3-D Boggle: Letter from the Editor

After finding all of the words listed in my previous post, I wrote a note to the creator of my favorite puzzles. Will Shortz is quite an accomplished puzzler. He was actually the first (and thus far, only) person to achieve a college degree in the study of word puzzles. I met him a decade ago at a Scrabble function that was organized with a literacy group to help raise money and awareness in the name of adult literacy. Each Scrabble expert present was paired with a celebrity in a game against another expert/celeb pair. I was paired with Tina Louise, who had finally been rescued from Gilligan's Island. Although she was putting her back into helping illiterate adults, she wasn't especially gifted (or interested) in Scrabble. Our pairing was mostly about me playing a few odd words and the still-beautiful desert castaway oohing and ahing about them. It wasn't as bad as it sounds.

Will was kind enough to send me the note that follows. I guess he means that the 65 words he alluded to when the puzzle appeared were a 'complete' list. I know that my list has at least two words not on his; altho he didn't include his words, there is no way to account for the fact that my list has 67 words (including KIKES) or 66 words (without it).

z writes:

Hi David,

Congratulations on your fine list of 3-D Word Hunt answers!

One of my puzzle testers was able to check my solution against an
electronic edition of Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate, so I'm
basically certain that my list, which will be published next Sunday, is
complete.

Please let me know if this is not the case!

--Will

It's only Wednesday, so I'm itchy to find out what words from my list are missing from his. At this point I'm guessing that KIKES is one of them, which would necessitate a letter from me to the editor of the magazine. After all, a word's a word (and that one is DEFINITELY in Merriam-Webster's.

Here are the 67 words that I'm sure of: AIRER *AIRTS ALACK ALIVE *ANENT ATONE ATRIA *ATRIP *CAIRD CANAL CANON CANTO DIVOT ENACT EVENT KIKES LAIRD *LANAI LENTO LEVEL LILAC *LITAI LITRE LIVEN LIVID *NATAL NOOSE NOVEL *OOTID PIANO PIKER PIKES PLANE PLANT *PLATS *PLENA RESTS *RIANT RIATA SCALE SCALP SCANT SCATS *SERER *SERES SOOTS STACK STAIR STALE *STANE STATS STILE STONE *STOTS STOVE *STRIA STRIP TITAN TITRE TONAL TOOTS TOTAL TRIAL TRIKE VENAL VITAL VIVID (*= uncommon, of which there are 16)

Removed from my earlier list: ALANE ALANT ANELE DREST NOTAL PLACK *TANTO *TRIAC.
These last words are NOT in the abridged MW that appears online. I was under the assumption that the dictionary was just not working when I tried a few of these (like ALANE) that I knew from Scrabble. I'll have to be more careful next time. Still, I did beat the number that z had set as the maximum -- now I just have to wait till Sunday!

3-D Word Hunt of Feb 11, 2008

Will Shortz is the editor of the NY Times Crosswords page (and now a millionaire thanks in part to his Sudoku books). About a year ago, he came out with his first 3-D Word Hunt, a sort of high-tech Boggle. The challenge is to find the most 5-letter-words. Because of my love of Boggle and the Scrabble skills that I've honed over the past 15 years, I've been able to find most of the words that later appear in his Answers page the following week... and then some. For each of the three puzzles he's published so far, I've found many more words than he's indicated. I'm not sure where the sloppiness comes in: Doesn't he have some experts who vet his puzzles for him? Actually, I offered that assistance last time (when I had found about 15 words he'd missed), but he didn't take me up on it. He published my extra words in an addendum a few weeks later, but he didn't thank me or the other solvers who'd found words missing from his Answers list. It turns out I'd found more than anyone who'd sent in answers. Ah well.

Here is my unofficial list for the most recent puzzle. I may still be missing a word or two, and there may be a word on my list that's not in the dictionary source that he's using, but all of these words are good in Scrabble, as they say, which means that they're most likely ok in this puzzle (Scrabble and this puzzle use almost the same word source).

