance of ostriches to enormous ballerinas, and many other erudite and relevant topics. Next time you see him, ask him to tell the grouper/dinoflagellate story. A corker!


Beach knitters are absolutely un-DeFargian.



Bus knitters are a little creepy though. Kidding!



Boris and Vlad Would Like You to Swim Properly Now








There is an animated Russian swim coach named Boris who stepped in to fill the big void. Vlad has an interesting mix of consonants in his name and is one of the nicest dudes ever. He's there too, and deserves our gratitude for his enthusiasm.

Let's use our shadows to examine our hand positions, everyone.

Try it with a pencil, and on a bench.

What are those cruise ship people thinking as they watch all this from their balcony staterooms? What are all those high elbows and flexed wrists and rolling hips doing down there?

The official Curacao Sharks pool has been the home of Doug Stern workouts for a long time (forever?). I think this is the last workout at that place, since our delightful Lions Dive home is reportedly building a 50 meter tub. To which I say "Really?" and "Great!". If I'm lucky enough to go back next year, there may be a lovely new facility. Nice.

The underwater video stroke analysis is a fun part of any Boris reality experience. Studly video man, right there.

If you are lucky enough to have a madly supportive spouse/fan along, your skills might merit a "10" on the deck.

But Boris is lurking with bad news that this is uncool and that is unimpressive. It's weird the way the video shows huge flaws that you are sure are not happening. That's why we are there, right? To confront inadequacy. OK, not really. Yes, but, can that possibly be me dragging my legs so far down? Ack ptooey!

It's pretty thrilling to charge out through that opening in the channel that runs by the Lions Dive beach into the bounding main. I think I wrote about that last year, but there was kind of an epic run through there this time, probably into 4 ft surf, which doesn't sound like a lot until you're pinched in between the reef organisms.

No pictures of that but the sea lions seemed to honk in approval. Or derision. It's always hard for me to tell the difference.

Western Curacao Is a Great Place to Bike Ride
It is unrealistic to expect any island paradise to remain underdeveloped especially when there is a casino-choked sister island *cough*Aruba*cough* not 40 miles away. Even 3 years ago the bike ride out to distant parts of the island was largely devoid of much traffic. So, no train of bikes through historic Willemstad this time. Instead, let's have a large assemblage of bikes at the flamingo sanctuary.

You might know, if you have been there, about the cliff jumping at Westpunt. It's out by that place where you have the beach picnic, Knip. Sam likes to have some Clif blocks after an impromptu jump. Off the Clif. My literary symbolism, as I have said, is deep and mysterious, you know.


Nothing has changed regarding Remy's succulent fish/chicken lunch at Knip. Please do not tell him that I slathered the fish in the peanut sauce and loved it. He will not let me partake in the future if he knows that. I'm serious. Dude gets an icy scowl when I even ask. OK, not really. More like a friendly warning. Ahem.


You have your gathering of beach people.





Out in the water are sea creatures.












To all of those who were waiting for a few of us to return from a moray quest, I offer a humble apology. Especially to Sam, whose Clif blocks may not have agreed with her.

You Never Know What Will Happen at Lions Dive



There are important questions to ponder, like how frequently a dude should shave his legs. Yes, that is exactly what we are pondering here. I am not, as they say, making this up.



More sea creatures to perplex Judy at the bar.





Speaking of perplexing things, Deb is puzzled by the message of the bench back. We think that is a massive pacifier on the right. The other two things, not sure. It must be an algebra test.

When the transitive property is applied to the next equation, she realizes that the middle thing must be a silhouette of a new style of toothpaste and that the footprints cancel out. This leaves us with a Q.E.D. translated to a toothpaste ad that means "Try our toothpaste and you will love it on an enormous pacifier." Cryptic yet elegant. We are very proud to have figured this out. Fibonacci, eat your heart out.




A good ER doc always knows how to improvise with duct tape. Sure, I can fix my bike case with that says Deb.


Tracy and Basil read the Dutch newspaper to everyone at breakfast.




What was said before this photo:"Do something weird over Don's head, Deb"
What Deb did: Definitely weird.




Pirate Ships Are Still Cool!


Yes give me a pirate ship cruise anyday. You have trapeze swinging and group somersaults off the starboard (Heard from the Famous Author: "What is this peculiar pathology you all seem to have that manifests in your jumping off of things?")

There is picture posing with beautiful women, if you are as lucky as Don.

It's cool to take pictures of people looking at pictures. At least that's what I think.

The Green Flash Definitely Happened

Yes, the conditions were just right one night and Your Humble Bloggist observed the green flash for the first time. So did a bunch of other people who are showing their happiness about the green flash here.

OK so last year's astronomical conjecture in the blog entry proved to be B.S. I admit that and accept culpability. But the green flash really did happen that night. Why? It has to do with the Law of Chromatic Aberration, whereby green light is the most refracted and therefore survives the longest as the edge of the sun dips through the prism-like atmosphere. Sound right? Good. Because I just now made it up. Not the Law of Chromatic Aberration. That happens to be real.

The Official Large Land Grant University Alma Mater of Your Humble Bloggist was well-reprented at Sternapalooza. If you play the video, you will see a flash of a different variety. Decidedly not green or heliological.





The Big Finish

Let me tell you why this rainbow happened....

...Doug Stern ordered it for us.