Hey everyone, and welcome back to Week 37! I hope all of you enjoyed last week’s interview about Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, and I would like to once again like to thank Dr. Ken Rubin for the wonderful interview.
1) South Carolina did something right this week. This puzzle is a dedication to show you how far we’ve come. As a South Carolinian, I’ve always been wary of this issue, and I so glad that the flag is finally down. I just can’t believe it finally happened. I was watching live stream of the SC House of Representatives until 1:30am Thursday to see how they would vote, and they finally voted to be on the right side of history. By the way, if you want to read a paper I wrote for a class at USC about the flag, you can check it out [here]. It was written in the fall of 2014, and should give you a better understanding of the stigma it leaves for South Carolinians. I propose what would have to happen for the flag to finally come down, but there’s no way I could have seen what actually happened as a way the flag would come down. Nevertheless, I’m beyond excited that it is finally down, and I hope this opens up some new doors in South Carolina.
2) I’m also super excited that my puzzle “I Could Count on Two Hands” was one of the five nominations for Matt Gaffney’s “Crossword of the Month“! Ahhhh! This is so exciting for me, and I’m glad that my work is making something of an impact! I was beaten by Erik Agard’s first puzzle as AV Club contributor, so congrats to him. Now that Erik is a regular contributor for the AV Club puzzle, he just might win out for all future editions of the Crossword of the Month award.
3) In more puzzling news, I’m about to play my first “escape the room” event this weekend. I’m playing in Charlotte this weekend, and I’ll let you know how I do.
4) I realized that if I ever my puzzles ever went behind a paywall, I could call this paywall “The King’s Ransom”. And so you know, I don’t plan on ever unleashing that pun.
5) If you aren’t already subscribed to me, please take some time to do so. It should be found on the right-hand side of the blog here, and you can get all the puzzling goodness right to you email.
Enjoy the puzzle!
Chris
Chris Words 