KIKES in the PUZZLE
Here is a sign that his puzzle-vetters aren't up to the task when it comes to hallucinatory Boggle: They missed KIKES. I'm fairly sure that this one was NOT meant for entry in the puzzle and that, had Shortz noticed it, he would have altered the puzzle. It's not like I'm bothered by the word, but there are plenty of oversensitive types who would complain that this puzzle offended them to the quick. I look forward to a Letter to the Editor complaining about the puzzle.

Shortz divided his list among common words (50) and *uncommon words (he'd found 15, but I list 25).

AIRER *AIRTS ALACK *ALANE *ALANT ALIVE *ANELE *ANENT ATONE ATRIA *ATRIP
*CAIRD CANAL CANON CANTO
DIVOT *DREST
ENACT EVENT
*KIKES
*LAIRD *LANAI LENTO LEVEL LILAC *LITAI LITRE LIVEN LIVID
*NATAL NOOSE *NOTAL NOVEL
*OOTID
PIANO PIKER PIKES PLACK PLANE PLANT *PLATS *PLENA
RESTS *RIANT RIATA
SCALE SCALP SCANT SCATS *SERER *SERES SOOTS STACK STAIR STALE *STANE STATS STILE STONE *STOTS STOVE *STRIA STRIP
*TANTO TITAN TITRE TONAL TOOTS TOTAL *TRIAC TRIAL TRIKE
VENAL VITAL VIVID

Super Knitter

If we hadn't moved out of Brooklyn, Shirra might never have opened her knitting store, and if she'd stayed a recreational knitter, rather than a professional one, I most likely would never have felt the need to learn. But here we are in New Paltz, and her store is doing well, and I'm knitting my first scarf. Shirra's been knitting for years and has made every kind of clothing that can be fashioned of yarn. I'm not going to be able to help customers in the store for quite some time, but I figured the sooner I learn, the better. And it's fun.

Super Bowl Knitting Party
Part of the enjoyment I derive from knitting is the shock value. I took my knitting bag to the fire house and brought out my yarn and needles for our Super Bowl party. I love the comaraderie of the fire department, and as a big fan of South Park, I understand how teasing works. If they don't tease you, they don't love you. Or: If they do tease you, it means that they know you can take it. Sociology aside, I enjoyed the barbs and funny looks. My favorite comment was the suggestion that I knit myself a penis.

I was planning to make an all-blue scarf, but Shirra didn't have a second skein of azure blue yarn, so I chose an emerald green for my second color. Then it turned out that the scarf was too short (especially given how fat it was), so I added a third color.

Oops! Have an Ice Day!

As a favor to a blog buddy, Fiona and I picked up a neighbor's son for a carpool to the Middle School this morning. It looked to be a lovely day, with clear skies and temps in the low 40s. We listened to some fun tunes and managed to arrive at the building even earlier than I normally get Fiona there when it's just the two of us. There was one problem, however: Ours was the only car in the lot; school had been canceled.

Fiona called the school hotline just to make sure, but we all had figured it out even before the recording came on: There was obviously an ice storm a few hours away. A few minutes of listening to the radio confirmed this. I took everyone home and got back into bed. Before I got back up, our front steps were covered in ice.

I Hate T*Mobile!

When we put our eldest on our cell phone plan last summer, we extended our contract with T*Mobile another two years from that day. Then we discovered that we hate T*Mobile!

In Manhattan and Brooklyn, it really doesn't matter what carrier you use because they all have brilliant reception. My cell phone even works in the elevator of my mom's building. But around New Paltz, my wife and I noticed that our cell phones cut out in various spots. This is especially true in the outlying areas like Gardiner and Rosendale, where there aren't any local cell phone towers, but more annoying is that my phone loses contact when I'm driving to and from Manhattan on my way to The City. This is especially troublesome because I often lose contact with my students' parents I'm speaking with, so I tend to have difficulty conducting my work. When I took the bus to Manhattan, this issue wasn't quite as irksome because people aren't really allowed to use their cell phones en route. But lately I've been driving, and the problem has become much more apparent.

