Lore Trial #4: The Bast Curse

It is said that the ancient Egyptian goddess Bast protects our precious land and property. I sometimes wonder if it is because we have offended her so that she has forsaken so many of our natural waters. Bast is represented by a cat or a cat-like woman. I think that we have insulted Bast by breeding cats and undervaluing women. If you do not believe in the powers of this divinity, let me share a little story with you about my very wealthy friend, June.

Actually, June was not so wealthy until she married her husband. Together, they lived in a lovely home in San Francisco where they hosted grand parties and traded fine art. During one of their travels to Egypt, June acquired an authentic bronzed statue of Bast. June was attracted to the statue because of her domestic affection for housecats. Her husband had conceded the purchase because it was a very valuable "knick knack" that would greatly appreciate in value. A casually superstitious man, he figured that it also couldn’t hurt to have the statue around their home to protect the property and its belongings.

A few years later, after June’s pet cat died, she took to sitting still for long stretches of time, looking at the Bast statue. Finally her husband, embarrassed and inexplicably enraged by June’s behavior, decided that it was time for them to become a "dog household." He had the bronze from the Bast statue melted down and used it to commission a dog statue. He presented both this statue and a new puppy to June upon her return from a long weekend visiting me in Ocotillo.

At first June was upset with her husband, but she took very quickly to the dogs. She even began to feel safer with a dog around to guard the house while her husband was away on business. Shortly after the gift, though, all sorts of horrible acts of vandalism took place on June and her husband’s home. When June called me in tears asking me "why her?" I couldn’t help but whisper, "why, the curse of Bast."

June and her husband decided to recommission the same artist to return the bronzed dog to a bronzed cat. The night before he completed his charge, a beautiful piece of vandalism was left on their back wall. Ultimately, my friend and her husband sold this piece of graffiti for a lot of money. It was Bast’s curious way of thanking them for returning their faith to her and ensuring that they secured more property for her to protect.

• Graffiti Picture

First, let's isolate the pictures that are going to make up the Rebus in this puzzle.

• A bird
• A purple blob
• A tin can
• Feet of a ballerina
• A plate of something
• A green ball
• Noah's Ark

That list is what I see at first glance. Now let's look at the list that better puzzle solvers come up with.

• A phoenix (rising from the flames)
• A purple hen
• A tin can (of Purina cat food)
• Toes
• A plate of berries/cereal/mac 'n cheese
• A pea
• An ark

Based upon the previous locations we've had, we've been moving west, so it's very possible that Phoenix, AZ could be the next city we go to. And if you put the Pea and the Ark together, you get Park. So, it's looking more and more like a Park in Phoenix.

So what about the middle line? Puzzle Master extrodinaire strifey came up with the correct answer. (H)en + Can + Toe = Encanto

Put it all together (except for that plate of stuff which I have no idea on), and you get Encanto Park, Phoenix, AZ.

Update: Sin Vraal found the original version of the graffiti wall (insert link when I remember what it is). So now we can see what was added to the picture afterwards, namely the macaroni and some purple squiggles. It doesn't however answer the question of what they mean.

  Location Trial #4: Extended Family (Feral Cats)

My friend June and her husband ultimately moved to Phoenix - it's a little less edgy than San Francisco and they preferred the climate. Old West Highway -bound a few years ago, I visited them for a long weekend and took an afternoon for myself.
Phoenix isn't much of a "walking" town, so I had June's husband drop me off at the nearby Encanto Park, picnic lunch and a good book in hand. As I wandered around, I tried to notice every little detail around me. I frequently did this exercise when I hiked, but I'd never actually put it to use in an urban environment. I watched, listened, smelled. I sat down near a bench to feel the grass, and I opened my mouth as I crossed a bridge to taste the moist desert air.

I noticed a stray cat and tried to coax him over to me, but to no avail. A little girl joined me and we began prowling around in pursuit of kitty friendship. We kept seeing more and more stray cats! Speculating on the color trends, origins, and lineage of the Encanto cats and swapping stories about our own cats, we ended up establishing a connection between ourselves rather than with the cats. Eventually the little girl departed with her mama, headed for a playground on the other side of the park.

