Snap 21 this weekend- beautiful day, and well constructed high quality puzzles.  Major props to bruce + co and the burninators.  The following is mostly my notes to walk through the images and puzzles to aid my memory. :-)

Before the opening I learned that no part of RTC opens before 9:00.  They must have taken my work schedule to heart...

first puzzle – word transformations – setting a new silly hat record for least time totally rat-holing on the first puzzle!

Puzzle 2 – out in the open with math, mostly solved backwards, but not too bad.

3 – A scenic hike through the biking trails (with several cyclists trying to run us over) we discover:
  A. Someone other than C. Montgomery Burns has heard of Catsup, and
  B. City Hall is not where we thought it was.

4 – Elements and hard trivia.  I usually get by by knowing what order they appear in, but this required knowing properties-  Un-phased (groan) we solved it as a crossword.

 we made a good parade of hats through the Redmond business district.

5 – The letter 21. Set of constrained crossword clues, with matching letter beads for necklace making.  I spent most of my time ordering the letters into piles.

6 & 7 – a crossword + cut out at the skate park.  The cut out had a lot of good aha moments as we clarified what we were building, and before the meta was probably my favorite of the day.

8 – blackjack – getting enough clues to solve the puzzle by winning hands, then we skate by as half our team took french in high school.  huzzah!

9 – Drinking age.  Fun jumbled wordsearch + crossword.  Makes me look forward to a good bit of monastic polo.

10 – meta – reasonable to follow, and also a fun puzzle in its own right, even if I refused to take the tiny pixel sized pieces out of the bag. There may have eventually been wind.

Then a wrap up with sunshine and snacks.

also, reflective sunglasses.

Kicking off the weekend after halloween, SNAP 4 took on som e heavy zombie theming, though we really only saw the walking dead at one point- during the thriller music video.  Overall summary - unexpectedly nicely put together puzzles, and a lot less bashing our heads against the wall than other events.

1. Kickoff - Unexpected productions.

Zombie's take over a mall- caught on multiscreen security cameras.  Nicely constructed, but a combination of poor visibility, and our lack of coordination made this one frustrating for longer than it needed to be.  Which is probably exactly what is needed for an opening puzzle designed to spread teams out a bit.  Eliot wins a cookie both for not killing the rest of us, and successfully turning my bogus data into the right answer. 

High point: Yell out when it's in your row. I! Was that in your row? No...
 

2. Standard Forms

Put the paint by numbers, sudoku, mastermind, and 5 other types together at once to check them off.  Good for splitting up and blazing through.

3. The Path of enlightenment
 
A runaround, with awhile to discover that's what it is.  Nice touch 1 was getting all the tickers in the Seattle center to spill a combination of 1984 and V for Vendetta truisms.  I ran around and collected scraps of nonagrams without figuring out how the puzzle worked, while we learned the set of mantras.  Of course the path to collection was important, so we went out a second time, and I solved tiny puzzles while Jay put together the path.  Sadly, my 30 minute in comment of- Hey we have a picture of an umbrella, I bet the answer is 'do you have an umbrella' came true 45 minutes later when we actually learned the answer.  Must learn to guess.  Also the garden outside of the seattle center is a lot more interesting and extensive than I knew.

4. Zomg Penguins
 
Pop culture puzzle, also good for blazing through.  This was the first stop that was service food.  I really appreciated being able to pick up snacks along the way, since we got so very hungry last time at UW.  Much appreciated.

5. Lunch Menu
Another division of puzzles- more word focused this time.  A very elaborate way to say 'fold airplane' to be sure.  Once we had that figured out (which took about 4 tries) we had to solve a maze given directions- which I failed at and jay successfully told left from right.

High point- There's no way this is semaphore- it just, doesn't make sense. no no no.  (2 minutes pass) Ok it's semaphore.

6. Logic puzzles
Get puzzle, divide work, merge, go.  Nice setup, and effective- plus it left sergey and arthur free to start the eventual metapuzzle.  I didn't really like the answer to this one, since it was just reading out some specific data from the final table. On the other hand I don't know of many logic puzzles that I like the final read out from...  Also - Dining hall #4- possibly be getting a little old by this point.

7. Dominance Game

Had we read the directions correctly- and had I kept a notation that distinguished between < and > effectively, this might have gone a bit faster- but it was still very fun.  In case there are not enough reasons for the internet to mock me, I'll see if I can post a grainy video later.

8. Circle runaround
I skipped out on this one to help with the meta. Here's a picture though:

9. Meta assembly.
We get one more key and put together our meta pieces.  It was surprisingly quick, but we skimmed from the previous three puzzles and that helped.