I wouldn't mind this so much if it weren't for the fact that many other major carriers have better coverage. When I was up in the relatively obscure north western part of the state where the fire academy is located, all of the other would-be fire fighters had fine reception, but I was totally blacked out. In fact, I couldn't use my cell phone until I was miles away from Montour Falls. And the same is true for the highways to NYC. T*Mobile works fine for most of Interstate 87 (not all of it, mind you), but it fares poorly when I break from 87 and take some of the other roads that speed up my trip.

Verizon doesn't have this problem, and one of my friends showed me his cool new Verizon phone. It does everything my Sidekick III does -- AND it works where my stupid phone doesn't.

I called T*Mobile to see if I could get out of my contract, but I don't think it's going to work because they insist that if you have good reception at work and at home (but not necessarily in between), then you're stuck with them. Time ticks (almost) inexorably towards two summers from now -- just 18 months to go....

Two-Hour Delays

When it snows during the night, we often get two-hour school delays the next morning. Normally these are a blessing, since everyone gets to sleep late, but today it was a curse for sure.

To begin with, I was looking forward to subbing for one of the teachers, but the delay caused a change in the schedule that precluded even a half-day of subbing. This wasn't a huge financial hit, but I really do like to sub, and I could have used the money. So it goes. I still had a full day of tutoring to look forward to; in fact, I was starting early on account of a make-up session, so I had to be in The City by 1:45, necessitating a New Paltz departure by 12 at the latest.

EARLY KNITTERS
The next snag was that Shirra's store has a special weekly gathering of Friday morning knitters; Shirra has to be at the store by 9:30. This meant that I had to take all three kids to their respective schools. The hours were rather horrendous: Fiona at 9:30, Maeve an hour later, and Emmett at 11! Then Fiona forgot her homework folder, and the next thing you know, I had to make an extra trip home to pick it up. I had to get something at the doctor's office before heading to Manhattan, too.

TWO DAYS in ONE
I often say that my life, split as it is between Paltz and York, makes it feel like I live two days every 24 hours. This was one such day. By 12, I had made these trips around New Paltz:

9:30 Middle School; also met with one of Fiona's teachers
10:00 Shirra's store; also The Bakery (for the paper)
10:30 Pre-School
11:00 Lenape
11:15 Middle School
11:30 Shirra's store
11:45 Doctor's office

All of this was followed by my 85-mile trips to and from Manhattan and my tutoring, which included 2 miles of unicycling. I didn't get back to New Paltz till 8, and then I had to spend the next half-hour shopping for some groceries.

I'm pooped.

Powerless

Shirra and I awoke on Friday morning to the sound of our eldest walking into the bedroom. She was carrying a flashlight, and the house was eerily dark. Despite my stupor, I realized that we were experiencing a power outage due, no doubt, to downed power lines. I was not at all surprised that 3 seconds later, my fire pager went off. In fact, I was already getting out of bed and putting on my clothes, ready to drive to the scene.

It turned out that a power line had been severed near the Freihoffer's on N. Putt. By 7 am I was crawling back into bed for a few minutes of relaxation; I took Fiona to school a few minutes later and didn't get to take a nap until the other two kids were at school a few hours later. Power came on at 8.

It was strange driving around New Paltz during the power outage. There were whole areas that were blacked out, and then I'd pass a house that must have had a back-up generator because all of their Christmas lights were blazing away merrily. It was also weird trying to walk around my house when it was so dark. The only lights I could see were the tiny battery-operated blinkers of my cell phone and the smoke alarms.

NEWSFLASH: CON ARTIST

Just after reading that last post (below) to the wife, she reported that she'd been hustled by a man about a month ago during a snowstorm. He came by her store and told her a story about how his wife's car had broken down and that she was somehow stranded on the highway. He showed his own car (his 8-year-old son in the back) and explained that he needed $10 for gas so that he could get to her, yadda yadda yadda. Shirra's NYC antennae were down, and she didn't immediately suspect that this was a con. She handed him the money, fully expecting to be repaid when a few days later when the man had a chance to send her a check. She's still waiting for that envelope.