I decided to show the cats that I was no threat. I laid down on the grass to read my book. Dozing off a few times, I had the most psychadelic dreams! I woke up acutely aware that I was too prescriptive with most things in my life. My students and my family needed to learn things for themselves through experience. And these cats and myself also.

I worked really hard, finally convincing one of the younger cats to become my friend. Our domestic-feral bond was unique to our time and place, but I think that it was precious to each of us. He was brave enough to step outside his family's comfort zone and trust me to pet him. He enjoyed the massage so much that he became more assertive about getting - and maintaining - my attention. Gradually, other cats converged nearby, curious and cautious from a distance. I had developed a bond with them as well, albeit different than the one with the little leader. I would have loved to stay with this feral family of cats all afternoon, but I was just a visitor

Instead, I rented a boat and decided to see things from a different perspective. At the boathouse, I saw a vision from my dream - a green parrot having a grand old time! Well, there is something to learn from a boatride, I supposed. Indeed, just as I had felt elated by winning over the cats' affection, I felt elated when I arrived to the middle of the lake and looked around: the challenges and processes of the journey were as much responsible for my happiness as the accomplishment itself. An accomplishment by itself would not be an accomplishment. And working together with my boat, the oars, the water, the girl, the grass, my dreams, and the little kitty leader were as satisfying - if not more - than achieving my goal. Though, admitedly, I only fully appreciated the satisfation upong achieving the goal.

No - I was not on drugs. June and her husband had become increasingly conservative since their move to Phoenix.

And I took one last stroll around for perspective - to the rear of the boathouse this time. The area united everything from that afternoon. I peaked in through cracks in the fence and saw cat food set out for the "feral" cats. I saw boats propped up for repair. And I saw a familiar number-letter string on the fence.

Souzas, Ravelos, Garcias, Freemonts, and Williams, I know that you are all loyal to me. I've been asking you to revisit some of my favorite travel destinations to prove your loyalty to each other and to the truth and to the journey. I want to open secret pieces about our family tree for you - but I should let you unlock them yourselves (together). That number-letter string that I saw on the fence symbolizes the convergence of so many things that I learned about myself, my outlook, and life that day. It also represents a new way for you to unlock some of the mysteries and journeys that you have been pursuing. You do not need Taylor to tell you so many things. Everything is simpler - and more complex - than it seems.

In fact, if you ever repeat any of my activities - like the boatride or befriending one of the feral cats - I will know that your family is SMARTER about learning the truth. This is true now and in the future.

  Challenge Piece: Where-When #4

Location: http://lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/WhereWhen/4/ww_04.jpg
Username: souza
Password: MSC2121

  Legend Trial #4: Jorge Ravelo

My brother Jorge was actually my cousin because my father was actually Jorge's uncle, godfather, and adopted father. But Jorge was raised like one of us - he was just as much a Ravelo as David or Penelope (he just had a different mama).

You see, my aunt and uncle (Jorge's birth parents) had been killed by rustlers on a ranch near the border where they had been working for the summer. Baby Jorge stayed with my aunt's sister Celina for a little while, but she was barely a teenager and so my mother and father arranged for them to come up to San Diego.

The only heirloom left to Jorge by his birth parents was a rosary. When he was preparing for his first communion, he used to perform the most curious recitation of the rosary on Saturdays:

(1) While reflecting on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, he'd say the 1st Hail Mary. Then, he'd reflect on the Presentation of Our Lord and say the 10th Hail Mary.
(2) While reflecting on the Presentation of Our Lord, he'd say the 10th Hail Mary.
(3) While reflecting on the Presentation of Our Lord, he'd say the 8th, 9th, and 10th Hail Marys. Then, he'd reflect on the Visitation and say the 2nd Hail Mary.
(4) While reflecting on the Presentation of Our Lord, he's say the 8th, 9th, and 10th Hail Marys.
(5) While reflecting on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, he'd say the 2nd Hail Mary. Then, he'd reflect on the Presentation of Our Lord and say the 8th and 10th Hail Marys.
(6) While reflecting on the Presentation of Our Lord, he'd say the 8th and 9th Hail Marys. Then, he'd reflect on the Visitation and say the 1st Hail Mary.


