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Lollapuzzoola 3 weekend
Aug. 15th, 2010 09:57 pmThe great pickle giveaway.
I drove from Cape Cod to New London (different route! Up 495! Through some backroads to 395.) and took the ferry to Long Island. Stopped at three wineries (Pugliese, Martha Carla (best--I fed goats and saw turtles, plus the best wine) and Macari) and eventually wended my way down to Dom's house in Freeport. We played trivia at his local bar with Bill (I think) and I did poorly but had fun.
On Saturday we had bagels, I went to the LIRR station for the 2 hour train ride, and found out (after buying a ticket) I'd missed the 8:30 train, leaving me in doubt if I would make the 11am start. So I ended up driving into Queens after all. And it wasn't that bad, the traffic was light, my GPS was accurate, and it wasn't an area of huge high rises and honking angry people, but four story [townhomes/walkups/brownstones/whatevers] with people parking both sides of the street, and I found a parking space on my second circle around the block. I even ended up being early. So I sat in the car and did the NYT crossword on my phone.
At the church, I checked in behind the couple that ended up second in the pairs division. Inside the room I immediately ran into Andrew F. I sat near the Westport gang of Marion S, Dave E, and B. Kerfuffle. Steve sps was at my table. Several people recognized my name as Karen from the Cape and wondered which cape it was, to my surprise. I said hello to Brian C, who asked where my curling pirates hat was (over at my seat) and Angela pg reminded me again that I should be Karen from the Cod. Maureen from Boston and her partner Steve remembered me. I gave Amy R an old census pencil, which she thought her son might like. Robert M told me about coming in second at the senior spelling bee in Cheyenne, missing myoinositol. I had lunch with Jeff D, Steve S, and Jeffrey H. I spoke to the Hershes from California (as was Jeff H). I saw Will Shortz. And several other people. Folks like my '50,000 word vocabulary' button, it prompted a discussion with one woman about sf cons. I also talked with the guy (Eric?) reading the sf anthology, and an older woman who was disliking reading American Gods. An interesting group of people.
Re the puzzles--zipped through #1 (Ryan says), struggled with #2 and mimed a punch at constructor Mike Nothnagel (mixed doubles), did okay with #3 (cartoon captioning), on #4 was tanking at the halfway point and threw all eight google tickets (and 300 points and a chance at the locals finals (of course, I shouldn't have been in the locals anyways, so good) to get to the solution. Okay, one of those tickets I could have figured out for myself, but the cluing on that one was un oso (I figured out the gimmick in about a minute, but loved the sound when people turned over the puzzles--a kind of whimper arose from the crowd). On #5 I had fun, figured out the gimmick after a few minutes, but still had some surprises in it. Stared at the one last blank square, ran through the alphabet twice with no luck, and guessed wrong; but so did the majority of other solvers.
There was also a group game similar to Shortz' contests, and I was happy to figure out a quarter of the initialisms. And a social game of finding your group based on index cards, and solving a quick puzzle while the finals were set up. I couldn't solve the express final clues, so gave up after getting about five and did the local clues, which I got quicker than the finalists (but I was on paper, had to turn off my timer when they entered, and had those five words done).
A fun day. We'll see what next year brings. (Last year, Dom was stuck in the hospital at this point. As was Juli.)
Drove back through only moderately bad traffic (two accidents) to Dom's, played Martian Fluxx, watched NPH on a Batman episode and Eureka, and crashed. Sunday we went to IHOP, that venerable crosswordy institution (nutella crepes!) and then I drove back home. Slowly, with several stops, including the Nautilus nuclear submarine and museum.
I drove from Cape Cod to New London (different route! Up 495! Through some backroads to 395.) and took the ferry to Long Island. Stopped at three wineries (Pugliese, Martha Carla (best--I fed goats and saw turtles, plus the best wine) and Macari) and eventually wended my way down to Dom's house in Freeport. We played trivia at his local bar with Bill (I think) and I did poorly but had fun.
On Saturday we had bagels, I went to the LIRR station for the 2 hour train ride, and found out (after buying a ticket) I'd missed the 8:30 train, leaving me in doubt if I would make the 11am start. So I ended up driving into Queens after all. And it wasn't that bad, the traffic was light, my GPS was accurate, and it wasn't an area of huge high rises and honking angry people, but four story [townhomes/walkups/brownstones/whatevers] with people parking both sides of the street, and I found a parking space on my second circle around the block. I even ended up being early. So I sat in the car and did the NYT crossword on my phone.
At the church, I checked in behind the couple that ended up second in the pairs division. Inside the room I immediately ran into Andrew F. I sat near the Westport gang of Marion S, Dave E, and B. Kerfuffle. Steve sps was at my table. Several people recognized my name as Karen from the Cape and wondered which cape it was, to my surprise. I said hello to Brian C, who asked where my curling pirates hat was (over at my seat) and Angela pg reminded me again that I should be Karen from the Cod. Maureen from Boston and her partner Steve remembered me. I gave Amy R an old census pencil, which she thought her son might like. Robert M told me about coming in second at the senior spelling bee in Cheyenne, missing myoinositol. I had lunch with Jeff D, Steve S, and Jeffrey H. I spoke to the Hershes from California (as was Jeff H). I saw Will Shortz. And several other people. Folks like my '50,000 word vocabulary' button, it prompted a discussion with one woman about sf cons. I also talked with the guy (Eric?) reading the sf anthology, and an older woman who was disliking reading American Gods. An interesting group of people.
Re the puzzles--zipped through #1 (Ryan says), struggled with #2 and mimed a punch at constructor Mike Nothnagel (mixed doubles), did okay with #3 (cartoon captioning), on #4 was tanking at the halfway point and threw all eight google tickets (and 300 points and a chance at the locals finals (of course, I shouldn't have been in the locals anyways, so good) to get to the solution. Okay, one of those tickets I could have figured out for myself, but the cluing on that one was un oso (I figured out the gimmick in about a minute, but loved the sound when people turned over the puzzles--a kind of whimper arose from the crowd). On #5 I had fun, figured out the gimmick after a few minutes, but still had some surprises in it. Stared at the one last blank square, ran through the alphabet twice with no luck, and guessed wrong; but so did the majority of other solvers.
There was also a group game similar to Shortz' contests, and I was happy to figure out a quarter of the initialisms. And a social game of finding your group based on index cards, and solving a quick puzzle while the finals were set up. I couldn't solve the express final clues, so gave up after getting about five and did the local clues, which I got quicker than the finalists (but I was on paper, had to turn off my timer when they entered, and had those five words done).
A fun day. We'll see what next year brings. (Last year, Dom was stuck in the hospital at this point. As was Juli.)
Drove back through only moderately bad traffic (two accidents) to Dom's, played Martian Fluxx, watched NPH on a Batman episode and Eureka, and crashed. Sunday we went to IHOP, that venerable crosswordy institution (nutella crepes!) and then I drove back home. Slowly, with several stops, including the Nautilus nuclear submarine and museum.