Now, Shirra's no dope, and she never fell for stuff like this back in the Big City, so he must have been a pretty good con artist. Still, she felt ridiculous when she realized that she'd been had. Her only description of the miscreant is that he's an Aftrican-American man in his 40s.

I'm sorry to hear that anyone gets fooled like this anymore, especially my family, but it does help to restore my faith in inhumanity.

PS: My brother had the same con pulled on him (in Manhattan) over a decade ago. He fell for it, too. Then about 6 months later, the same man approached him (on the same street, no less). John heard the same story (about the man's wife being stranded in their car, yadda yadda yadda). My brother has a sneaky streak. He let the man tell the entire woeful tale and kept plugging away with questions and comments until he felt that he'd wasted a good portion of the man's time, at least 15 minutes. Finally, my brother said that he recognized the man (and the story) from before and that he'd be willing to part with another $5 if the man would simply admit that it was a con both times. Interestingly, this schnorrer had too much dignity to fess up to his lie and walked away from the money. There's a moral in there somewhere if you're willing to look for it closely.

I Saw a Man (Begging) about a Dog

For just the 2nd time since I've moved to New Paltz 16 months ago, I came across a person asking for a handout. Both times it happened in the New Paltz Plaza in the Stop and Shop parking lot. The man today was carrying a pooch in one hand and some trinkets in the other. He asked if I would buy a Tibetan keychain to help him feed his dog. A month ago, a young man asked for some money for food.

In NYC, I knew that the 'proper' way to handle such requests was to ignore them. It's a good bet that anyone asking for assistance is a con artist or a ne'er-do-well, and the prevailing wisdom is that everyone would be better served if citizens didn't help out but left the assisting to government agencies and charitable groups like churches, synagogs, and soup kitchens. In theory, this would eventually force the truly needy to seek out proper help rather than relying on the unreliable public. I never liked this 'proper' method. I've come to prefer the way my ancestors handled things in the shtetl.

Back in the days of peasant Jewry, beggars were called schnorrers (or shnorrers). They called upon townsfolk rich and not-so-rich for regular handouts, and the religion (and tradition) called for those better off to give schnorrers a meal and a bed for the night. I like this form of public assistance even more than handing someone a $5 bill and hoping that they have a warm place to sleep.

But I have a feeling that the modern shtetl of New Paltz has already figured out some methods to help those in need. And I'm pretty sure that they don't involve Tibetan keychains. I just wish I knew what they did involve.

Not the Merriest of Xmases

Chrismas started off ok, but it quickly went downhill. We gave the kids a few presents, smiles all around, and cleaned up. At about 1, I got a call over my pager for a fire in a bedroom, and I raced to the scene in time to see some black smoke issuing from an apartment window. Luckily no one was hurt and there was relatively little property damage; still, I felt bad for the man who owned the place.

I got home to discover that Emmett's stomach was achier than usual. He's been having headaches and abdominal cramps, but these were worse than anything he'd had up till now. Shirra called the doctor and we kept giving him fluids, but a few hours later, as he was brushing his teeth, he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. I rubbed his back and told him to let loose if he had to, and sure enough, he puked twice into the sink. His evening only got worse, really, as he woke up several times for more of the same, and by morning he was exhausted from dehydration and lack of sleep. Shirra was exhausted, too, but I wasn't too tired because I'd gone to bed early in order to help Emmett thruout the night. He spent today recovering from the previous 12 hours, and by keeping him on ginger ale and crackers, we kept the vomiting at bay.

It wasn't the happiest Christmas, but at least it was memorable.

Beware the $2 Mouse

Back a year ago, Fiona requested a mouse. It seemed like a nice idea -- they're so small and cute -- and it wasn't like she was asking for a $200 chinchilla. At $2, Ralph seemed like a bargain. Well, there was the cage and other rodent accoutrements, but the over all cost was under $50, and if I recall correctly, Fiona picked up most of that tab. Since we already had 5 guinea pigs, we were buying tons of bedding, so the small amount he needed was about as negligible as his size.

