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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Flights of Fancy”
Instructions: This week’s contest answer is a six-letter entry with no connection.
Answer: SFORNO, with GUMBOS and DALIAH also accepted
Nice idea at the core of Adam Simon Levine’s debut meta last week, though a couple of gremlins snuck in that I should have steered him away from. Still, a lot of solvers dodged the gremlins and enjoyed the puzzle a lot; let’s take a look.
First insight is that all eight six-letter entries are composed of two airport codes. The not-super-famous rabbi SFORNO was the big giveaway, with San Francisco’s famous SFO code leading it off (combined with the puzzle’s title, which had people looking skyward to begin with). RNO turns out to be Reno-Tahoe International Airport, so let’s see how the others look:
MYR-IAD = Myrtle Beach, S.C. — Dulles International (in Virginia, but servicing D.C.)
KOA-LAS = Kona, Hawaii — McCarran, Las Vegas
DAL-IAH = Love Field, Dallas — Houston International
AMA-LGA = Amarillo — LaGuardia International, NYC (another well-known airport code, often in crosswords)
GUM-BOS = Guam — Logan International, Boston
SAN-CHO = San Diego — Charlottesville, Va. (45 minutes from my house, but I didn’t know the airport code)
DAB-ORD = Daytona Beach — Chicago O’Hare (another common crossword entry)
The idea here is that SFO-RNO is the only one of these routes on which you can take a direct flight (i.e. “with no connection”). You have to Google this, and normally I’m wary of metas where you have to use a search engine too much. But here I thought: well, it’s at the outer boundaries of how much Googling should be required, since you know exactly what you’re looking for, and when I looked up all eight of these it only took me a couple of minutes and was unambiguous, so I decided we could go ahead with it.
But then, upon publication, two gremlins appeared:
1) You’d think there would be direct flights between Dallas and Houston, and there are — but they’re all out of DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) and not out of Love Field (DAL). But if you Google “DAL IAH flights,” Google will usually show you DFW-IAH flights without going out of its way to note the airport switch. It’s very easy to overlook, and this happened to a bunch of solvers, who then thought, “Well, since SFO-RNO and DAL-IAH both have direct flights, this can’t be it. Let me look for another idea.”
Technically that mistake might be on the solver, but it’s tricky and Google should only need to be used in a limited and specific way as a solving tool on metas, not as a possible stumbling block itself. So this was unfortunate.
2) There turned out to be more ambiguity in the instructions phrase “with no connection” than we had noticed. I thought “connection” had to mean “connecting flight” in an airports/airplane context, and not spelling it out explicitly for the solver was of course part of the meta (since discovering the airport codes was the solver’s first task, and if the instructions had read “no connecting flight” then there’s no fun in that).
But many very good solvers saw everything and still weren’t sure what the intended meta answer is, which shouldn’t happen. Guam’s faraway location was a particular source of possible “no connection”-ness, and the GUM-BOS flight requires long layovers that the others don’t, plus you can make all the other with a single connection but GUM-BOS requires multiple connections. So I wound up counting GUMBOS as correct, and then the panel voted 3-1 to also count DALIAH as correct due to the Google issue.
So not an airtight (pun intended) meta, though it should be said that may solvers found the idea without hassle as the creator intended and enjoyed it a lot:
CrimsonHoo says:
Solid maiden voyage for Adam.
Jason Shapiro thinks that:
guest month is nonstop fun!
Cyco writes:
Great theme! I knew some of those entries looked weird (SFORNO??), but it took a while to see why.
George says:
My google flight recommendations are going to be all over the place after this one!
tshingler is 1-for-1:
This was my first entry – thanks for the fun puzzles!
And finally, PhilB writes:
Just wow…Did the constructor really find 16 airport codes that can become 8 words, and on top of that, 7 of those combos have direct connecting flights and one doesn’t? Again, just…wow!
Yes, he did! Thanks very much for the puzzle, Adam.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 327 correct entries received, is J.S. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil, and notepad set, J.S. will also receive a signed copy of my book Pint-Size Crosswords.
GUEST CONSTRUCTOR MONTH 2019, PUZZLE #4:
Batting cleanup for Guest Constructor Month 2019 is Rich O’Malley, and the baseball analogy is fitting since he’s seen a game in every Major League Park. And in every NFL, NBA, and NHL venue, as well!
Rich performed this feat while writing his book “One Lucky Fan: From Bleachers to Box Seats, Chasing the Ultimate Sports Dream to Visit All 123 MLB, NBA, NFL & NHL Teams.” He’s the former Executive Editor of the New York Daily News, and spent 20 years in New York City media and politics.
These days his time is spent with crosswords (I met him at the Indie 500 in D.C. this summer) and volunteer dog-walking. He lives in Philadelphia with the love of his life, Christy; his half-blind-hobo pup, Alfie; and sly cat, Pepper. He has just launched GriddyCityGames.com in hopes of bringing a crossword tournament to the City of Brotherly Love in fall 2020 (I’d show up for that!).
Rich also says he remembers every secret word to the first season of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse,” and will someday quietly publish a puzzle in the New York Times that includes all 13. He also dreams of someday retiring to Monterosso, Italy (15).
Now we know the constructor; let’s see the puzzle. The final puzzle of GCM ’19 awaits…
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is the constructor’s favorite number.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.