Even though our parents were open about almost every piece of Jorge's history throughout our entire lives, Doris, Penelope, and I used to speculate about Jorge's real history. Perhaps he was a moonman or young Aunt Celina's lovechild or a blindwoman's orphan! Looking back, muted whisperings between mama and papa must have planted the seeds in our minds that something about Jorge's history was being concealed.

It wasn't a very big deal - he'd just been renamed "Jorge" when our parents adopted him. I found out while I was helping my father sort through old paperwork after mother fell ill the first time around. I stumbled upon a copy of a baptismal certificate for a Ravelo boy with Jorge's birthdate but not Jorge's name. It seems a little harsh to change the name of a child, but there are cultures that will wait years before naming a child. While it didn't suit my parents' nature to rename someone, I didn't really think twice about the situation, assuming that they had surely had their reasons. Still, the original name was plain and not too different in spirit than "Jorge."

Years later, during my mother's wake, I learned that she'd had a brother whom I'd never met nor heard tale of. When I pressed my father on the matter that evening, he revealed to me that mother had had a twin brother who committed suicide on their fifteenth birthday. Her brother's name was the same as Jorge's birthname. The whole matter had understandable been a very sensitive thing for my mother.

She had agreed to adopt Jorge and raise him as her own on the single condition that she and my father change his name and never utter his previous name again, as it bore with it somber memories of her brother's untimely, sinful, and tragic death.

In order to honor mother's pain, I too refrain from writing or uttering Jorge's birthname. But, family, you can determine his name if you take pause and reflect.

First off, we need to know how to say the rosary. While we could go Google for instructions, it's always best to check to see if Aunt Anna has left any hidden files about. And what do you know? She has!

If you look at the Jorge directory, you'll see a whole bunch of folders: advent, dot, library, new, org, and slash. Not only do folders have nothing in them, they have strange names. Dot? Org? Slash? But the do seem oddly familiar. It's like you see those all the time while search the web. Like in urls.

Okay, so it's a broken up url. Somethingsomething dot org slash something. It doesn't take too long to find a valid url out of the possible combinations: newadvent.org/library. Once there, you'll see a pdf entitled How to Recite the Holy Rosary. Seems as good of a place as any to learn how to recite the rosary.

The pdf gives some pretty detailed instructions, and has a nice picture that labels every bead and what prayer you need to say on when you reach it. So, now we just need to figure out what beads we are looking for. If you read Section 4, it tells you what decade (group of 10 beads) you should be saying each mystery in. The "Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth" is said in the Second Decade while "Presentation of Our Lord" is said in the Fourth. Between Sections 2 and 3, you can see that the 1st Hail Mary is bead #25, 2nd is bead #26, 8th is bead #60, 9th is bead #61, and 10th is bead #62.

This is where the flavor text, or lack thereof, comes into play. Reading through the story on Jorge, I count 11 mentions of the word 'reflect'. Besides the various mentions in the puzzle text itself, at the very end is the phrase "if you take pause and reflect" adding even more weight that 'reflect' is important. To me, this would mean reflecting the image in a mirror, or flipping it in a photo editor. I spent at least an hour trying to draw lines between the various beads and creating mirror images, looking for letters that might have appeared. I came up with various Vs, Ws, Xs, Is (depending on how literal I took the directions on what beads to use for the prayers). Needless to say, I was completely stuck on the notion of reflecting.

Luckily, strifey was not so stuck when he uttered the words "i guess it could be bizarrely braille". And what do you know - it is braille! Now, I have no idea why Jorge didn't say his rosaries in the dark, or with his eyes closed, or wasn't blind as it would have made it a lot easier to make the connection between specific beads and braille locations. Oh well.

Oh, and if you haven't figured it out yet, his name was Carlos.

