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The kablooey Puzzle Challenge began with the Florida Story cache in January 2008 as a challenge for myself to see whether I could be dedicated enough to hide a new cache every month for an entire year. Additionally, it was a challenge for San Francisco Bay Area cachers to see whether they could solve all the puzzles throughout the year. An arbitrary point-scoring system has developed, and even though the points are basically meaningless, many cachers have demonstrated extraordinary effort in trying to gain extra points. Although many of the Challenge participants have obviously come from the greater Silicon Valley area, more puzzle solvers have been joining from out of the area. Last year, I began rewarding the First Solver of the month by just locating the following month's puzzle on that solver's side of the San Francisco Bay. In April 2011, teamajk did become the first out-of-state FTS in the series by solving Scouting Reports. I offered to let her hide a cache in New York as her reward. She begged off, deciding she just couldn't skip the opportunity to solve a puzzle for the following month. Last month, teamajk did it again, with a FTS on Grab a Bite To Eat. This time teamajk agreed to hide a cache in New York, but will still have to solve a puzzle on a sister cache in San Jose in order to claim a solution. Because the caches will likely be published by different reviewers, one coast or the other will likely see the puzzle appear first. Will this be an advantage?
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Special Notes about the 2011 Puzzle Challenge: To be considered for Fastest Solver points, you must verify your solution with certitude. Because certitude may not properly account for joint solutions, please email me team member names in the case of team solutions to ensure proper point accounting. All "point" scoring is arbitrary anyway, subject to change, at the discretion of the cache owner, and probably completely meaningless (unless you just want to be able to brag more at the December banquet). The real challenge is just to see whether you can solve all of these caches by the end of the year. To maintain fairness, hints should not be offered by the cache owner or other solvers until the fifteenth of the month.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
2011 Puzzle Challenge Finders
2011 Puzzle Challenge Solvers