10. Sanctuary

A low key end to the event- no zombies to destroy, just some stray puzzles that we were glad were not from the actual event.  Ternary phonetics - I'm not sure when those make sense? But we did assemble meta puzzles with the help of black light:

and there was cake... or death.

So in conclusion, I'm very happy with this Snap, and it positions the event to be a solid lightweight additon to seattle puzzling, also Braaaaaaaaaaaaains.

Sitting in suburbia, I'm just realizing how many of my friends from years ago went into music professionally.  From a few minutes of collecting urls:

http://www.myspace.com/theshondes

http://www.myspace.com/julieloydmusic

http://sonsofbill.com/

http://www.myspace.com/morwennajay

http://www.myspace.com/generalnoise

And I'm sure I'm missing more.

After the return of my third rock band peripheral there is hope!  The new pedal design looks to be a good bit more reinforced.

old:

new:

It still doesn't help me through 'run for the hills' though...

hinter- Did you hear anything unusual on the golf course?
me - nope
hinter- Didn't you hear them say 'fore' ?
me - How is that unusual? We're on a golf course! <phone taken away>

As fond as I am of saying it only snows in Redmond once a year, Redmond is still more fond of proving me wrong.

When I woke up this morning, there was snow on the ground, but the real show started in the early afternoon.

By the evening there was enough in my back yard to make a snowman, so I did.

He didn't want to pose for a picture with me, but I made him anyway.  I think he's trying to get away in this shot.

Returning from the airport yesterday morning, my car finally reached an auspicious mileage.

The silly hats attended Shinteki in San Francisco last weekend.  From what I had heard, I was expecting a shorter game run around with running/jumping/climbing trees, and doing puzzles while you're up there. The actual event was very similar to the games I've been in, with mostly paper puzzles and a brief tour of some pretty spots in the city while we're out.  Though some of the puzzles had issues, and some of the locations took a lot of finding, it was a fun weekend, and stopping a day early made the flight back a lot less stressful.  Plus by going the second weekend I don't have to worry about spoiling the internets by posting a play-by-play.

In the early morning, thinking the fog would lift eventually. hahahaha...

Initially we were all freezing and waiting at a baseball field at the starting park. If you squint you can see the Young clan and Los Jefes.

Puzzle 1 was a knot untangling exercise, where three teams were tied together and had to get loose again.  It was a very fun game, especially when we had to walk six people through the same knot. Sadly that the event didn't have any other team mingling until the final wrapup.

Puzzle 2 was a bunch of trivia questions, which we spent far too long trying to turn into 7 bit binary, when the actual puzzle was more straight forward.  Or so my team tells me- I'm convinced the binary would have been more natural.

Puzzle 3 was a bunch of little puzzles near the botanical gardens.  I messed up mine because I can't tell the difference between 5 and on digital clocks.  Eliot solved a very cool perspective / magic eye box, which involved getting depth information and then rotating the image into another plane. 

It should be mentioned that the botanical gardens is really pretty, though we did get lost there for about 20 minutes.  We keep breaking rule 3: never give Michael the map.

Following this was a crossword style clue fill-in, with clues that don't fit, because 'point' 'line' 'plane' etc, were replaced with their dimension order. This was cool and thematic, and it led to a morse puzzle where 3,0,1 were used again as space, point, and line. 

Puzzle 4 was a pipe assembly full of marbles. I spent most of my time rattling it around my head or eating hotdogs, so I missed some awesome photos, but here's the diagram we used to solve it in the end. 

Puzzle 5 was my favorite.  There were four  small puzzles- minesweeper, paint by numbers, a crossword and a maze, all of which fit in a 4x4 cube.  The solution to each puzzle was a set of connected blocks.  After the blocks were fit together the empty space was a fourth block, which made letters when you look at its sides.

We also got mostly lost trying to find this puzzle, since the beach/point we were clued on wasn't in any of the mapping software we (or the internet) had. Alas.  We picked up the puzzle and dashed back to a diner to actually do the solving.

Puzzle 6. Something with lasers? We were skipped over this one, though I have it sitting here to do later.

Puzzle 7. Physical challenge. This was quick, because we were rushing to see puzzle 8 (which we still missed out on) but we had a space and time judging game.  Eliot and I had to walk about 100 feet and plant a flag while blindfolded, while Michael and Megan were competing with a stopwatch.  

Puzzle 8. Missed again. bah.

Puzzle 9. We assembled fourteen sided die, which had paths made out of raised dots in 3D. Follow the paths, and each edge had a braille letter.  Since following the paths took a long time, we spent most of our effort making a new guess with each net letter.  The name.. (rhombus? septohedron?) of a tw.. (twin? siamese? twenty? dodecahedron?) ow... (two week? fortnight? done!) 