  Challenge Piece: Burden-to-Bring #4

Location: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Souza/4/04.jpg
Username: souza
Password: ceen83

Location: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Garcia/4/04.jpg
Username: garcia
Password: phor28

Ravelos: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Ravelo/4/04.jpg

Williams/Freemonts: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Williams_Freemont/4/b2b_04.jpg

  Lore Trial #5: Apacheland Movie Ranch

When Aunt Anna tells Taylor she needs to visit the Superstitions, she means just that. Except not physcially, but on the web.

You need to go to superstition.html. Once there, you'll see a flash with what looks to be a wordsearch puzzle. This fades out into a picture of the Superstition Mountains along with some ambient noise of walking. After a while, the picture fades back into the wordsearch. This is where we're a bit stuck as we don't know quite what to do with with this flash file.

• 5 foot steps
• 2 tweets
• 1 very heavy foot step (or turning sound)
• 3 woofs
• 10 footsteps
• 4 squeeks (screeches from a bird)

---------- Sent  message ----------
From: Taylor Garcia <taylor.garcia@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 10, 2004 4:00 PM
Subject: RE: Superstitions and Dreams
To: "Aunt Anna" <anna.ravelo@gmail.com>

Hi Aunt Anna,

I'm sorry - I have long since retired my math books as well.  I did 
try to crack an old one open on your behalf, but the dust was so 
annoying that I just donated it to the bookstore!  Maybe one of your 
TAs will be able to help?  Keep me posted.  I'd love to know more
about why you're so batty (wink wink).

I'm looking forward to your long visit and can't wait to see those 
photos!

Love,
Taylor



>>
>
> ---------- Original  message ----------
> From: Anna Ravelo <anna.ravelo@gmail.com>
> Date: Mar 5, 2004 2:13 AM
> Subject: Superstitions and Dreams
> To: "Taylor" <taylor.garcia@gmail.com>

> Dear Taylor,

> I had some Arizona photos developed yesterday and I can't wait to 
> show them to you next weekend.  What a wonderful trip I had - lovely 
> weather and delightful company.

> I had a dream a few nights ago  that I was a mathematician (ha ha - 
> impossible).  Iwas writing something on the board.  I keep seeing it in 
> my head and I have no idea what the relevance is.  Can you make 
> some sense of it for me?

> [(x(1), y) , (x(2), a) , (x(3), b)] * n
> where n= {1 ... number of times the sequence repeats}

> It's so embarrassing to be a scientist and yet so daft at math, but 
> numbers won't identify trees for me!  All that math stuff should be fresher 
> for you.

> With Love,
> Aunt Anna
>
>

Okay, we have 6 different sounds and 6 different variables, not including the n. So, we match each sound with one of the variables. Easiest way to do this is in order. The shoes with the X seems to confirm that all of the stepping sounds should line up with the x in the equation. If we do that, we get:

[(5,2) , (1,3) , (10,4)] *n

Okay, so now what? Remember that this set of sounds repeats 3 times. That is what the n is for. We take the equation and run it three times, each time increasing n by 1. Doing that we get:

[(5,2) , (1,3) , (10,4)] *1 = (5,2) , (1,3) , (10,4)
[(5,2) , (1,3) , (10,4)] *2 = (10,4) , (2,6) , (20,8)
[(5,2) , (1,3) , (10,4)] *3 = (15,6) , (3,9) , (30,12)

Now it's just a matter of finding the letters at those positions, and this is where we get a gibberish answer.

(5,2) , (1,3) , (10,4) = L , A , P
(10,4) , (2,6) , (20,8) = P , R , A
(15,6) , (3,9) , (30,12) = L , T , A

Using the format given to Redhatty in Hint #5, this should be La Ppralta which doesn't make a lot of sense. So, once again we're stuck. I've emailed Taylor with a walkthrough of how this result was reached, so hopefully she'll find some new coorespondence from Aunt Anna that can explain where we have gone wrong.

