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Solution

Hello everyone, and welcome to Week 49!

If it wasn’t obvious, this puzzle’s theme comes from the number puzzle it is, and I’m glad I got to incorporate one of my favorite books “The Crying of Lot 49” as a puzzle. The theme comes from the title, and I hope you’ll enjoy this week’s puzzle. And hopefully it won’t be as confusing as the book.

In other news:

1) Puzzle Boat 3 has set sail! For those of you who are on teams, good luck! I was lucky enough to playtest some of the puzzles, and there’s a wide sample of everything. Hope all of you are able to make it to the end!

2) In case you haven’t seen the ad on Crossword Fiend yet, fellow young-person K(ameron) Austin Collins is launching a biweekly themeless puzzle series. I’ve added his name to the Blogroll for this site, and you can go straight to his frontpage [here]. Be sure to subscribe!

3) What a week for SC. The state of South Carolina has been hit by a series of floods that has put much of the state without drinking water, loss of property for thousands and thousands of people, and has sadly caused 17 deaths for fellow South Carolinians.

I live on campus proper at USC, and I’m fortunate enough to say that I never saw in person much of the damage. The university is located in one of the higher spots of Columbia and doesn’t feature a river too close, so the campus was mostly fine. But Columbia was shot. Neighborhoods evacuated, dams breaking, and houses and cars totaled. The main thing that has affected campus is the lack of drinking water, with the citywide caution that water should be “boiled vigorously”. Bottled water has been passed out on campus, and I’ve seen efforts of rescue and assistance by Columbia people on the news. My brother and I stayed on campus until Tuesday midday, when word came down that classes had been cancelled for the rest of the week, where we then went back home, to our parents’ request.

Today, I’m going back to USC, and I hope to help out the community and campus as much as I can for the next few weeks, as I know we’ll need it.

For those of you living in the other 49 states, continue to keep our state and people in your thoughts, and there are lots of ways you can donate to charities creating relief effort, if you are inclined to do so.

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Thanks everyone, and I’ll see you next week for the meta puzzle and 50th puzzle!

Chris