Then Fiona decided she wanted a 2nd mouse. At first, this seemed like aninvestment of just $2 more. But Algernon didn't get along with Ralph, so we had to get a 2nd set of accoutrements, which also meant that Shirra, who was cleaning the cages of all the animals, had one more job each week. Sadly, Ralph died shortly after we got the new mouse. It seemed like Algernon wouldn't last much longer, too, when he started losing fur.

We took him to our wonderful vet, Dr Malamud, and she suggested treating him for mites. This required $22 shots once a week as well as a few tests. We tried some antibiotics, too (we're now on the second round of them). We've also had to change his bedding a bit more often.

Not including the 'human' cost of the time we've spent cleaning his cage and waiting at the vet's office, the actual cost of this $2 mouse is verging on $300, and that's only because the vet has been kind to us in her charges.

Beware, dear reader, the $2 mouse!

Now, I've spent more than that on purebred cats, and Shirra's hedgehog was $200 for a pet you can't hold without gloves or small blisters, so I'm not begrudging the cost. It's just that Fiona rarely plays with Algernon these days. For the most part, it's more like she's the adoptive but neglectful mother of a mouse and 2 guinea pigs who serve the function of unused Christmas presents. Parents enjoy giving them, and children enjoy receiving them, and telling their friends that they have them. But that's pretty much where the joy ends.

Bah, humbug.

Oh, the Weather Outside is...

Well, 'frightful' would be a bit strong. That might have described the forecast, but it certainly didn't describe the actual weather that followed it. Winter storm advisories were calling for a major nor'easter to dump 6-12 inches on New Paltz and the environs. We barely got two inches.

Still, that was enough to trap my family for many hours today. We made the most of it, tho. Shirra trekked down to Route 32, where her employee picked her up. She got to spend the day in her store, knitting, chatting, and watching bootleg tv shows on Cricket's laptop. The kids made it outside for an hour's worth of tramping in the snow and sledding. I got in some quality time with the computer, playing an hour of online Scrabble (isc.ro) before joining the kids for a bit. I got some nice snaps of the kids, including one of Maeve standing next to the snowwoman she made on Thursday with her babysitter (featuring ample snow-boobs). After lunch, it was naptime for Maeve.

STUCK in the SNOW
While she was a-nap, I decided to see if the road was passable. The car got stuck a few times, but clearly it wouldn't be impossible to get to 32 if I could make it up the small incline past our neighbor's house. The only problem is that this same incline begins at a small bridge between two ponds, and the bridge doesn't have guard rails. For me to make it over the incline, I'd have to build up speed, but to do that, I had to back over the bridge (yes, BACK, as in backwards) four or five times; it got less terrify each round. Eventually, I made it to 32 and thence to the fire house.

FIRE CALLS
A call had come in to my pager just before I went outside, and another came in a few minutes later. I figured I'd get to the station as quickly as I could, but the trip that normally takes 6 minutes took more like 30. Still, I made it there in time to answer a third call (a false alarm), clean up the firetrucks and the station, and head to Starbucks, all by 4pm. I got some surprises for the wife and kids and then picked Shirra up at her store.

It was a quiet and relaxing snowy day in the Paltz.

Naming New Paltzers

Cat the Cheese, Ben the Plow, Steve the Fire. These are a few of our favorite names around New Paltz.

When we first moved to the Noop, we knew that we'd be meeting a lot of new people in all areas of our lives. We decided to borrow from one of our favorite movies in order to simplify things. In an early Hugh Grant movie called "The Englishman Who Went up a Hill and Came down a Mountain," some Welsh townsfolk refer to each other as [Name] the [Job]. We decided to adopt that strategy as well. It seems to make the most sense to use this technique under two circumstances:

1. The person has a common name, so we're trying to avoid confusion, or
2. The person doesn't come up in conversation too often, so we're reminding each other about the person in a shorthand way.

[Name] the [Job] has two benefits. It conveys a sentence-worth of information in just three words, and it's fun.