  Location Trial #5: Jacob Waltz

Jacob Waltz was not Dutch at all - he was German. But he did befriend an old Mexican family who showed him how to mine the heck out of the Superstitions. He left behind maps - modern day treasure maps! Many a person who has searched for Waltz's gold has met an ill fate. I think old Jake's ghost is protecting them from the gold.

Because, really, those mountains and that trail are not among the most popular ones in the Valley because of old rumors about hidden caches of riches (that probably don't exist). Rather, it is because they offer beautiful scenery and boundless opportunities for reflection, introspection.

Taylor even paid a recent visit to Jacob's trail. Well, if she's an obedient niece she did. The date and time that she entered the trail should reveal something about our family.

As for me, I visited the old trail head half a dozen times. I was never in pursuit of the Dutchman's treasure, but I did treasure the gorgeous saguaro, cholla, prickly pears, and cliff dwellings. Should you find any near the trail head, snap some photos of them with your family's crest in the shot to show how TOUGH you all are. And should you find any rope along the way, the whole extended family will know just how extra LOYAL you are. If you find gold, leave it behind!

And don't forget the first rule of thumb when entering any wilderness area - leave no trace. Except perhaps where Taylor left hers, nestled amongst everyone else's. I left my trace there years ago and it has long since been filed away. I participated in an expedition during which we unearthed lovely stone maps with cute carvings and cryptic Spanish words on them. Back in those days, I felt so darned SMART.

It is so lovely out there! Take a look at some photos:

  Legend Trial #5: David Ravello

My brother, David, was the first one in the family to take
advantage of living in San Diego. Even though it took him
until the end of his life to get started, he was an excellent
surfer nonetheless! He’d paddle out, hop on his longboard (a
custom made beauty), catch every other wave, and ride it in
to the beach where he’d end with an pretend embellished fall
and a silly flourish. I miss David most at Christmastime. He
and Gloria alternated holidays: one year with us in San Di-
ego and the next Gloria’s hometown with her family. Who’d
imagine that David would die “Hanging 10” for his sandcrab
in-laws on Christmas day! At least he died while doing some-
thing that he loved. I hope he caught good waves that day, you
know? Where did David die?

The key to this is to first notice the way the text is formatted and second to discover the instructions hidden in the text.

You'll notice when you look at the lines, some of the ending words are hyphenated. They certainly don't need to be as the lines aren't justified and would still be about the same length if the words weren't split up. So, it's an artificial construction meaning that the position of at least some of the words is important.

Looking through the text, the first thing that jumps out is the repeated mention of alternation: "every other wave" and "alternated holidays". So we're looking to take every other letter. But where to start? Like the clue to the method, there are two hints as to where to start: "the end of his life" and "end with a pretend embellished fall". Combine these three clues together, and the method becomes clear: Take every other letter from the end of the lines.

Once we do this, we can see that he died in Malibu.

  Challenge Piece: Burden-to-Bring #5

Location: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Souza/5/05.jpg
Username: souza
Password: peen84

The Ravelos: England, Missouri, ???
The Garcias: Louisana, can't read, CA, ??? (The return address reads differently: Arizona, CA, ???)
The Williams/Freemonts: Saint Louis, Arkansas, can't read, ??? (The return address reads differently: can't read, WI, ???)
The Souzas: New Mexico, Arizona, CA, ???

Location: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Garcia/5/05.jpg
Username: garcia
Password: bor38

Ravelos: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Ravelo/5/05.jpg

Williams/Freemonts: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Williams_Freemont/5/b2b_05.jpg

  Lore Trial #6: An Orderly Hanging

Back in the early 1980's, a colleague of mine retired and spent her first year of freedom in Arizona, birdwatching. From time to time, she would send me letters with the most lovely snapshots of cardinals (my favorite!) and woodpeckers. She spent most of her time in Globe, unable to stay away from an area that appreciates a good dig.

One letter that I received from her with a detailed description of the enclosed snapshots of very rare birds instead contained baseball cards. What was more, I had nightmares for several nights in a row about the letter itself coming to life and turning into my death sentence. Odd and creepy. I contacted Gladys at her B&B to inquire. She assured me that she'd not enclosed baseball cards. But, she'd also been having nightmares - about trains and gold. I decided to pay her - and Globe - a visit, newly acquired baseball cards in hand.

