14. How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Use Tools Mystery Cache

You can build up quite a tool kit (also called TOTT - Tools Of The Trade) as you gain geocaching experience. These are some of the tools I've used on geocaching adventures. I keep them handy in my caching kit bag.
(... well, most of them anyway.)

As you gain puzzle-solving experience, it helps to build up a Puzzle Tool Kit.

You've already encountered some puzzle tools in earlier lessons in this series:

- GC5HDEE - How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Coord Formats showed you the tools available on a geocache page for changing coordinates.

- GC5HVKP - How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Number Bases has an address for a handy number base calculator, a link to a binary/hex/ascii (and other) translator, and a link to a table of ascii codes.

- GC5JGNC - How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Pictures has a link to an exif viewer for checking images for concealed info.

- GC5JHZT - How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Map Tricks shows the map tools available on a geocache page.

One of the most powerful puzzle tools I can think of is one that's also readily available: an internet search engine. I talked about this in GC5H8G0 - How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Web Searches. I especially like Google, so I'll use it here as my example. In addition to the techniques described in the #@&% Web Searches puzzle, I often Google these:

- Define ______
- Spell ______ (It's OK if you misspell your word - Google will figure it out.)
- Synonym_____
- Anagram _____
- Translate ______
- Convert _____ to ______ (e.g. convert 10 miles to kilometers)

Remember how I said earlier that sometimes you want to do something yourself, and sometimes you want a tool? For example, I like solving sudoku puzzles. Not all people do. You can find online sudoku solvers, as well as tips on how to solve them, by Googling solve sudoku.

You can try that for different types of puzzles. You can even Google how solve geocache puzzles and see what interesting things come up.

Spreadsheet programs, such as Excel, are marvelous tools for managing large amounts of information that you might gather while doing internet searches. (If you want to learn more about them, try an internet search for info or videos on how use spreadsheet.

Start bookmarking handy or interesting websites that you come across while doing internet searches. They may be helpful for future reference.

If you don't know how to bookmark websites, do an internet search for how bookmark website. Your results will be more explicit if you include the name of your browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, ...) in your search.

I'll point out a few more helpful puzzle-solving tools. It's up to you to keep buiding your puzzle tool kit.

A warning, though: I read somewhere that the average lifespan of websites is 3-5 years. Don't expect these websites to always be available.

- GeocachingToolbox.com, is a terrific collection of tools for coordinate conversion, text manipulation, code tables, ciphers, and much more.

- GC Puzzle, by mimhs.gr, is a collection of decipher infos (sic) for geocaching puzzle hunters, and includes geocaching puzzle codes and alphabets.

- Omniglot is an online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages.

- Winterdragon. This webpage has links to useful websites for puzzle solving.

- Parmstro's Geocaching Puzzle Pages has some hints on solving puzzle caches.

- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page: Geocaching 103 - Puzzle Caches has many hints on solving puzzle caches.

- There is a bookmark list on this cache page called Helpful Puzzle Solving Caches. Some of the caches on this list include links to handy puzzle solving tools.

- The book "How to Puzzle Cache", by Cully Long (a fellow geocacher known as ChildOfAtom), has lessons, tips, tricks, and hints for soving geocache puzzles.

Your local library is also a good source of puzzle solving information. I learned a lot from a book I got from my library called The Code Book: The Evolution Of Secrecy From Mary, Queen Of Scots To Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh. You may recognize the author's name. I mentioned his The Black Chamber website in GC5D98K - How Do I Solve These #@&% Puzzles?!! Subst Ciphers.

Here is the puzzle:

Gehen Sie hier: Nord fünfundvierzig Grad zwei acht. sechs null fünf. Westlich einhundert dreiundzwanzig Grad Null drei. eins drei sieben. Finden Sie den Grabstein für John D. Lederick der in achtzehn vierundneunzig starb.

Lesen Sie die ungewöhnliche Inschrift auf seinem Grabstein und finden Sie die geschätzte Tag im April starb er.

Subtract 10 from that number and call it N. Add 21 to that number and call it WW.

Mit den angegebenen Koordinaten seines Grabes, subtrahieren 0.00N aus dem Norden, und fügen Sie 0.0WW zu den Westen. Gehen Sie den Cache zu finden.

You can solve this on site, but if you use your tools and find the needed info online, you can check your final coordinates (after the additions) here before heading out for the cache:

Note: As of Sept. 30, 2016, the puzzle was tweaked and the checker updated. You still go to the same initial spot, but the calculations from there have changed. If you have already gotten the final coordinates from from the checker BEFORE Sept. 30, 2016, and don't want to do the new calculations on the ground, here is an offset from the original final coordinates to get you to the new final location: From north, subtract 0.023. To west add 0.020.

As I said, this is one of a series of "How Do I Solve..." caches. They are spread out in different neighborhoods. It might help to solve them in order, but you don't need to. I tried to make these easy to understand, but if you have any questions about them, please ask.

Here are all the caches in the series. They are also posted in a "How Do I Solve These #@&%$ Puzzle Caches?!!" bookmark list.

Have fun solving puzzle caches! And remember ...