Our favorite names so far:

Cat the Cheese: the lovely young woman who owns the cheese shop in Water Street Market
Dave the Toy: owns Enchanted Toys.
Ben the Plow: the man who saves us from being completely snowed in,
Joe the Plow: the man who saved us when Ben the Plow didn't make it one time last year,
Joe the Phone: a fireman who happens to work for Verizon,
Steve the Fire: another fireman (who happens to be a musician),
Steve the Mail: our usual mailman,

Cars that Go Bump in the Day

SNOW
The snow hit hard this morning, starting just as I was leaving the firehouse following a false alarm. I decided to run a few errands, ending up at Shirra's store. After grabbing some needles that she needed, I put up a sign to announce that the store was closed due to snow, and then I headed home. Since the car was parked on Church, I drove over to Manheim and then made a left. This was a mistake -- that road is fairly steep and rarely plowed.

BOOM
There were two cars ahead of me, and both of them were sliding around a bit; apparently both drivers were turning into a driveway just after my left turn from Church. One of the cars made it, but the other slipped a bit just as I began driving down that road. And then I slipped. My car kept sliding, picking up speed as it headed towards the other car, so I honked to alert the driver to our impending boom. It felt like I hit her pretty hard, but luckily there was no damage to either car. Since I had some sand in my car, I spread some under her car (and another that had shown up a minute later), rescuing both drivers before heading home.

Although the weather in Manhattan wasn't too bad, the roads TO Manhattan were probably slick, so there was a chance I'd get stuck. I decided to cancel my students for the day just to be on the safe side. We made hot chocolate, the kids went sledding and exploring in the snow, and late in the day, our plow guy showed up. At least we won't be stuck home tomorrow.

Think Fast

My First Day of Fasting

The day I turned 40, I decided to limit my caloric intake drastically. I went from about 3000 calories a day (including lots of Starbucks treats) to a diet of less than the recommended daily allowance of 2000 (and no *$$). In two months, I went from 193 lbs to about 168, a loss of 25 pounds. I still ate chocolate and had some ice cream, but I was really careful about avoiding unnecessary (empty) calories, like soda, and I severely cut down on my inveterate late-night snacking tendencies. Then came Martha's Vineyard.

I'd kept my weight at about 168, give or take a few pounds, for the months leading up to the summer, but that Murdick's fudge gets me every time. I found myself eating at least a half pound a day, in addition to frequent trips to Mad Martha's ice cream, and in two weeks, my weight was over 180. I was pretty annoyed.

In the months since that trip, I've managed to stay at around 177, which feels like a comfortable weight, but I've been snacking more, and eating more ice cream, than I should. I decided it was time to do something about this once again, and a few days ago I decided that today I would start a once-a-week abstinence from food. "Wednesdays Without," I guess you could call it. If I'd waited a couple more days, I could have had "Foodless Fridays," but Wednesdays just happened to work out better for my schedule.

It's funny how unconscious we can be around food. While helping Maeve with her lunch today, I opened a container of stringbeans that her mom had packed and found myself munching two of them. Oops. So my fast wasn't totally perfect. I also let Maeve feed me a blueberry, but that was conscious; you have to allow for cutenesses like that. I had also read that many people simply avoid 'food' but don't eschew fruit juices, so I had a few ounces of blueberry juice this morning, a quarter-lemon's worth of juice in my green tea, and later, some sparkling apple cider.

It's also confusing when people talk about fasting for a 'day.' Does that mean you can start eating again 24 hours after your last late-night snack? I don't think so. I decided to interpret 'day' to mean the 30- to 36-hour period from previous meal to next meal. So I have to wait until tomorrow morning before I can eat again.

Fasting is supposed to extend lifespan and generally improve health, which is why I've chosen to do it. It certainly wasn't as hard as I'd expected. It's also said to help reduce sugar cravings, so I'm looking forward to that aspect as well. I'm also really looking forward to breakfast, which in this case is a well-named meal. I'll stick with my honey yogurt (<200 cal), but I'm going to switch from my usual black tea with milk and a whopping tablespoon of sugar to green tea with a bit of lemon.