Reunited, our nights at the lovely Cedar Hill B&B passed without incident or nightmares. Instead of feeling perplexed by the baseball cards, I grew perplexed by the town itself. The town didn't seem to want visitors to leave - several hotels had burned down in the short hundred year history of the small town, and the remaining B&B's seemed to place hexes on their guests to make them discuss relocating from their homes in the Valley or beyond. Couple this with the fact that the town was celebrated for its mining heritage as well as its political legacy (the first governor of Arizona and the first female governor of Arizona both hailed from Globe), and you had the makings of an all-american town.

Globe's streets were once populated by more saloons than people! At the saloons, all the area miners gathered to drink off the day and swap stories. One day, culminating a series of dubious planning meetings in the saloons, one thing led to another thing which ultimately led to an infamous thing. Some shifty guys in Globe followed the guidance of a batty man of average proportions. They killed a lot of people with a lot of bullets for not too much money at all.

Later, some guys at a saloon heard about the murders, the Wells Fargo payroll thefts, and the outrageous pleas by the dance teacher / miner and the photographer for clemency. Now, these guys were the really shifty type. Their shiftiness and their two ringleaders' battiness inspired a spirited round (or 4 1/2) of drinks and conversation about what to do about the Cicero and LaFayette Grime situation, those stinky good-for-nothings.

They killed them. More precisely, they lynched them! Just think, those crooks were just kids. But, still, the shifty miners showed the whole of Gila County forever how the wild west performs justice on good-for-nothings. The miners considered the law - in all its batty and average glory. They taught a lot of people a lesson that day. All right there, in the birthplace of Arizona's first governor.

The murders, the saloon talk and the vengence had happened almost exactly a hundred years ago, when I was visiting Gladys. Gladys confessed that ever since August, she couldn't walk past that area along Broad where the lynching were supposed to have taken place without feeling suffocated. And from time to time she discovered her panties and bras levitating in her bedroom. What did the ghosts want with Gladys? Why had they haunted her letters? I think that they wanted out of Globe, just as they had wanted out of Globe before they'd even performed crimes. It was the 100 year anniversary of their deeds and their deaths - a hundred years is a long time to wait to retire (are ghosts allowed to retire?).

This year, I have a feeling that they must have won what they've been working so hard for. Rather, I know they have because I don't see their names listed in the Afterlife Directory. Additionally, I've heard that Globe is undergoing quite the renaissance these days: artists and urban expats are all converging there. Either the ghosts quieted down or they converted themselves into muses.

Journal One
Journal Two

Nov 1, 1982
Arrived in Globe yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary to report.

Gladys is doing well.
- Anna Ravelo

---

Nov 3, 1982
Today, Gladys and I went to the Gila County History Museum which is housed in an old Mine Resuce Station. There were so many interesting things there from the "old days."

There was a framed collection there of photos of old miners. There were all making the silliest faces for the camera! Something about the men - 2 in particular - was familiar. Deja vu. As though I'd seen them or heard their names before.

Later, Gladys and I sat outside in town with some neighbor children. They were pretending to be spies, making "shift ciphers." It was a bit embarrasing for me - their skill. I will have to get a few books on codes and encryption when I get home. This thing they were working on was neat. They were using scores from the latest swim meet to determine how to "shift" the letters in their secret messages. They'd just repeat the numbers from their favorite swimmer (one of their siblings, I think), as many times as necessary.

Also, the townspeople have been talking nonstop about the "orderly hanging" a 100 years ago. Maybe some of those fellas in the photos at the museum were around back in those days...

Okay - more later
- Anna Ravello

---

Nov 7, 1982
The women at the Cedar Hill B&B where we're staying - Linda and her mother, Helen - are delightful! They are true ambassadors of Globe.

It's warm again today - I'll take a walk up in the hills.

