Another Puzzle Day Done!
Posted by: Emily on: February 1, 2010
This weekend was the 4th Annual Silicon Valley Puzzle Day! I seem to forget each year just how much work is involved, but somehow we pulled off another one and had a great time doing it. We had an amazing day of workshops on Saturday (featuring not only puzzle celebs like Tyler Hinman and Thomas Snyder, but the author of both Saturday’s and Sunday’s NYTimes puzzles — Mark Diehl and Andrea Carla Michaels.) Sunday we had the adult and youth sudoku and crossword competitions (plus some other word puzzles for the kids), including final adult rounds on the big boards in the front of the room. With all the competitors, volunteers and onlookers, we had about 200 people to puzzle, entertain and feed over the two days. And the best part is that we raised awareness (and a little bit of money) for the <a href=”http://www.mhlf.org” target=new>Morgan Hill Library Foundation</a>.
Press Coverage:
- Mercury News: Winner zips through sudoku in 4 minutes; puzzle master completes crossword under 8 minutes
- Morgan Hill Times: Silicon Valley Puzzle Day this weekend at Morgan Hill Library
- San Francisco Chronicle: Get your crosswords and Sudoku on at this event
4th Annual Silicon Valley Puzzle Day, January 30-31, 2010
Posted by: Emily on: January 10, 2010
No excuse for not posting here since Thanksgiving, but here’s my excuse for not posting anything for the next few weeks — we’re deep in the throes of Puzzle Day planning for this year’s event. Here’s a quick write-up in case you haven’t heard me talking about it over and over again.
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Details and pre-registration information are available at http://www.svpuzzle.org.
Saturday (1/30) will be a packed day of puzzle-themed workshops (10:30am-5:45pm). Workshops include 5-time ACPT champion Tyler Hinman and repeating US and World sudoku champion Thomas Snyder sharing stories together about what it is like competing at the championship level. Tyler and Thomas are also each giving workshops about other kinds of puzzles that keep them busy. There will also be a panel of cruciverbalists, moderated by Andrea Carla Michaels, talking about the whole crossword puzzle construction process from ideas to publication. Hear how one Puzzle Day attendee was inspired by the workshops last year to try his hand at constructing and had his puzzle accepted to the NY Times! There will also be a workshop discussing common crossword words and what goes into creating a crossword puzzle dictionary. Check out the whole workshop schedule online on the Puzzle Day web site.
Sunday’s tournament will feature the sudoku competition in the morning and the crossword competition in the afternoon. Thomas Snyder is providing our sudoku puzzles and Will Shortz is providing the following week’s yet-to-be-published crossword puzzles for the crossword tournament. There will also be bonus cryptic crossword and killer sudoku rounds to try your hand at. Doors open at 9:30 and box
lunches and snacks (as well as puzzle books and other items) will be available for purchase during the event.
There is also a youth division (ages 8-15) with separate tournament puzzles and workshops aimed at them, so it’s great for multi-generational puzzle fun.
Puzzle Day benefits the Morgan Hill Library Foundation. Workshops are free, and donations of $20 for adult tournament competitors and $10 for youth tournament competitors are suggested.
We hope to see you at this fantastic event! It’s a great way to warm up for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and/or meet new puzzle loving friends, all for a good cause!
Happy Thanksgiving
Posted by: Emily on: November 27, 2009
Hosted a big Thanksgiving for 13 (5 family houseguests plus 5 friends and the three of us) at our new house.
Had a great time cooking, eating, watching TV, playing poker and generally just hanging around playing and eating some more.
A few photos:
links for 2009-11-14
Posted by: Emily on: November 14, 2009
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These would be so much fun to make and then color with!
Happy Halloween!
Posted by: Emily on: October 31, 2009
Clara’s 3rd Halloween — and she definitely got the concept this year (she even practiced trick-or-treating on our door yesterday). We went to the big downtown safe trick-or-treat extravaganza/mob scene and then tried out the other houses on our new street — only one of which had even bought any candy since apparently no one ever comes trick-or-treating there (one of the others gave us a persimmon, and the third with people home gave us a full-size candy bar out of their freezer.) Then we went up to Lisa’s (and probably was one of their only trick-or-treaters for the night there too.) Last weekend Clara went to a Halloween party and yesterday was the parade at daycare and a party at the Little Gym, so I think she definitely has had a full Halloween experience.
Here’s our little construction family — appropriate, we thought, after all the house renovations we’ve been doing!
Here she is in the parade at daycare:
And with her friends last weekend:
Happy Birthday Clara!
Posted by: Emily on: October 25, 2009
Clara turned 2 today! With the impending move (we’re about half way packed and the house should be ready to move into in about 2 more weeks of fix-ups) we didn’t manage to throw her a party or anything, but tried to fill the day with some of her favorite things and will be bringing lots of cupcakes to her daycare class tomorrow.
She’s talking up a storm these days — our current favorite is when she comes over and asks “whacha doing mommy?” and then when you answer says “oh” like it’s something profound. She parrots back pretty much everything so we’re trying to be careful with what we say. She talks a lot about her best friend Camryn at school and we’re all very sad that Camryn and her family are moving to Texas in 2 weeks! The two of them have been together at daycare since Clara was 3 months old and just love each other. Clara talks about her all the time — “Camryn is a busy bee” (their 2’s class at daycare) — and Camryn is incredibly useful for positive peer pressure (look, Camryn’s doing that, why don’t you try it?) She still loves to color and paint, to hang on any parallel bar she can find (especially at her weekly Little Gym class), to go on the swings and slide at the park over and over and over again, to watch Curious George (part of our nightly bedtime routine) or read her Curious George books, to watch Elmo, jumping (which she really wants to do but can’t quite get both feet to time it right yet), to dance (especially in the bed of “Abba’s white truck”), to sing the “spaghetti song” (on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese…), to help with the laundry, to scold the cats (“No sitting on the table Mitzy!”), to push her baby doll around the house in the toy stroller, to make cookies (real with me and the ones in her toy kitchen). She’s also very into throwing food and pretty much everything else she gets her hands on onto the floor, especially when she’s done eating.
And, after all the fun (and chocolate) today, her birthday present to us was going to bed early tonight!!!
links for 2009-10-09
Posted by: Emily on: October 9, 2009
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Brian's joining an impressive group of folks for a 1-day event in San Fran.
links for 2009-09-29
Posted by: Emily on: September 29, 2009
Happy Birthday Grandma
Posted by: Emily on: September 24, 2009
Clara (and me) wishing my mom and very happy birthday!!!
links for 2009-09-24
Posted by: Emily on: September 24, 2009
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Clara would love this exhibit made of cardboard boxes. She's been making tunnels out of the ones we have at home.
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Bill's car show was in this NY Times article talking about the Packards that were going to the show.
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Missed this press release a few days ago about my friend Greg. Happy birthday and congrats to him!
Twitter Updates
- chocolatespoon: RT @thatpuzzleguy: Eric Maddy continues to be a force in Pacific crossword contests, taking the Morgan Hill crown.
- chocolatespoon: RT @kidmatter: Silicon Valley Puzzle Day - two days of puzzle fun for all ages! Saturday workshops, Sunday tournaments. Morgan... http:/ ...
- chocolatespoon: Puzzle Day gets a mention in Sal Pizarro's column today: http://tinyurl.com/ydefqsd Join us 1/30-1/31, http://www.svpuzzle.org
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