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Hey everyone, and welcome to Week 71! First of all, if you are joining Chris Words for the first time, a hearty welcome! It was great seeing so many of you over the course of the weekend, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the two sample puzzles I distributed as a sample. Just a little taste of what we here at Chris Words provided for you the solver.

In CW news, I would like to extended the #70 meta another week. There was enough interest at the event to delay a little bit, so I have no problem kicking the deadline a week down the road. And to be fair, I do extended the deadline for ACPT reasons, so no reason not to for the Indie 500.

Also, what a puzzle weekend it was! I would like to once again give a shoutout to Andy, Angela, Erik, Peter, Neville, Kameron, Joanne, Lena, and Sam for writing some damn great puzzles and putting on an amazing event. Like last year, I’ll write a review of the puzzles in a few weeks, after the organizers give the ok for when we can.

This year, I was 42nd out of 77 in the Outside Track, and 82nd out of 117 overall. Honestly, I’m shocked my ranking was as low as it was, since I had three correct solves this year. Last year, I had none, but still ended up 81st out of 100.

Huge congratulations to Roger Barkan, Al Sanders, and Glen Ryan for finishing top 3 in the Inside Track. Due to my flight, I couldn’t make it to watch the Finals go down, but I’m sure they were exciting to watch.

And unfortunately, I am not the defending “joon pahk Award for Worst Handwriting” winner. That title now belongs to Michael Sharp. Ah well. I feel like the fix was in after a no-name won it last year. A hearty congrats to one of the hardest working people in crossword journalism.

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This week’s puzzle is a nice, easy theme for those who need a detox from this weekend’s brain busters. Be sure to submit to me your meta answer for last week’s meta.

Thanks everyone, and it was great seeing many of you all again!

Chris