…to lovely equinoxic Seattle. Apparently, y’all have had New York-style late-winter weather while the NY area, where I was these past 5.5 days, had very Seattle-esque weather (steady rain, low clouds, and only warm enough to not snow).

In the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, I ended up finishing 150th out of approximately 412 entrants using the tournament’s complex accuracy-and-speed scoring system. (Out of the 145 first-time entrants, I finished 21st.) It was a good weekend; I stayed at a good hotel room, met a lot of others who share the odd hobby of speed-solving, made some contacts, got some advice re: putting my own X-Word back into national syndication, and scored several interesting puzzle books.

There was one downbeat point to the week, however. My lovely Olympus digital camera disappeared in the Stamford hotel. After being warned repeatedly by my mom and others to watch all my material belongings in big bad Manhattan, I lose my fourth-costliest possession in the heart of the whitebread suburbs. (Further details to follow.)