No nightmares lately. But I did have dreams about those Miners. I feel like C.R. from Somewhere in Time. Ha ha!
- Anna Ravelo

The clue is a picture of a t-shirt from the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals. Looking up the averages for John Martin and Mike Ramsey in 1982, we get .091 and .230. This rules out Pepper Martin as he stopped playing in 1944. So, if we take each number separately and label A as 0, we would get a keyword of AJBCDA. And what do you know - this gives us a decode! Cobre Valley Center for the Arts

While the journal pages really helped as a hint toward the vigenere, I think it could have done more to stress that one specific year was important, especially since you couldn't get that from the puzzle text itself. It wasn't until we got the jersey that the 1982 suddenly became important.

The hints on the LGFL board were actually more confusing than anything else. When asked about Vigenere codes, the first part of the response was "Sounds like a fancy kind of vinegar. So, I though I should let y'all know that Aunt Anna wasn't really a big vinegar fan." If I was reading that clue on its own, I would think "Okay, not a Vigenere."

But then she goes onto say "She was a "look at every letter" kind of a woman, though. I was just thinking about something Aunt Anna used to say that reminds me a little of this story about Globe for some reason: "Every letter of Ceasar was shifty in the same way. If I were shifty, I'd come up with a pattern of shiftiness to repeat. That seems tougher!" This leads me to believe that Anna and/or Taylor don't know exactly what a Vigenere cipher is. In essense, a Vigenere is just a series of ROTs (or Caesar ciphers).

In a ROT, you shift every letter of your plain text by the same amount. Let's use the plaintext "This is a test" and we'll shift every letter by one. This would be a ROT-1 and would give us "Uijt jt b uftu" as our enciphered phrase. This is also the same as doing a Vigenere with a keyword of one letter: B.

So, what happens if we decide we want to shift every other letter by a different amount, say the first letter by 1 and the second letter by 2.

T h i s i s a t e s t    <-- Plain Text
U . j . j . b . f . u    <-- ROT-1
. j . u . k . v . u .    <-- ROT-2
U j j u j k b v f u u    <-- Cipher Text

This is exactly the same as doing a Vigenere with a keyword of "BC". If you continue the pattern of adding a ROT shift, you are just adding one letter to the Vigenere keyword.

It's the same idea that all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. All ROTs are Vigeneres (with a keyword length of 1), but not all Vigeneres are ROTs (as ROT implies a single shift throughout).

The hints about multiplying the number of digits in the batting averages by 4.5 did nothing to help with the confusion over Vigenere/ROT/other. I don't think many people were confused by the method as much as they were by what values to apply to the method - namely what the keyword (or keynumbers) were. Without knowing what the keyword was supposed to be, the puzzle was nearly impossible to solve. Although we had the right idea for the keyword, there was very little to suggest that we needed to be more specific.

One other thing about the puzzle. What was up with the miners_hifi.jpg? Why was it included? It did nothing to help the puzzle and it actually took away from it as confused some of us over what was important in the puzzle.

In conclusion:

1. Make the method more obvious in the initial release. There was nothing to suggest Vigenere in the first part of the puzzle.
2. Make clues to the keyword more obvious. - You wouldn't have been able to figure out the keyword just from the original text. Even with the journals it was missed.
3. Don't add in superflous information. - The extra miner photo and the 4 1/2 clue only served to confuse players.
4. Understand the methods involved. - A Vigenere is a ROT but a ROT isn't necessarily a Vigenere. Saying that this wasn't a Vigenere suggests it is something more along the lines of a simple substitution, which it isn't.

  Location Trial #6: George Hunt

George W.P. Hunt was Arizona's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th governor. Not bad for a guy who started his career sweeping saloon floors!

His hometown is now an enclave at the crossroads of artistic revival and blue collar tradition. One thing that everyone in Globe has in common, though, is pride in their pocket of Gila.

Places big and small really do change with the times - the courthouse is now combined with the post office and the old courthouse is overrun with hippies. Good hippies, mind you.

