A Nonoriddle Wedding

It's 30F out and the only place I can get a signal is on the balcony, so I'm only missing “both ways” and “through the snow” as I upload the latest nonoriddle. "Wedding Type" is now up for solving. I'm sorry about all the delays; hopefully, I'm back on schedule now. It is one of my goals to someday set up some system to better manage the posting of new and future puzzles to prevent things like this happening again.

"Child's Need" now has solutions available. Five people submitted solve times: david3x3x3's one minute twenty-nine seconds just barely beat out Jetzm's one minute thirty-seconds, followed by joefendel at one minute thirty-seven seconds, lahosken at one minute forty-nine seconds, and catherwood at one minute fifty-six.

Now where did I hide my golf clubs?

Tahoe Baby!

We finally arrived arrived at Lake Tahoe yesterday, after taking a detour through Sacramento and Grass Valley on our way up here. Interesting times, culminating in the Emprie Gold Mine self-guided tour. We're now staying at a place called Chinquapin, but only can afford it because of pooling of money between family.

Plans while we're up here include:

• Relaxing
  
• Eating
  
• Sleeping
  
• Golfing
  
• Bowling
  
• Disc-golfing
  
• Relaxing
  
• Spending time with family, including my two nephews

I have two nonoriddles ready but spotty Internet has meant scant time to upload them.

The Smoking GNU has an test event at 8:30am Saturday morning. I'm getting home Friday night. I wonder how much of a contribution I'll end up making.

Busy Month Coming

It seems like life is going to be going into crazy mode for the next month. And by "month", I mean the next thirty-some-odd days. Next week, we're heading up to Tahoe to spend time with family, which we're all looking forward to immensely. That trip is going to get cut short by a day or two, though, in order for The Smoking GNU to help test in some eerie event, whose test date was changed due to the timing of Fleet Week. But that's okay, because at least the event no longer conflicts with Volkslauf.

Shortly after that is BANG 19: UDC, which I'm greatly looking forward to, but am still trying to figure out why it hasn't filled up yet, when Seattle's version has.

A few days later, I have to decide whether to be an anti-intellectual or unpatriotic, depending on which candidate I want for the biggest charad... er, office in the country. California's electoral votes seem pretty much locked, so I'm not sure what good my vote for that post will do either way.

Shortly after that is some eerie event that we hope to be able to help with to some degree, but we have to see whether the organizers will have us :)

And then things slow down until January I guess. Well apart from 3000-Calories-A-Plate Day and Hope-Retailers-Break-Even Day... but those happen every year.

From Tahoe to Redmond

Just recently got back from our vacation up at Lake Tahoe and tonight I'm flying up to Seattle for Microsoft Puzzle Hunt. Two odd requirements for the game: A rubber duck and MS Silverlight, which up until now, I'd never heard of. One nice thing is that MS is trying to make it as cross-browser compatible as possible, even to the extent of working with Opera developers (MSN and Opera have had some big problems in the past).

I'm taking my trusty blacklight flashlight again. However, since Terrence said it might have been useful for 10, I doubt it'll be used in 11.0. Not bringing much else, though. I'll have to buy my baby carrots when I get there...

One a side note, while up at Tahoe I had some time to clean up my hard drive a bit and came across two crossnumber puzzles I'd written back in 2002 (I've been writing puzzles as far back as 2001). I'm looking for some good web-based interface to put them online, so people can laugh at and/or enjoy them.

Gamin' on the Slopes

If it rained today, I didn't see it. But it was predicted and that shows that the 2007 puzzle hunt season is drawing to a close. No one has announced any new BANGs (though I hear of rumors from time to time of teams, including my own, working on one), or Games, or anything else. After Microsoft Puzzle Hunt 11.0 (and one other), I'll probably start going into withdrawal.

It, along with the next full moon, also marks our annual trek to Tahoe. However, this is the first time since I was five or so that family won't be joining me up there (they're all going to Bend for some reason). Well, my wife and daughter are going with me, but they weren't around when I was five...

I keep wondering about using Tahoe as a location for a puzzle hunt. I figure there are some people out there who'd drive the four hours (or fly from wherever) to participate, but I and my co-creators would have to have developed some sort of reputation I guess, or else who would travel all that way for a puzzle hunt of unknown quality?

That thought then leads me to snow skiing. Would it even be possible to have a puzzle hunt on the slopes? Teams would ski from one location to another, solve a puzzle, to find out the next place in the ski area to go. Paper puzzles would be kinda difficult though...

The idea kind of borders on the ridiculous, but I have fun thinking about it.