Puzzle 10. Here we met Leon (Leeeee-oon) the giraffe and picked up a final, crazy crossword puzzle thing.  This is another point where the organization was a bit shy- because by the final standings, no team actually finished this puzzle.  Sitting down today I filled it out in another hour, and I still don't know what the final step is.

The end! At the wrap up we mostly learned about the various pieces we had missed along the way- each puzzle had a bonus associated with it, but we weren't sure if there was something hidden at each site, or something hidden in the puzzle. I think we finished in the bottom third, but had a blast doing it, and got to meet bunches of other crazy puzzle people in the process.

 As a follow up to and Erin's birthday post and Sage's follow-up on the same subject.

1) My shirts are sorted by sleeve length and then collar type.

2) Many people I meet say I should be a super hero or a rock star with my name.  A few years ago I realized this is because Joan Jett is already both a rock star and a super hero.  Deeper trivia- I Love Rock & Roll was the number 1 single the month after I was born.

3) Since 2003 I have purchased or received 4 new shirts, 5 pairs of pants, and 15 hats.

4) In my last improv show, a game of 'Changing Film Styles' turned into a silent movie of pushing a piano up a hill.

5) My 2 year old car just hit 10,000 miles, but I'm more excited 11,111 since it will be the last binary number for 90,000 miles.

6) Like most times when I'm at home, I'm watching scrubs right now.

7) Last Christmas I was very excited because I could give my little brother my old comics, but sadly he read the whole series before I got home.

8) Places I have lived- Arlington, Va. 3 years. Floyd Va. 8 years. Charlotte NC. 3 months. Portland OR. 3 months. Charlottesville VA. 7 years. Houston TX. 4 years. Seattle WA. 3 years.

9) I alternate placing my cups right side up and upside down so they stack more tightly.
 

10) For the last two years, whenever I don't set my alarm, I wake up at 9 anyway. 

11) I started programming on my graphing calculator in 7th grade.  In college, I would challenge myself to write programs during three hour plane flights home.  This resulted in nibbles, yahtzee, and a first person maze using line plotting.

12) In high school I knew all of my friends phone numbers.  Now I have a cell phone.

13) I was a big fan of Nintendo Power before the pokemon revolution.  I drew an envelope picture for Donkey Kong Country, but I never sent it because I didn't have a good letter to put inside.

14) My worst job was as a construction assistant for my father.  There I learned that flamethrowers are not as fun as they seem.

15) For new years eve 1999, I hiked up to the Appalachian trail with two friends from our programming club, just in case.  We left our watches behind, so we had to estimate when midnight was.  It was nice to climb on a hill and see the lights shining the three or four times we guessed were midnight, regardless.

16) I like to read all the books I can find by authors I like.  I read the Charlottesville library out of Robert Heinlein and Orson Scott Card.

17) The first seven cousins in my family: Judson, Jessica, Joey, Jimmy, Jett, John, Jack. My mother's family has a bizarre sense of humor.

18) Long story- When I was young, my mother would read me stories from 'The Wind in the Willows' collection to get me to fall asleep.  This worked so well that in months of reading she never finished the first book, so we switched to the Hardy Boys.  Ten years later, I found a bank envelope that had served as a bookmark.  I gave it back to my mom, and since it was almost Christmas this turned into a Nintendo 64.

19) I'm one of those weird kids that calls his parents by their first names.  Scott & Chris - sorry.

20) The first piece of furniture I bought for my house was an ottoman, so it saw a lot of use as a dining table, and the only seat in front of the TV.

21) I vacuumed my back yard last summer, proving the resiliency of both astroturf and dirt devil.

22) In high school we often played with ideas for video games. A common theme was the villains: a group of microscopic and mischievous monkeys called 'micromonkies.'  Imagine my surprise to find these here. 

23) I sent in a video audition tape for Rushmore.

24) I worked backstage on West Side Story, and often had to be shushed when singing along. 

25)  In college I had a poem published in a student magazine.  The magazine was called Quire, made on a photocopier and bound in twine.

So as a result of all this, the puzzles are both difficult and time consuming, because they're designed to keep a team of 60 people busy for two days.

 And in between all that, there were some brilliant and satisfying puzzles, and there were some puzzles that just took a very long time.

Weekend high: 'Help you've stiffened and I can't get down' is the work of a brilliantly deranged mind.

Being 1/3 Irish, this seems like the perfect holiday to celibrate, but somehow waiting in line and paying entrance fees to be crowded into a bar doesn't appeal.  What we need are some traditions that are too new to have entrance fees.

I like new technology, but I don't like blogs. Thus I am torn.