Actually, a visit to that old courthouse on the main drag Broad St. - or at least a rest on the steps outside - seems in order. I myself spent a lot of time sitting on the benches there when I was visiting Gladys, contemplating those pesky ghosts and other things as well. There's a giant keyhole there. It marks what I do believe is the year when ghosts started getting especially bored. It also makes note of a certain supervising ghost, A.P. ????, who could help that year reveal important pieces of information about St. Augustine.

When I was in Globe, I'd watch the kids draw in chalk out front. And I'd fantasize about living the life of an artist in a remote but hospitable town like Globe.

BONUS ACTIVITIES:
- earn 5 TOUGH points if you draw your family's crest on Broad or Main Street
- earn 5 SMARTS points if you read an artist's biography and pencil-in or flaunt your family's crest

GETTING BONUS POINTS:
- Take lots of photos!
- Be sure to display your family crest somewhere (do not photshop it in)
- If you have receipts, photograph those as well!
- Post photos with tag "lgfl" on flickr and send to taylor (taylor dot garcia at g mail dot com)

  Challenge Piece: Where-When #6

Location: http://lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/WhereWhen/6/ww_06.jpg
Username: souza
Password: 1906edwards

  Legend Trial #6: Penelope Ravelo

Penelope Ravelo, RIP (1927 - 1946)

Even though Penelope and Doris were identical twins, Penelope somehow had all the looks and grace.

Really. She did.

Penelope was also a wonderful actress and had Hollywood dreams that were eclipsed only by her daredevil streak. Skydiving.

As the “pretty” sister, Penelope circulated through boyfriend after boyfriend but she never seemed to like any of them more than acting. Ditto for skydiving. Doris and I used to press Penelope for juicy details about her dates with Samuel or Alfred or William or Charles or whomever her latest beau was. But Penelope’s attention always waned from the boys as she dashed around between rehearsals and her job at the diner where she worked to save up money to help support her real passion.

I was envious of Doris’ and Penelope’s twin relationship because they were identical and polar at the same time and always understood each other’s eccentric ways. Twins. Opposites. Friends.

As for me. Well, I was their big sister, no matter how hard I tried to fit in with them as an adopted additional twin or a friend, and from time to time I felt alienated. Lonely.

Alienating me was definitely not their intention, though, because they actually loved to hang out with me. I was just longing for the ideal kind of relationship that they seemed to have and probably would have felt uncomfortable even if I’d had it. Penelope was actually more of an outsider than I, what with her inexplicable attraction to activities that even our brothers would never have the cajones to pursue.

Parachutes. Now that I think about it, I think I understand Penelope's attraction to them and the appeal of their fabric and their fall and their free-but-still-tethered-and-restricted nature.

Penelope’s body was well-suited for both parachuting and acting. Long legs. Short stature.

What a beauty! Penelope knew that she was beautiful but she didn’t care about her looks except for when she had to look a certain way for a stage role. Still, acting always took the backseat to skydiving where nobody could tell what her complexion or hair looked like when she was falling from the sky.

Falling. Free.

Penelope kept a framed photograph of a woman that I didn’t know on her dresser. An homage. The woman must have been either a famous jumper or a famous actress or a famous someone from one of those two wakes of life. Also a beauty.

Penelope’s life was short-lived but lived fully with the sort of lasting longevity provided by a a contagious attitude of excitement and happiness and freedom and few regrets. And a heroine. I know it sounds crazy, and nothing is really gained from speculation about the matter, but I can’t help shake the feeling that maybe Penelope liked girls and maybe she had a collegiate respect as well as physical crush on that woman in the photograph.

Redhatty discovered that it is based on sentence length. Long sentences are dashes, short ones dots.

- .. -. -.-- -... .-. --- .- -.. .-- .. -.-. -.-

This spells out Tiny Broadwick

  Challenge Piece: Burden-to-Bring #6

Location: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Garcia/6/06.jpg
Username: garcia
Password: dwor26

Ravelos: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Ravelo/6/06.jpg

Williams/Freemonts: http://www.lawngamesforlife.com/Challenge_Pieces/Bring/Williams_Freemont/6/b2b_06.jpg

Continue to Trials 7-9 >>